Florida Sun Shines on California Chrome

by Marie Kizenko

The 44th annual Eclipse Awards were held last night with great fanfare in Gulfstream Park’s Sport of Kings showroom, and California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit) ended up with the major hardware in the Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male titles. He was trained by Art Sherman for owner/breeders Steve Coburn and Perry Martin, all of whom happily left their dinner table three times during the evening. 

“We all know this is a tough game,” Sherman said. “I’d like to thank Perry Martin and Steve Coburn and their wives for letting me train this horse. When they gave me an e-mail before he even started that said, ‘the road to Kentucky Derby,’ I thought, ‘Oh my God,’ but he did win four of the five [races] that he put down there, so I’m a believer now.” 

The chestnut colt also brought his connections to the fore with his GI Kentucky Derby victory being named “NTRA Moment of the Year.” During the presentation, host Jeanine Edwards inquired about California Chrome’s possible schedule for 2015, and both Coburn and Sherman acknowledged that the colt’s successful transition to turf broadened their scope. 

“When that horse won on the turf, it opened up a lot of opportunities,” Coburn admitted. 

Sherman added, “I think that his grass race was awesome. So many people want this horse, all over the world, I would say Dubai is not out of the question. I would think we’d be heading that way.” 
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Twelve months ago, owner Willis Horton held court after Will Take Charge took champion 3-year-old honors, and he relished the chance to get back in front of the microphone after Take Charge Brandi (Giant’s Causeway) kicked off a title-winning skein in the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Horton danced a jig on his way across the stage, while Edwards brought out a chair for Horton’s wife Glenda and told her ‘to get comfortable.’ 

“I said last year that I’d love to come back, well, I’m back,” Horton said. “I’d like to thank the voting public, and I’d like you to know that you made a smart decision. [Laffit] Pincay told me that he’d bring a small bulldozer to get me off the stage tonight. Well, he didn’t even show up! This has been the best two years of my life. We have rode the gravy train and we love it.” 

Zayat Stables won its first Eclipse Award when American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) was crowned champion 2-year-old male. Winner of the GI Del Mar Futurity and GI FrontRunner S., the bay colt was also bred by the Zayat operation. 

“It’s an honor and a privilege,” said a visibly emotional Ahmed Zayat, accompanied by his family. “It’s our first Eclipse Award and I know it is not about us, but American Pharoah is a very special horse for us. We bred him, he is by a stallion that I bred–Pioneerof the Nile–his mommy [Littleprincessemma] I raced and named after my daughter Emma, so it couldn’t have happened to a better horse of ours.” 

The music attempted to play Zayat off the stage for going over his speaking limit, but the Egyptian native made himself heard over the rising notes to dedicate the award to Juan Carlos Saez, the young apprentice rider who was killed in spill at Indiana Downs in the autumn. 
 
Ken and Sarah Ramsey scored the outstanding owner and breeder exacta 12 months ago at the Eclipse Awards, and managed to repeat the feat last night. Last year marked their first breeder title, but the popular couple had previously scored in the owner category in 2004, 2011 and 2013, and they made their way forward through an appreciative crowd.

“This game is all about horses, and we’re up here tonight because of one special horse [Kitten’s Joy],” Ken Ramsey offered. “My wife of 56 years named this horse, and it has been very prophetic. We’ve been so blessed that this Eclipse Award winner and champion on the racetrack himself has been able to replicate himself in the breeding shed. He has single-handedly put us on the stage tonight. My wife, Kitten, and my horse, Kitten, have brought me unbelievable joy.” 

For the third year in a row, trainer Bill Mott saddled the champion older female. Royal Delta (Empire Maker) may have gone on to the breeding shed, but handed the baton to Close Hatches (First Defence). That Juddmonte colorbearer scored a hat trick in the GI Apple Blossom H., GI Ogden Phipps S. and GI Personal Ensign S. 

“This is a proud moment and it’s also very appropriate that this is at Gulfstream Park, where Close Hatches began her terrific career with a J “TDN Rising Star” J performance,” said Garrett O’Rourke, who manages Juddmonte’s Kentucky base. 

Wesley Ward, who won his first Eclipse Award in 1984 for apprentice jockey, received another statue as the owner/trainer of Judy the Beauty (Ghostzapper), who was named outstanding female sprinter. 

“It took me 30 years and a hundred pounds to get back here,” Ward quipped. 

Two-time defending champion turf male Wise Dan (Wiseman’s Ferry) was a finalist once more in that category for 2014, but was up against a pair of Breeders’ Cup-winning homebreds from Flaxman Holdings, Karakontie (Jpn) (Bernstein) and Main Sequence (Aldebaran). During his 5-year-old campaign for trainer Graham Motion, Main Sequence put together a four-race winning sequence in Grade I events, highlighted by his spectacular surge to victory in the GI Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita. Maria Niarchos was on hand to accept the statue. It was the third Eclipse Award for the Niarchos operation, whose star Miesque doubled up on turf female honors in 1988-89. 

“I’m slightly overwhelmed and delighted, so long live 2015,” said Maria Niarchos. 

Niarchos admitted to being a bad speaker, but bravely returned to the stage to receive Main Sequence’s second Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding older male. 

Jockey Rosie Napravnik, who announced her retirement memorably after her GI Breeders’ Cup Distaff aboard champion Untapable, was applauded loudly by the crowd when she arrived to present the Special Eclipse Award to Michael Blowen’s Old Friends. 

But without a doubt, the biggest reception of the night was the standing ovation for Tom Durkin and his Eclipse Award of Merit. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve given an Eclipse Award to a person who’s allergic to horses,” Durkin quipped. “I don’t really deserve it, but I’ll taaaaaake it. This is on behalf of all racecallers everywhere. When I look at this statue, I will think of names from Arazi to Zenyatta.” Durkin then rattled off a host of Hall of Fame runners, and summed up the list with, “and even a horse named Arrrrrr!”