Alexander Crispin began 2020 fresh out of jockey school and looking to make a name for himself. The 22-year-old native of Puerto Rico begins 2021 with his name on a short list for one of Thoroughbred racing's ultimate individual honors.
Crispin, the leading rider at Laurel Park's ongoing winter meet, is among three finalists for the Eclipse Award as champion apprentice of 2020. The winners in 17 equine and human categories will be announced during a virtual ceremony starting at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28.
New York-based Luis Cardenas and Yarmarie Correa, who rode last year in Ohio, are the other finalists. Maryland-based riders have captured 11 of the 46 Eclipse Awards as champion apprentice, the most recent being Weston Hamilton in 2018.
Other winners are Chris McCarron (1974), Ronnie Franklin (1978), Alberto Delgado (1982), Allen Stacy (1986), Kent Desormeaux (1987), Mike Luzzi (1989), Mark Johnston (1990), Jeremy Rose (2001), Ryan Fogelsonger (2002) and Victor Carrasco (2013). Hamilton and Carrasco continue to be based in Maryland.
“That would be super special. That's something that every apprentice and every jockey would like to win,” Crispin said. “That would be super fascinating for me, super exciting. It would be an accomplishment for me. It would be something big for my first year. I would be happy to know that I did my best and worked hard and I would be satisfied. I would be really happy with it.”
Maintaining his five-pound weight allowance, Crispin went winless with one second and one third from seven mounts on Monday's special Martin Luther King Jr. holiday program at Laurel. His 16 wins top the standings at the winter meet that began Jan. 1.
Already, Crispin has registered five multi-win days through nine live programs, including back-to-back four-win efforts Jan. 3 and 8 and a six-mount win streak Jan. 8-9. His victories have come for 12 different trainers, winning multiple times for Mike Trombetta, Dale Capuano and four-time defending Maryland champion Claudio Gonzalez.
Crispin has won more often for Trombetta – a multiple Grade 1 winner of more than 1,900 career races and two-time Laurel meet leader who has ranked second to Gonzalez in overall Maryland wins the past three years and not typically prone to using bug riders – than another other trainer this year.
“I feel really satisfied because every day I the mornings I always go to the barn and check if he needs help. Even if he says they're OK, every time I go in in makes me feel good and very happy,” Crispin said. “I'm starting to get the opportunities because he likes what he sees and that makes me happy. It's very exciting.”
Crispin graduated from Puerto Rico's famed Escuela Vocacional Hipica in December 2019 and made his pro debut last Jan. 1 at Hipodromo Camarero. After coming to the U.S. late last winter, Cripsin was fifth in his mainland debut aboard Time Marches On March 7, 2020 at Turfway Park.
He continued to ride in the Midwest, picking up his first win March 12, 2020 on Thorpe d'Oro at Turfway, until moving his tack to Delaware Park for the summer. Crispin finished the Delaware meet as its leading apprentice, ranking second overall with 58 wins and fourth with more than $1.3 million in purse earnings.
Crispin arrived in Maryland in late October, two weeks into Laurel Park's fall meet, and wound up leading all apprentice riders and ranking third overall with 29 wins while banking $725,920 in purses earned.
According to Equibase statistics, Crispin ranked second among the three Eclipse finalists in wins (103) and purse earnings ($2.194 million). Correa had 118 wins and a $1.755 million bankroll in 2020, while Cardenas had 41 wins and $2.23 million in purses earned.
“He's very confident with any horse that he gets on,” Laurel-based trainer Lacey Gaudet said. In six mounts for Gaudet in 2021, Crispin has finished third three times and won aboard 4-year-old gelding Candygramformongo Jan. 8.
“The first time that we won with Alex it was a large field and it was the first horse that he had ever rode for us,” she said. “Every time he rides a horse he just comes back and he's extremely exuberant and very confident in the horses. Even if a horse isn't on the board, 1-2-3, he's always looking for the next race and ways to improve the horse. I think he gives the horses a lot of confidence and he's done really well for us.”
In addition to his hard work and confidence, Crispin can trace his path to becoming an Eclipse Award finalist all the way back to his days in Puerto Rico when he saw his first Thoroughbred race and took the advice of a high school teacher to become a professional rider.
“Everything started in middle school where I first saw a horse race. For some reason I had that connection and that desire to find out more information about what horse racing is,” Crispin said. “As soon as I found out and saw horse racing with my own eyes, I had that feeling that this is what I want. This is what I want for my future.”
