There are few positions more prominent or scrutinized in racing than president of The Jockey Club, and that goes double for years as tumultuous for the sport as 2019 and 2020 were. With a plethora of game-changing topics to discuss, The Jockey Club’s president and chief operations office Jim Gagliano joined the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland Wednesday in the show’s first episode of 2021. Appearing as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Gagliano discussed how the industry can potentially pay for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, the rationale behind a 140-mare cap for stallions, racing’s inability to permanently do away with repeat-offender trainers and more.
“I don’t think it should come out of the horseplayers’ pockets,” Gagliano said of the HISA cost. “Every state funds its regulation differently. The problem that we faced when we were considering that matter, is there’s really no one-size-fits-all that we could push down to the states. The most important thing we want to do is make sure we capture first the current expenses, and then that those were brought forward. After that, the Authority will work with each state and through its racing commission to determine what the number is. I suggest the simplest way is to share [the costs] between the tracks and the horsemen. But honestly, there’s a lot of details to be considered.”
Now that the HISA is a reality, Gagliano was asked what else The Jockey Club will focus on in the coming years.
“There’s plenty,” he said. “How we market the sport. The opportunity of television, which thank goodness, during this pandemic, to see the amount of live televised hours of horse racing has been a godsend. We’ve talked about scheduling. We need to put the product in a place where it can have the best showcase. Other areas: HISA is going to put USADA into a role and there are now rules that will be in place that will change the sport, we believe. Investigations, that’s something that racing has not done very well over the last bunch of years. I anticipate The Jockey Club will continue to invest in those kinds of resources to make sure that things we don’t want to happen in our sport, don’t happen.”
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters today announced the winners of the 2020 Media Eclipse Awards in six categories. This year's awards are highlighted by Natalie Voss, Editor-in-Chief of the Paulick Report, becoming the first individual to win two writing award categories in the same year since the late Bill Nack earned two awards in 1991.
The 2020 Media Eclipse Award winners are as follows: Feature/Commentary Writing – Natalie Voss, Paulick Report “'An Angel On His Shoulder': This Thoroughbred's Fate Was Written In Ink,” May 13, 2020.
News/Enterprise Writing – Natalie Voss, Paulick Report – Multi-part Series: “A Decade In, How Are We Doing With Thoroughbred Aftercare?” Dec. 2, 2019; “Emptying The Ocean With A Teaspoon: The Challenges Of Aftercare,” Dec. 3, 2019; and “Aftercare Should Not Be An Afterthought: Solutions For The Future,” Dec. 4, 2019.
Television – Live Racing Programming – NBC Sports, “The Breeders' Cup World Championships,” Nov. 7, 2020; Billy Matthews and Lindsay Schanzer, producers.
Television – Features – NBC Sports “Riders Up: The World's First Sports Bubble,” Oct. 2, 2020 on NBCSN; Produced by the Hennegan Brothers.
Audio/Multi-Media Internet – Thoroughbred Daily News (TDN) “To Hell and Back: Belmont Marks A Deserved Triumph for New York City,” Joe Bianca, writer and narrator, Patty Wolfe, producer.
Photography – Alex Evers, Paulick Report “A Derby Without Fans,” Sept. 21, 2020.
Entries were accepted for 2020 Media Eclipse Awards consideration for works which appeared from Nov. 17, 2019 to Nov. 20, 2020.
Voss, from Georgetown, Kentucky, has now won three Eclipse Awards. In addition to the two honors this year, Voss won her first Media Eclipse Award in 2016 for News/Enterprise writing for her article on the lurking dangers of concussions for jockeys, which was also published in the Paulick Report.
“I never could have imagined this happening in my wildest dreams,” said Voss upon learning of her two Eclipse Awards in 2020. “It's a tremendous honor to just win one award, but to win two in one year is unfathomable.
“I'm so pleased to see aftercare stories win in both categories this year. I really believe there are just as many compelling stories in that world as there are on the racetrack, and that they are just as much a part of the Thoroughbred industry.”
