Channel Maker crossed the finish fourth in the Grade 2 Bowling Green Stakes on Aug. 1 at Saratoga. A disqualification moved him up to third. But was Channel Maker still even qualified to race in high-level turf stakes?

Channel Maker emerged from the Bowling Green a one-time winner from his last 14 starts. During that string, he’d crossed the wire better than fourth only twice. His 6-year-old campaign of 2020 started like a long march on a short pier – three fourths, two eighth-place finishes. Channel Maker is a gelding, an aging one; his stakes career was ticking down.

Luis Cardenas has made the impressive leap from hotwalker to top money-earning apprentice jockey in North America.

The 23-year-old native of Peru reached the summit last year, when his mounts earned $2,235,529. Overall, Cardenas won 41 races from 587 starts. He also was the leading apprentice in New York and won the first race of last year’s meet at Saratoga.

For his accomplishments, Cardenas is an Eclipse Award finalist for outstanding apprentice jockey of 2020.

In 2020, John Velazquez didn’t win the most races he’s ever won in a single year. He did, however, win some of the most important ones.

Velazquez won his third Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve and his first Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic – both aboard Authentic – and those wins, as well as three Grade 1 victories aboard the fantastic filly Gamine, helped earn him a spot as a finalist for his third Eclipse Award as North America’s top jockey.

Despite missing two months of action due to COVID-related issues and riding infractions, Irad Ortiz Jr. led all North American riders in wins (300) and purse money won ($21,050,726) as he bids to win a third consecutive Eclipse Award. It was the fifth consecutive year in which Ortiz won at least 300 races.

Joel Rosario finished second in purse money won in 2020 ($18,235,917) and led all jockeys in North America with 11 Grade 1 stakes victories – on 10 individual horses –to become a finalist for an Eclipse Award.

Peter E. Blum, who bought his first horse while at the University of North Carolina, climbed to the pinnacle in 2020 as the breeder of Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve and Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Authentic, the favorite to be named Horse of the Year at the Eclipse Awards.

Through an unbeaten four-race campaign in three countries in 2020, Tarnawa was shipped to and from the races by land, air, and sea, completing a season that included wins in three of the world’s leading races for turf fillies and mares.

Backing Audarya from late summer to the fall was a very lucrative move for bettors on both sides of the Atlantic.

Along the way, racing fans worldwide watched the rapid development of a filly who ended 2020 with an upset win in the Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Nov. 7 at Keeneland, assuring Audarya a place among the finalists for the Eclipse Award as the season’s outstanding turf female.

A start on the all-weather track at Newcastle Racecourse in northern England on a Sunday in August changed the direction of Audarya’s 2020 campaign.

Many high-level turf horses spend the first couple months of the year taking it easy. The heart of the grass-racing season, after all, comes in summer and fall, and many a turf campaign is plotted accordingly.

After Serengeti Empress won just one of eight starts following her signature victory in the 2019 Kentucky Oaks, trainer Tom Amoss decided it was time for a change midway through 2020. Amoss shortened the distances for the dark bay 4-year-old filly, and the results made Serengeti Empress an Eclipse finalist for top filly-mare sprinter as well as older dirt female.