Five-pound apprentice Alexander Crispin, expected to be among the Eclipse Award finalists when they are announced later this month, registered his second consecutive four-win day Friday at Laurel Park.
The 22-year-old native of Puerto Rico, who went four-for-eight during Laurel's last live program Jan. 3, won four of the last five races Friday. Crispin began his run with Michel Scheffres' Maryland-bred gelding Sue Loves Barbados ($8.80) in Race 8, a waiver maiden claimer for 3-year-olds sprinting 6 ½ furlongs.
Without a mount in Race 6, Crispin ended the day by sweeping the final three races aboard Solea ($10.60) for owner-trainer Ed Merryman; Marcial Cornejo's Wonderwall ($9), trained by Maryland's four-time defending champion Claudio Gonzalez; and Lacey Gaudet owned-and-trained Candygramformongo ($9).
“Today was really good. I started my [day] like always, getting here early so I know what exactly what I'm going to do,” Crispin said. “I had a good feeling today with all my horses. I'm always positive with all the horses ride. I had that feeling that today was going to be a good day.”
Crispin has put together three consecutive multi-win days in 2021, winning once on the New Year's Day program and registering a riding triple Jan. 2. He has 12 wins, two seconds and six thirds from 28 mounts this year with purse earnings of more than $250,000.
According to Equibase statistics, Crispin leads all North American jockeys in wins to start 2021, and ranks ninth in purses earned. He finished 2020 with 103 wins and $2,194,030 in purse earnings from 539 mounts.
“I'm going out on the track and have been working hard and dedicated, and to give it all on the track and see the results feels good,” Crispin said. “Everything's going good, thankfully.”
Finalists for the 50th annual Eclipse Awards will be announced Saturday, Jan. 16. The winners in 17 human and equine categories will be announced in a virtual ceremony beginning at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28 and live streamed on several outlets.
Maryland-based riders have captured 11 of the 46 Eclipse Awards as champion apprentice, the most recent being Weston Hamilton in 2018. Other winners are Chris McCarron (1974), Ronnie Franklin (1978), Alberto Delgado (1982), Allen Stacy (1986), Kent Desormeaux (1987), Mike Luzzi (1989), Mark Johnston (1990), Jeremy Rose (2001), Ryan Fogelsonger (2002) and Victor Carrasco (2013). Hamilton and Carrasco continue to be based in Maryland.
Notes: There will be carryovers of $489.19 in the $1 Super Hi-5 (Race 1) and $411.56 in the 20-cent Rainbow 6 (Races 4-9) for Saturday's nine-race program. Tickets with five of six winners in Friday's Rainbow 6 each returned $39.20 … First-race post time is 12:25 p.m.
In “Making Claims,” Paulick Report bloodstock editor Joe Nevills shares his opinions on the Thoroughbred industry from the breeding and sales arenas to the racing world and beyond.
It's early January, and you know what that means: Eclipse Award voters have begun sharing their ballots on social media, and no matter who they picked, outrage ensues from the folks who disagree.
I've got an Eclipse vote, and it's made public as a member of the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters bloc of voters, so in the interest of transparency, I'll share here how I filled out my ballot, along with my reasoning for each category.
If you think I'm off-base with any of my votes, just remember these two things: First, the voting is closed, so nothing I say here can swing any undecided voters. Second, back in 2011, one intrepid voter chose Drosselmeyer as champion turf male in a campaign where his lone start on grass was a seventh-place effort. No matter how much we might disagree on who should be placed where, please understand that someone out there will go further off the deep end than any of us could imagine and cancel me out. Eclipse Award voters are an eclectic bunch.
With that out of the way, let's get down to business.
2-Year-Old Male
1. Essential Quality
2. Jackie's Warrior
3. Fire At Will
While I certainly can't fault anyone for giving Jackie's Warrior a mulligan for his fourth-place effort in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, and instead focusing on his brilliant campaign up to that point, two things swung it toward Essential Quality for me.
First, when they faced off head-to-head on the biggest stage of their lives in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Essential Quality got there first. The juvenile dirt races hold a lot of weight for me, especially in a deep field like we had this year. Second, Essential Quality had a bit more depth to his game. Where Jackie's Warrior got to the front early to do his damage, Essential Quality showed he could be a Grade 1 horse battling for the lead or coming from behind, and he did it twice beyond a mile. That professionalism gave him the edge.
