For trainer Luis Carvajal Jr., 2017 began with hope and ended with Imperial Hint being voted an Eclipse Awards finalist in the male sprint division.
In his final start as a 3-year-old in 2016, Imperial Hint won an optional-claiming race at Parx Racing. The victory left Carvajal encouraged.
“I was waiting for the horse to develop the way I thought he would,” Carvajal said. “I thought he had a lot more to give as he continued to mature.”
There were always a few better than Wuheida in major stakes in Europe last summer and fall. That was not the case in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Nov. 4 at Del Mar.
Wuheida, 3, recorded an 11-1 upset in the $2 million race at 1 1/8 miles and is on the list of finalists for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding turf female of 2017.
Wuheida was expected to make her American debut in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland in mid-October, but was withdrawn because of a foot problem. She was redirected to the Filly and Mare Turf.
A consistent and devastating late kick gave Off Limits three consecutive stakes wins across the nation in autumn 2017 and a place among the finalists for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding turf female of the year.
The defining race was her final start of the year: the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on turf at Del Mar on Nov. 26. Ridden by regular rider Joel Rosario, Off Limits closed from last in a field of 11 to reach the front in the final furlong for a comfortable one-length win.
She was tough. She persevered. She won major races. Lady Eli was herself in 2017.
The highlight of her 5-year-old year came at Saratoga when Lady Eli encountered trouble running in two graded stakes in July and August at Saratoga – and still won them both.
Large shadows are hard to escape. Alydar won major races by large margins, and yet his name seems forever attached to Affirmed’s chestnut hip. Gun Bow was a match for the great Kelso and then some, but he is remembered only in passing for their few memorable encounters. And pity the memory of a horse like Coaltown, a flame-throwing Hall of Fame champion in his own right, who is referred to more often than not as merely Citation’s stablemate.
There were 33 different 3-year-olds who ran in the three jewels of the 2016 Triple Crown. Collected was one of them, but the memory hardly lingered. He beat only one horse on a sloppy track in the Preakness at Pimlico, then went to the sidelines as a work in progress, hopefully to be reborn as a mature Thoroughbred ready to take on the toughest possible challenges.
Collected was up to the task.
From his brilliant start in Florida to his desultory farewell at Del Mar, Arrogate was the horse who dominated most of the racing headlines in 2017. He ran four times in his homeland and once, memorably, in Dubai, and each time he ran the game stood at attention, as if awaiting a celestial message borne by a true descendant of Pegasus himself.
From an unstarted maiden at the beginning of the year to a Grade 1 winner against elders in the Las Vegas Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, Battle of Midway had one of the most extensive and productive campaigns in racing in 2017.
Racing virtually once a month, Battle of Midway ran 10 times and won five, including three stakes, and also finished third in the Kentucky Derby and second in the Santa Anita Derby.
For the second straight year, a colt who skipped the Triple Crown but had a brilliant second half of the year including a victory in the Travers Stakes could prevail as champion 3-year-old male, as West Coast looks to emulate Arrogate from a year ago.
In a year when no 3-year-old male clearly stood above the others, Always Dreaming stakes his claim to the Eclipse Award by virtue of winning the one race everyone else would have loved to have won, the Kentucky Derby.
It was Always Dreaming who proved best on the first Saturday in May, culminating a four-race win streak to start the year that had him ready to be at his absolute best when it counted most. He won four times in seven starts on the year, and his two Grade 1 wins – in the Kentucky Derby and Florida Derby – tie him for the divisional lead in that department.
