If a massive Thoroughbred conglomerate can also be a tight-knit family operation, Spendthrift Farm is such an operation, and it rode its connections to success as both an owner and breeder in 2025.

Remarkably, this would be the first Eclipse Award for Spendthrift, which was founded in 1937 by Leslie Combs II. The farm was revitalized into its current era by the late B. Wayne Hughes, starting in 2004. Hughes died in 2021, and the farm is now owned and overseen by his son-in-law Eric Gustavson and daughter Tammy Hughes Gustavson.

Scylla was always in the thick of it against high-class competition in 2025, and though she won just one race, her timing was as impeccable as her pedigree.

Sired by Tapit and produced by multiple Grade 1 winner Close Hatches, Scylla upset the biggest dirt race of the year for fillies and mares. The Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff was the final start of her career and makes her an Eclipse Award finalist as outstanding older dirt female.

For Japanese superstar Forever Young, twice bit in previous voyages to the United States, the third time paid for all.

After a 2024 season that included a tenacious losing effort in the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve and a third-best finish in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic, it seemed as if the American contingent, particularly Sierra Leone, simply had the colt’s number. Trainer Yoshito Yahagi knew he could turn the tables.

“Of course, yes, after we got third – we got beat – we think about coming back here to revenge,” Yahagi said.

In April, Deterministic began his 2025 campaign for trainer Christophe Clement finishing second in a Keeneland allowance race.

Clement in April had terminal cancer. Probably at that point hope still flickered in the man himself, family, close friends. Regardless, Clement, meticulously organized to the end, had laid out plans to transfer his large stable to his son Miguel sometime in June, after the Belmont Stakes Festival at Saratoga. Clement died May 25.

Book’em Danno is an Eclipse Award finalist for outstanding male sprinter of 2025 for a season in which he swept three graded stakes races at Saratoga Race Course.

For one of those wins, the Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt on July 19, he earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 111. The number ranked as the highest Beyer put up by a male sprinter in 2025 and was tied for second-highest of the year behind the 115 that Sovereignty earned winning the Travers.

It’s not easy to win an Eclipse Award. It’s even tougher to repeat.

Thorpedo Anna entered 2025 with lofty expectations, having won eight stakes in 2024 and earning Eclipse Awards as outstanding 3-year-old filly and Horse of the Year. Even though her 4-year-old campaign did not quite stack up to the year before, it was a success.

The year 2022 seems like a pretty long way back, doesn’t it? Yeah. That was the year Rebel’s Romance won his first Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf. This past November, he very nearly won his third.

Only a flying finish from rank outsider Ethical Diamond kept 7-year-old Rebel’s Romance from a Breeders’ Cup three-peat spread over four years. Second in his third Breeders’ Cup Turf, yes, but still an absolutely first-class racehorse who would be a worthy champion.

Such an unusual horse, this incredible gelding, and in so many ways.

Bentornato needed just 1:08.20 to establish himself as a finalist for an Eclipse Award for outstanding male sprinter of 2025.

That was the time it took for him to win the $2 million Cygames Breeders’ Cup Sprint over six furlongs Nov. 1 at Del Mar.

Bentornato sparred with defending champ and 2024 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Straight No Chaser through fractions of 21.48 seconds for the opening quarter and 44.14 for the half-mile before going on to a 2 1/4-length victory.

John Velazquez became the first jockey in North America to surpass $500 million in career mount earnings in June as part of a 2025 season in which he also was the regular rider aboard unbeaten FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile presented by Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance hero Ted Noffey.

The accomplishments have led to Velazquez being voted a finalist for the Eclipse Award as North America’s outstanding jockey – an honor the 53-year-old native of Puerto Rico won in both 2004 and 2005.

Notable Speech did not win the Lockinge Stakes in May, nor did he win the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, and he definitely did not win the July Cup, checking in fifth. His very presence in the July Cup, a race over a six-furlong trip a full quarter-mile shorter than Notable Speech had ever run, told the tale: The colt’s connections, owner-breeder Godolphin and trainer Charlie Appleby, were looking for answers.