2-Year-Old Female
1. Vequist
2. Dayoutoftheoffice
3. Aunt Pearl
Vequist was the only horse in the division with two Grade 1 wins, and if she was going to split the series with Dayoutoftheoffice, I'd rather have the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies in my win column than the Frizette. All due respect to Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Aunt Pearl, but the lack of depth in North America's juvenile turf platoon and its schedule compared to their dirt contemporaries makes it hard to put a turf horse on top on either of the baby divisions.
3-Year-Old Male
1. Authentic
2. Tiz the Law
3. Happy Saver
The first two were slam dunks. Authentic won the Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic, both over Tiz the Law, who would have gotten the nod if he'd have won either one of those races. There is such a wide gap to the third spot that it allowed for some creativity. Happy Saver got the call by virtue of beating older competition in the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup.
Pretty simple here. If a filly wins a Triple Crown race, it's going to take a mountain of evidence against her to knock her off the perch. Fortunately, Swiss Skydiver had a deep resume to justify the spot beyond her centerpiece victory, with four other graded stakes triumphs, including the G1 Alabama Stakes. Shedaresthedevil, who bested Swiss Skydiver in the Kentucky Oaks and never ran a bad one in 2020, was a clear second, completing an outstanding exacta for new Lane's End resident Daredevil.
Older Dirt Male
1. Improbable
2. Vekoma
3. Global Campaign
I'll be the first to admit that after watching Improbable lose as the favorite again and again as a 3-year-old, I never thought he'd get it together enough to become more than the occasional fluke Grade 1 winner. A year later, here I am eating my words after he became one of the few consistent pillars of an older male division that saw a lot of its potential stars struggle with injury and consistency. Improbable crisscrossed the map and beat everyone else in the division he needed to beat.
I could have shaken the bottle, pulled out a lot of other names to fill out the bottom of the ticket and felt the same about it, but consistent, strong efforts at the highest levels got Vekoma and Global Campaign there for me. In a year where practically every serious contender either got hurt or got exposed when the chips were really down, showing up to work with your lunchpail was enough.
In terms of margin of victory, Monomoy Girl might be the biggest runaway winner of this year's divisions. She went unbeaten in four starts this year, including her pièce de résistance in the Breeders' Cup Distaff.
Serengeti Empress was probably the best horse with the worst luck this year, just missing a couple of graded stakes wins after running with a ton of heart. Even with the near-misses, she was incredibly versatile, winning graded stakes at both the sprint and route distances. Valiance got good at the right time, and proved she belonged with a win in the G1 Spinster Stakes and a second to Monomoy Girl in the Distaff.
I struggled with what to do with Midnight Bisou. She ran huge in the Saudi Cup (and she might end up being named the winner someday if the right people decide there's enough evidence to take Maximum Security down), she looked like the Midnight Bisou we all know and love in her G2 Fleur de Lis romp, and she was unlucky to get nipped in the G1 Personal Ensign. What kept her off the ticket for me was the incomplete feeling I had when I looked at her record. She only raced three times – twice on U.S. soil – she only won once (as of the time this was published), and she didn't win a North American Grade 1. When I crossed out her name from the running lines and separated the campaign from the brand recognition behind the horse that ran it, the bid lost a lot of its luster.
Not a great year for this division in terms of true standouts. Like the Older Dirt Male division, there were a lot of struggles here with form and health that made this division tough to sort out. When that happens, the Breeders' Cup gains a lot more weight, almost by default. Whitmore ran the race of his life to win the Breeders' Cup Sprint, and while his campaign had its fair share of misfires, he did enough with his supporting efforts to put him on top.
Vekoma and Volatile were both lightly raced in 2020, and I don't love that, but they both went undefeated and won their Grade 1 races with gusto. No one else, save for maybe C Z Rocket, had a case that could stack up to that.
Female Sprinter
1. Serengeti Empress
2. Bell's the One
3. Glass Slippers
First, let's address the elephant in the room: Where's Gamine?
My policy for Eclipse voting is if the glacially-paced gears of horse racing's justice system are fast enough to pop a horse for a positive drug test and disqualify them from a race, they're off my ticket regardless of what they do for the rest of their campaign. When Gamine was taken down from her Oaklawn Park optional claimer earlier this year due to a lidocaine positive, she ceased being eligible for year-end honors in my eyes.
I didn't vote for La Verdad in 2015 when she was a contender in this division after she got taken down from the G2 Honorable Miss Stakes for a clenbuterol positive. She ended up winning the Eclipse anyway by eight votes over Wavell Avenue. If I were to venture a guess, Gamine will take this trophy home by a much wider margin, regardless of what I think, but I won't be part of it.