In “Angel on His Shoulder,” Voss describes the journey and fate of a claiming horse named Inked, and how he touched the lives of his original owner Kirsten Fada, his breeder, Susan Young, and horse transporter Hannah Meier over a three-year period. Each of these women, with no connection to each other at first, helped assure that Inked would have a safe home after the track. Fada eventually adopted him for a second career after an improbable reunion at the Second Stride OTTB program at Moserwood Farm in Kentucky.
Voss capsulizes the anxieties of those following horses who have moved on from their care:
Unless you have an inroad with the horse's connections, you don't know whether he suffered an injury or is enjoying a well-deserved vacation in a grassy field; whether he has moved on to a second career, or if he's at the end of a long trailer ride in a forgotten pen somewhere. It feels wrong to assume the worst, but irresponsible not to consider it. Where the heart is concerned, the brain can run wild with worst-case scenarios you may be powerless to prevent.
For two years, Fada and Young, a thousand miles apart, were each intently tracking Inked's career. In October 2019, Young found Inked entered in a race at Grants Pass, Oregon and promptly drove four hours from her home to meet the trainer and let him know that she wanted to buy him. Young wanted to send him to his birthplace in Kentucky for a rest before moving him on to an accredited aftercare organization. A short time later, Meier, a part owner of Circle J Transportation, was contracted to pick up a horse at the base of trainer Gilbert Ecoffey in South Dakota. Upon her arrival, she noticed a stocky chestnut in the field that looked awfully familiar. Meier immediately recognized Inked, who had been one of the horses she had worked with under the care of Ecoffey at Grants Pass.
Meier drove Inked to Phoenix Hill Farm in Paris, Kentucky. Meier was hoping that Phoenix Hill owner Kim Dionne would one day call her to take Inked as her own, but she could not work out the logistics due to Covid-19 restrictions. Meier learned a few weeks later that Inked had been picked up and sent to Moserwood, where Fada would re-enter the picture and be reunited with Inked. Young was “floored” to get an email that her gelding had been rehomed in 24 hours. Fada posted a note about her reunion on Facebook and was subsequently connected to Meier.
“When you love a horse that's no longer yours, there is an incredible anxiety if you don't have a good way to find out where it is,” said Voss. “When you love racing, there will be one or two horses that will become special to you whether they are in your barn or not. Horses get lost in the ether and you may never see them again. I was struck by the improbability of it all. This is not an accomplished racehorse; he was not easily trackable like a well-known stakes horse might have been, and the stars really had to align so that Inked came back to Kirsten.”
Honorable mention in the Feature/Commentary category went to 2008 Eclipse Award winner Vinnie Perrone for “The Autumn of King Leatherbury,” which was published in racingbiz.com on Nov. 17, 2020.
Judges in the Feature/Commentary category were Dan Liebman, former editor of The BloodHorse and The State-Journal in Frankfort, Kentucky; Bill Kolberg, former assistant director of publicity at Santa Anita and Del Mar and published author on Thoroughbred racing; and Lynne Snierson, national award-winning turf writer for daily publications in Boston, Miami and St. Louis, and veteran racetrack publicist.
News/Enterprise: Multi-Part Series
In her three-part series that won the News/Enterprise writing category, Voss explores the achievements and struggles of the Thoroughbred aftercare movement that has reached prominence in the past decade. What began as one article on the phenomenon expanded into a series through the encouragement of publisher Ray Paulick and former Editor-in-Chief, Scott Jagow.
“I had some sense before I began the research process that the volume of horses needing aftercare was greater than the current infrastructure could handle,” said Voss, who earned a degree in Equine Science and Management from the University of Kentucky and also worked at the Secretariat Center at the Kentucky Horse Park before launching a career in journalism. “But the disparity between the number of horses in need of a second career and the capacity of the various accredited organizations was greater than I'd imagined, and really shows that more needs to be done.”
In part one of the series, “A Decade In, How Are We Doing With Thoroughbred Aftercare?,” Voss traces the evolution of aftercare from increased awareness of the problem through the explosion of social media, to initial “check off” fundraising efforts establish by The Jockey Club and Thoroughbred Charities of America, to the great leap forward to the creation of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, which established high standards for accreditation and has overseen the distribution of $17.2 million to accredited organizations. The creation of second career incentive programs like Thoroughbred Makeover and The Jockey Club's Thoroughbred Incentive Program were also key.
