The Mean Queen had a wicked race record in 2021.
In eight starts in Ireland and the United States, The Mean Queen won six times, including three consecutive Grade 1 races to finish a campaign that has landed her on the list of finalists for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding steeplechaser of 2021.
The Mean Queen was unbeatable when it counted the most in 2021, massive accomplishments for a then 4-year-old filly by Doyen who began the year in modest races.
Snap Decision had a lofty reputation when the 2021 steeplechase season began in the spring. By year’s end, his lengthy winning streak had ended, but Snap Decision’s status in the sport was hardly diminished.
With two important stakes wins in the spring and early summer, followed by two game second-place finishes in the fall in top-class races, Snap Decision earned a position among the finalists for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding steeplechaser of the year.
Baltimore Bucko had two American segments of his career in jump racing – a modest span of two races in the autumn of 2020, and a career-defining summer campaign in 2021.
Baltimore Bucko was at his best from late June to mid-August of 2021, a season highlighted by a win in the Grade 1 A.P. Smithwick Memorial at Saratoga in July. The success landed Baltimore Bucko among the finalists for the Eclipse Award as the outstanding steeplechaser of the year. Sadly, Baltimore Bucko sustained a fatal injury at Belmont Park in mid-September.
In her first start of 2021, War Like Goddess finished a quiet fifth in her stakes debut in the Grade 3 The Very One Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 27. By the end of the year, the loss was a distant memory.
Through 2021, War Like Goddess won four consecutive graded stakes in Florida, Kentucky, and New York and ran arguably the best race of her career when third in a thrilling running of the Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Del Mar on Nov. 6.
Racing in the United States was a good fit for the Irish-bred filly Santa Barbara in the summer of 2021.
By the time she arrived in New York for her American debut in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational in early July, Santa Barbara had experienced a bumpy start to the season in Europe.
The 2021 season for Loves Only You began and finished with important stakes wins in the Far East. In between, she made an historic trip to the United States, becoming the first Japanese-based horse to win a Breeders’ Cup race.
The entirety of the season was a remarkable campaign, one that has left Loves Only You as a finalist for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding turf female of 2021.
Charlie Marquez rode with an apprentice allowance for less than five months last year, but he put up such significant numbers that he is an Eclipse Award finalist for outstanding apprentice jockey of 2021.
Marquez won 50 races from 290 mounts through the final day of his apprentice allowance on May 29. His mounts during that period earned $1,454,210. Marquez’s win total and earnings ranked fourth among all North American-based apprentices in 2021.
Race-riding was a natural career fit for John Hiraldo, the son of a jockey. Hiraldo won more races than any other apprentice in North America last year to establish himself as an Eclipse Award finalist for outstanding apprentice jockey of 2021.
Hiraldo also ranked second in earnings, with his mounts banking $2,178,769.
Joel Rosario led all riders in 2021 in purse money won, graded stakes victories, and overall stakes successes to become a finalist for what would be his first Eclipse Award as North America’s outstanding rider.
Rosario, who spent considerable time at all the major racing circuits in 2021, led all riders in purse money with $32,994,478, just $1.16 million short of Irad Ortiz Jr’s single-year North American record, set in 2019. If you add in purse earnings Rosario had from Saudi Arabia and Dubai, his total balloons to $35,421,978.