So, that leaves us with a closely matched race between Serengeti Empress and Bell's the One. Bell's the One bested Serengeti Empress by a nose in the G1 Derby City Distaff, while Serengeti Empress nosed out her foe for second in the Breeders' Cup Sprint. If we're pretending Gamine doesn't exist, that's a draw in my eyes. Serengeti Empress had an additional Grade 1 sprint win in the Ballerina, while Bell's the One only had a Grade 3 win to counter, putting the decision to rest.
Filling out the award winners in this division is often a bleak affair, given how much time North America's turf males spend beating each other up, then losing to fillies and Europeans when the lights are the brightest, but this might be the least convincing group of contenders I've seen in any division since I've had a vote.
Let's get this over with. I don't tend to put European-based horses on top unless their case is so convincing that I have no other choice, and that didn't happen this year. Channel Maker was the only horse in the division with two Grade 1 wins, Zulu Alpha won a good Grade 1 in the Pegasus World Cup Turf and never threw a clunker, and Instilled Regard's spot could have gone to a lot of different horses, but I liked his big wins more than the other contenders. Next.
I've seen a lot of votes go for Tarnawa, and I wouldn't be mad if she won it, given the strength of her globetrotting campaign and her impressive win against males in the Breeders' Cup Turf. However, as I laid out, I prefer to give it to a domestic horse if at all possible, and Rushing Fall came a hard-trying neck in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf away from a perfect campaign. The only thing missing from Rushing Fall's resume is an Eclipse Award, and I think she gets it here.
I've had people say I should have my Eclipse vote taken away for abstaining from the steeplechase category every year. They don't seem to realize I abstain out of respect. Nothing in my job requires me to take even a passive interest in the steeplechase races. I know none of the players, the races are often held at venues I'm not familiar with in terms of geography or esteem, and I'm not aware of the unwritten class system that can separate one Grade 1 race from another (like how winning the Kentucky Derby means more than winning the Malibu Stakes). It's an entirely different culture.
If a group of basketball writers were brought in to decide the Eclipse Awards, people would erupt, and rightfully so. It would be disrespectful to the hard work done by an entire industry to have someone outside the circle decide who among them was the best. That's why I leave the steeplechase division to the people who know what they're doing, and don't let my uninformed vote interfere with that. Someone will get a trophy whether I vote or not.
Owner
1. Godolphin
2. Klaravich Stables
3. Gary Barber
Unless a partnership is practically synonymous with each other (like Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence were for a long time), I tend to see this award as one for individuals over groups. Barring outstanding circumstances like a Triple Crown winner, I look for solid high-level success in an Outstanding Owner candidate, with enough depth to fill out the ranks. Godolphin got its Grade 1 bona fides with probable champion Essential Quality and Fair Maiden, while finishing among the nation's leaders by wins, graded wins, and earnings. I could have put Klaravich Stables or Gary Barber in the top spot and slept just as well at night, but the blue team just stood out a little more for me this year.
Breeder
1. WinStar Farm
2. Godolphin
3. Peter E. Blum Thoroughbreds
My criteria is a little more fluid in this category than others. I like to reward a small breeder if they can pull multiple major stars out of a small broodmare band, but short of that, I've got to lean on the numbers and the big wins. WinStar Farm was responsible for the top two in my champion 3-year-old female voting – Swiss Skydiver and Shedaresthedevil – who accounted for the Preakness Stakes and Kentucky Oaks respectively. None of the other major players could match that duo, and that's before we add Grade 1 winners Global Campaign and Paris Lights to the fold.
Jockey
1. Irad Ortiz Jr.
2. Joel Rosario
3. John Velazquez
Irad Ortiz hit the big double of winning some of the sport's biggest races in 2020 while also showing up to work every day to compile impressive numbers. He netted two Breeders' Cup races and the Pegasus World Cup, while also comfortably leading the nation by both wins and earnings while racing on North America's top circuits. This decision was tougher than it sounds, but if the object of the game is to win races and make money, Irad did it the best.
It was a tight race between the top two. Crispin finished second in the jockey standings at the long Delaware Park meet, and third during one of Laurel Park's meets, while also picking up a win in the First State Dash Stakes at Delaware Park. Correa won the riding title at Thistledown's long meet and is currently holding strong in the standings at Mahoning Valley Race Course. As much as I love the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic circuit is deeper water, and the stakes win helped put Crispin on top.
