Benoit & Associates

Although she was Group 2-placed as a 2-year-old in her native England, Dubawi Heights did not make a smooth transition to racing in the United States as a 3-year-old in 2010, missing most of the season for one reason or another. But she made up for it in 2011 and ended the year as a finalist for an Eclipse Award for top female turf runner.

Expectations were high for Stacelita upon her arrival to the United States, and she more than met them, becoming a finalist for the Eclipse Award for top female turf runner.

Stacelita began her career with six straight wins and was ranked the top 3-year-old filly in France in 2009 after winning three Group 1 races, the Prix de Diane (French Oaks), Prix Saint-Alary, and Prix Vermeille. At age 4, she garnered a fourth Group 1 tally in the Prix Jean Romanet.

Rags-to-riches is a favorite theme among racing fans, and a California-bred gelding named Amazombie was only too willing to fill that order in 2011. A mere throw-in in a $5,000 two-horse deal as a yearling, Amazombie turned back all comers in winning the Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs to cap an unforgettable season for his trainer, Bill Spawr, who co-owns the gelding with Thomas Sanford.

Barbara D. Livingston

From late spring until her final start of 2011 in midsummer, Hilda’s Passion was the fastest filly-mare sprinter in the land. She did not merely win, she dazzled.

Musical Romance was a throwback in 2011. She ran, ran, and ran – 14 starts and 5 wins capped by a decisive victory in the Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint that boosted the Calder-based filly from anonymity to Eclipse Award finalist as outstanding female sprinter. “Not only did she win the Breeders’ Cup, she dominated the race,” trainer and part-owner William Kaplan said. “And every race was better than the one before.” Musical Romance was an unlikely championship candidate at the start of the year.

Churchill Downs

The highlights for Sassy Image in 2011 were packed in a two-month window – spring-summer victories in the Humana Distaff at Churchill Downs and Princess Rooney Handicap at Calder made her the only filly or mare to win two Grade 1 sprints during the season.

On turf, Acclamation was virtually unbeatable in 2011. He wasn’t so bad on the main track, either.

In five appearances on turf, all in California, Acclamation won four consecutive graded stakes. On the main track, he won Del Mar’s biggest race for older horses, the Pacific Classic.

Voters honored his brilliant campaign, which included three Grade 1 victories, by making him a double finalist for Eclipse Awards in the older male and turf male categories.

Led by Havre de Grace, the front-runner for Horse of the Year, the divisional finalists for the 2011 Eclipse Awards were announced on Thursday by the three organizations that vote on the awards, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form, and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters.

Here is the good news about 2012 in horse racing. There is no Iowa caucus.

We may not have any superstar horses at the moment, but neither do we have Mitt, Newt, Ron, Rick squared, and the rest who just spent millions searching for votes that will be little noted nor long remembered.

Speaking of votes, I just spent a few hours last weekend poring over the 2011 past performances before going online to type in my Eclipse Award choices. As I was looking at all the horses, I also was trying to look forward to 2012.

Rapid Redux, perhaps the most famous starter-allowance horse in racing history, will be honored for his 2011 accomplishments with a Special Eclipse Award, it was announced Wednesday.

Special Eclipse Awards periodically are given when accomplishment during a racing season falls outside established championship parameters, and Rapid Redux presents just such a case.