This is the first piece in an occasional series designed to address reader questions about the way things in racing work – regulatory and business processes, technology, and more. Today, we're kicking off the series with an explanation of the voting process for the Eclipse Awards.
The process for choosing Eclipse Award finalists and winners varies slightly between award types. The winners of awards given to horses, trainers, jockeys, owners, and breeders are selected by a group of voters from three sources: the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form, and National Turf Writers and Broadcasters (NTWAB). NTRA voters include officials at NTRA member racetracks and field personnel at Equibase, racing's official database. Daily Racing Form's bloc includes a broad block of editorial staff in various positions, allocated at the company's discretion.
Only full members of NTWAB are granted a vote. NTWAB's membership is comprised of active writers or broadcasters working for recognized trade publications or covering racing for mainstream outlets. Members are granted admission after an examination of their credentials, which must include paid journalistic work, by the NTWAB board and a vote by existing membership.
In mid-December, all members of the voting body are mailed packets of past performances grouped by category. Voters are not limited to the horses or humans whose names appear in this past performance packet, but the packet is compiled based on the anticipated leaders in each equine group. Humans are listed under their category in various ways, showing leaders by wins, by earnings, and by graded winners. Complicating matters in the owner and breeder categories is the popularity of partnerships in modern racing. Earnings and wins are shown by entity according to the way they appear in the racing program, not per individual. For example, Head of Plains Partners often owns percentages of several active horses, rather than 100% of one horse. Because data gatherers don't know the financial arrangements of each partnership, they can't separate out the earnings Head of Plains gathered across multiple group ownership shares.
Voters may vote only for an individual person or racing stable on their ballot (i.e., voting for Authentic's ownership means voting for MyRacehorse, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables, or Spendthrift, but not all four).
Voters are also advised to keep an eye on the graded stakes races through the end of the year, as a few still take place after the mailing of the voting packets.
Horses under consideration for an Eclipse Award must have made at least one start in the United States or Canada in the relevant year. Beyond this, members are not given specific instructions as to how they may select horses or weigh past performance information. Voters can and do ascribe their own meaning to grades of races, quality of effort, quality of fields, human connections, and more. Voters can also consider overseas races however they choose; typically overseas victories by American-based horses are given more weight than success of foreign runners overseas who made one American start.
It is generally understood that selected horses must align with the demographic group they're named in (i.e., if you vote for a mare in the older male turf category, you can expect a call or email asking if it was a mistake). Voters with particularly unconventional choices (such as a horse who primarily ran on dirt in a turf category) may be asked to justify their choices. Voting members are not provided with licensure information or horses' drug violation histories beyond disqualifications that may be evident in a past performance record. The expectation is that voters should be engaged enough to be familiar with the year's happenings or do independent research before voting.
Voters may choose to abstain voting in a particular category for any reason they choose. They may not choose the winner in the category and abstain from voting in the remaining two slots. Voters are expected to abstain in situations where they may have a unique personal interest, such as an ownership share in a horse who may be a viable candidate in a category.
Voters are then asked to make three choices for each category. The voter's top choice counts as their vote for the “winner” of the category. Voters rank their choices first-second-third. A first-place vote is ascribed 10 points by voting organizers, a second-place vote five points, and a third-place vote one point. The award winner is the one who received the most “winner” votes, while the three finalists announced ahead of the year's Eclipse Award ceremony are those with the greatest number of points.
Strangely, this means that a horse or person could garner a handful of “winner” votes but not become a finalist if a rival has a high number of second or third choice votes. In 2019, for example, Irad Ortiz Jr. was the clear winner in the Jockey category with 205 winner votes. He was a finalist in the category alongside Javier Castellano and Jose Ortiz. When complete results were announced however, it was clear that Jose only had one voter name him as a “winner” of the category, while Flavien Prat got five votes as “winner,” and Joel Rosario and Mike Smith got three each. Jose Ortiz must have had many more voters put him second or third on their ballots, which is how he was named a finalist and Prat, Rosario, and Smith were not.
After the results are announced, organizers send out a tally showing which candidates got “winner” votes and how many “winner” votes they got. This tally typically doesn't indicate how many points a candidate got as a second or third place holder on voters' ballots.
The finalists are announced in alphabetical order for each category, and do not reflect the vote totals, which aren't released until after the award ceremony. Voters do not receive the final results until the day of the ceremony.
The Horseplayer of the Year Eclipse is given to the winner of the National Horseplayers Championship. Voters do not weigh in on this category.
Media Eclipse Awards are decided differently. Media members may submit two entries in each of the media categories – there are two for writing, two for television, one photography, and one multimedia. Writers may also submit a single multi-part series in a category. Media submit their entries for the year in mid-November. For media, the relevant “year” runs from November to November, the idea being that the Breeders' Cup marks the bookend of the racing season.
Judging panels of three experts judge the entries in each media category. Judges work on a volunteer basis and are often retired or semi-retired professionals with experience in the category, or active professionals who do not currently work primarily in racing journalism. Entrants do not know the identity of the judging panel until after the judging is complete, and are asked to remove identifying information from the text of their entry to keep things as objective as possible.
Media Award winners are notified and announced between late December to early January.
Special Eclipse Awards and Eclipse Awards of Merit are chosen by a small committee of representatives from each of the three voting blocs. The Special Award is typically given in recognition of outstanding achievement or service to the industry. It is not given out every year, but rather when the committee feels strongly that one candidate embodies the spirit of the award. The Award of Merit is a recognition of lifetime achievement and is also not given every year. Finalists for these awards are not revealed publicly but winners are announced in advance.
The awards are typically presented at a formal ceremony in late January, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it will take place virtually on Jan. 28 and will be streamed across multiple platforms.
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The post How It Works: A Detailed Look At How Eclipse Award Winners Are Chosen appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