Unrelated, since it was in an Arabian race and doesn't count in the Eclipse voting, but Crispin was also responsible for one of the best rides I've seen all year, both in the skill of the thing and the caliber of the horses he beat to do it. Remember what I said about different cultures in horse racing? Trust me when I tell you how big of an effort this was in the scope of Arabian racing.
Trainer
1. Brad Cox
2. Chad Brown
3. Steve Asmussen
Brad Cox won four Breeders' Cup races, including two of the biggest prizes: the Distaff and the Juvenile. He also took home the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks, La Troienne, and Breeders' Futurity, and he was near the top of the list in just about any meaningful category out there. Chad Brown had a ton of Grade 1 success, but a general lack of variety beyond turf races in those wins and a quiet Breeders' Cup put him in the place position. Steve Asmussen's giant barn put up its usual bulk numbers, and he had several Grade 1 trophies to fill it out at the top.
Horse of the Year
1. Authentic
2. Improbable
3. Monomoy Girl
If Authentic won the Breeders' Cup Classic, he was going to be Horse of the Year. If Improbable had won the Classic instead of running second to Authentic, he would have been Horse of the Year. If they both flopped and an upset winner took it, it would be hard to put a horse with just four starts on top, but Monomoy Girl would have certainly been a big one in that discussion.
As it stands, Authentic got hot at the right time when the Kentucky Derby was still going to be in May, he stayed hot over the summer when the Derby moved to September, and he blossomed into a star when it mattered most late in his campaign. Looking at the whole of the season for anyone with a serious bid at the title, nobody else made sense in the top spot.
Five-pound apprentice jockey Alexander Crispin continued his sizzling start to the new year by riding four winners on Sunday's nine-race program at Laurel Park in Maryland.
Crispin, 22, began his big day with back-to-back victories aboard Cinconola ($18.20) in Race 2 and favored Xmasinthecity ($3.40) in Race 3, and followed up with wins on McElmore Avenue ($3) in Race 6 and Zabracadabra ($7) in Race 8.
A native of Puerto Rico, Cripsin has eight wins over the first three days of Laurel's 2021 winter meet that began New Year's Day, including a riding triple Saturday.
“I feel pretty good on how things are going. All the hard work is paying off,” Crispin said. “I really appreciate all the trainers and owners giving me the opportunity. So far so good. Everything's been good. I appreciate everything that's going on today and the past few days.”
Expected to be up for voting as North America's leading apprentice jockey when the Eclipse Award finalists are announced Jan. 16, Crispin graduated from Puerto Rico's famed Escuela Vocacional Hipica jockey school in December 2019 and made his pro debut last Jan. 1 at Hipodromo Camarero.
After coming to the U.S. late last winter, Cripsin was fifth in his mainland debut aboard Time Marches On March 7, 2020, at Turfway Park. He continued to ride in the Midwest, picking up his first win March 12, 2020, on Thorpe d'Oro at Turfway, until moving his tack to Delaware Park for the summer.
Crispin finished the Delaware meet as its leading apprentice rider, ranking second overall with 58 wins and fourth with more than $1.3 million in purse earnings. He arrived in Maryland in late October, two weeks into Laurel Park's fall meet, and wound up ranking first among bug boys and third overall with 29 wins, banking $725,920 in purses earned.
“It started out a little bit tough but I maintained a positive mind and kept working hard,” Cripsin said. “I came every day to work and kept persevering and believing in myself.”
Crispin's wins have come for trainers Gary Capuano, Mary Eppler, Mike Trombetta, Anthony Pecoraro, Kieron Magee, Charlie Frock and Maryland's four-time defending champion Claudio Gonzalez. In addition to his wins, he has one second and six thirds in 22 mounts, finishing in the top three at 68 percent clip.
According to Equibase statistics, Crispin finished 2020 with 103 wins and $2,194,030 in purse earnings from 539 mounts. Maryland-based riders have won 11 of 46 Eclipse Awards as leading apprentice, most recently Weston Hamilton in 2018.
“Everyone helps me out. They come to me and tell me if I need something or maybe get better at doing a certain thing I was doing,” Crispin said. “Everybody likes seeing me doing good. They give me good advice. They are always supporting me so appreciate all they do for me. It's been big for my year. It means a lot to me.”
Notes: Jockey Sheldon Russell and trainer Dale Capuano teamed up to bookend Sunday's program by winning Race 1 with Thunderturtle ($8.20) and Race 9 with Hello Gracie ($6.80) … The 20-cent Rainbow 6 was solved Sunday for a jackpot payout of $4,139.20 … Live racing returns Friday, Jan. 8 with a nine-race card starting at 12:25 p.m.