Part two of the series, “Emptying The Ocean With A Teaspoon: The Challenges Of Aftercare,” raises questions about the cost of care for the high number of horses retired each year and the fate of horses that are never raced, and how retirement organizations can handle that load. It also raised questions about the slaughter pipeline and how the economics of that industry impact OTTBs.
Part three of the series “Aftercare Should Not Be An Afterthought: Solutions For The Future,” focused on the reliance on funding, continuing encouragement of horsemen to avoid “one final start” before retirement, and understanding that horses that retire healthy stand a far better chance of a second home that does who are not; and improved communication between racetracks and aftercare organizations on limiting the slaughter pipeline.
Honorable Mention in the News/Enterprise category went to Richard Gross for “Authentic Proves He's Just That,” a race recap of Kentucky Derby which appeared on the Horse Network website on Sept. 6, 2020.
Judges in the New Enterprise category were: Bob Kieckhefer, racing writer for United Press International; Rob Longley, sports columnist, who first covered the Triple Crown in both Canada and the U.S. in 1996 and is currently baseball columnist for the Toronto Sun; and David Papadopoulos, a senior editor at Bloomberg News.
TDN Associate Editor Joe Bianca and multi-media producer Patty Wolfe are among the winners of the Media Eclipse Awards as announced Wednesday by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters.
Bianca and Wolfe were awarded the Eclipse in the ‘Audio/Multimedia Internet’ category for a piece written and narrated by Bianca and produced by Wolfe entitled “To Hell and Back: Belmont Marks a Deserved Triumph for New York City,” a tribute to the Belmont S., which took place as the first leg of the COVID-19 delayed Triple Crown Saturday, June 20, and appeared the day before the race. It is the first Eclipse Award for Bianca and a second for Wolfe, who also shared the honor with TDN’s Christie DeBernardis for a TDN Multimedia piece on off-the-track Thoroughbreds in 2018.
Bianca’s text and narration goes into the rich history of racing in New York and Belmont Park, which first hosted the Belmont in its current location in 1905. Wolfe weaved in archival racing footage with images of images of New York City, most impacted by the coronavirus.
“Winning an Eclipse Award is an honor like no other in racing and I’m immensely grateful to have been selected this year,” said Bianca. “I want to thank our producer Patty Wolfe and her incredible team of talented editors for illustrating my words so beautifully. Also thank you to our publisher Sue Finley for her steadfast support for my work as we branch out into different types of media at TDN. It has obviously been a very difficult and tragic year, but I’m so proud and thankful to have moved people with one of the inspirational success stories of 2020 in an ode to my beloved hometown.”
Added Wolfe: “This video is a reminder of the things we always had but almost lost. Other professional sports were not competing at that time, and New York had just been through a nightmare with the pandemic. NYRA’s running of the Belmont S. in June was momentous. Talking directly into his computer, Joe’s authenticity was compelling as he put the magnitude of the moment into words.”
The Paulick Report’s Natalie Voss is the recipient of the Media Eclipse Awards for both the ‘Feature/Commentary Writing’ category for her piece entitled “An Angel On His Shoulder: This Thoroughbred’s Fate Was Written in Ink;” and for the News/Enterprise Writing category for her multi-part series “A Decade IN, How Are We Doing With Thoroughbred Aftercare?”
NBC Sports receives the Eclipse for their coverage of “The Breeders’ Cup World Championships” Nov. 7, a program produced by Billy Mathews and Lindsay Schanzer; as well as the ‘Television/Features’ category for “Rider’s Up: The World’s First Sports Bubble,” which aired on NBC Sports Network Oct. 2, 2020, and was produced by the Hennegan Brothers.
Alex Evers is the recipient of the Eclipse for ‘Photography’ for “A Derby Without Fans” which ran in the Paulick Report Sept. 21, 2020.
The 2020 Eclipse Awards ceremony will be a virtual event. It will be televised live on TVG and streamed on other outlets on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 7:30 p.m. ET.
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.
