Eclipse Awards: Voters face tough call in sprint divisions
Identifying sprint champions this year will be challenging enough for Eclipse Award voters. Picking three finalists in the male and female categories will not be easy, either.
No fewer than 15 sprinters have won a Grade 1 stakes in 2024. Not at least one. Just one. Top-level victories often are the difference between honored champions and unrequited finalists. This year they are more like tie makers than breakers.
Santa Anita offers the Malibu (G1) and La Brea (G1) on Thursday. Although they might help the championship cases of the winners, they will not clinch racing Heismans for anyone.
Shown alphabetically, these are the cases for and against the horses who appear to be the top contenders in each division.
Male sprinter
Pluses: The Jaipur (G1) was the wow moment for this 5-year-old trained by Steve Asmussen. Cogburn’s 59.80-second dash around 5 1/2 furlongs of Saratoga turf set a world record and produced the year’s best Beyer Speed Figure of 114, according to Daily Racing Form. That triumph for owners Clark Brewster and Bill and Corrine Heiligbrodt was bookended by Grade 2 wins at Churchill Downs and Kentucky Downs that also yielded top-five Beyers.
Minuses: Cogburn looked like a winner in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. If only the wire had come 50 yards sooner. Fading from first to fifth as a 4-5 favorite was tough enough, but a bigger problem is that no turf specialist in the four-decade Breeders’ Cup era has been named male sprint champion.
Mullikin
Pluses: Before the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, there was a lot to praise and little to fault this year with Mullikin. His four wins in as many starts came by a combined 16 1/4 lengths for trainer Rodolphe Brisset, an impressive feat for the 4-year-old Violence colt owned by Siena and WinStar farms. His two graded scores included a 5 3/4-length runaway in the Forego (G1).
Minuses: A third-place result as the 3-1 favorite in the Breeders’ Cup blemished Mullikin’s sprint performances. A subsequent second-place finish to Locked in this month’s one-turn Cigar Mile (G2) is a contentious point in this category, but the defeat at Del Mar may have left the bigger scar.
Straight No Chaser
Pluses: He won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, reeling in Bentornato in the stretch to deliver as the 6-1 fourth choice in the division’s most important race. Trained by Dan Blacker, the Speightster horse owned by MyRacehorse also finished first by 6 1/4 lengths in the Santa Anita Sprint Championship (G2).
Minuses: With only three starts all year, the body of work is skimpy. Coming off a nearly one-year break to heal a fetlock injury, he missed the board in his 5-year-old debut, a fourth-place result in the Runhappy (G3) at Pimlico.
The Chosen Vron
Pluses: A second consecutive triumph in the Bing Crosby (G1) ran The Chosen Vron’s winning streak to six for owner-trainer Eric Kruljac. Five of those wins came this year, starting with the San Carlos (G3). Even his season-ending loss by a neck to Raging Torrent in the Pat O’Brien (G2) was rewarded with one of his four triple-digit Beyers this year.
Minuses: The 6-year-old gelding was a vet scratch from the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. His untimely ankle problem underscored a glaring if unfair impression that The Chosen Vron is like Gonzaga, a regular-season power who never wins the big dance. Ten consecutive victories across three seasons in state-bred races are at once a shiny object and a pejorative asterisk.
The winner of the Malibu
Pluses: Breeders’ Cup Sprint runner-up Bentornato and Pat O’Brien winner Raging Torrent each have a Grade 2 win this year. Adding the Malibu on Thursday would bring the winner to the same level as all the other sprinters with one Grade 1 triumph each. Recency bias would not hurt, either.
Minuses: Bentornato built much of his 2024 résumé on restricted stakes. Raging Torrent soured his case by finishing seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. There also is the matter that the Malibu is only for 3-year-olds.
Female sprinter
Society
Pluses: In her second start off a 9 1/2-month break, this Gun Runner mare won by 3 1/4 lengths in the Ballerina Handicap (G1) at Saratoga. Asmussen trained Society for 10 weeks up to the Breeders’ Cup, where she dueled Soul of an Angel and finished a close second in the Filly & Mare Sprint.
Minuses: Society had only three races during her 5-year-old season for owner Peter Blum. They started in June with a bumpy, third-place finish trying to defend her 2023 win in the Chicago (G3) at Churchill Downs.
Soul of an Angel
Pluses: She made the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint her Grade 1 triumph. Since spring, when the 5-year-old was moved to new partners led by C2 Racing Stable and to trainer Saffie Joseph Jr., stakes wins followed in a May Grade 2 mile at Aqueduct and a September Grade 3 at Gulfstream Park.
Minuses: The two graded victories for the Atreides mare came at long odds, suggesting fluky outcomes. Yes, one was a one-turn mile at Aqueduct. Soul of an Angel was durable with 10 starts, but she had only two pure sprints.
Sweet Azteca
Pluses: A four-race winning streak included the Great Lady M (G2) and Rancho Bernardo Handicap (G3) sprints. Pam Ziebarth’s 4-year-old homebred filly sired by Sharp Azteca earned a 106 Beyer for her five-length win in the Great Lady M, the best for any female horse going less than a mile on dirt this year.
Minuses: Trainer Michael McCarthy said Sweet Azteca was listless in the days before the Breeders’ Cup, so he took her out of consideration for the Filly & Mare Sprint. That came after she faded to finish last of four starters when she was the odds-on favorite in the Chillingworth (G3) at Santa Anita. Her Grade 1 victory came in the Beholder Mile, the key word being mile.
Pluses: A narrow second to the late Alva Starr in the Madison (G1) was followed by a victory in the Derby City Distaff (G1) and the Chicago (G3), both times as a favorite at Churchill Downs. The 4-year-old Gun Runner filly co-owned and trained by Cherie DeVaux had $929,000 in earnings this year.
Minuses: A flat third at even money in the Ballerina (G1) at Saratoga and a never-threatening seventh in the Breeders’ Cup prevented Vahva from cementing her championship case. Going 2-for-2 at Churchill and 0-for-3 elsewhere could be a repellent to voters.
Ways and Means
Pluses: After three route-going losses, Ways and Means was refocused on sprints. A 2 1/2-length romp through the Saratoga mud in the Test (G1) and a four-length victory through the Aqueduct slop in the Gallant Bloom (G2) validated the faith bettors showed in making her odds-on for both.
Minuses: The 3-year-old filly bred and owned by Seth Klarman would have made it 4-for-4 this year as a favorite and 3-for-3 in sprints had she not finished fifth in the Breeders’ Cup.
The winner of the La Brea
Pluses: Kopion and One Magic Philly have enough sprints in their past performances to make a championship argument with a win Thursday in this seven-furlong test for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita. Each has a Grade 3 victory to her name this year.
Minuses: One Magic Philly was a non-factor coming home sixth in the Breeders’ Cup. Kopion has not raced since April, when she lost by 16 lengths finishing fourth in the Santa Anita Oaks (G2). Like the males in the Malibu, the La Brea does not include older fillies and mares.
Who should win?
I gave up my Eclipse Award vote this year for reasons that are more boring than compelling. That story can wait for a much slower day. I did not, however, give up my opinions.
The Chosen Vron was a sweet story, but that does not mean all those state-bred stakes are worthy of a championship. He would miss my cut for finalists.
Mullikin and Straight No Chaser have Grade 1 and 2 wins to their name. Mullikin would hold an edge in that head-to-head matchup because of his third in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.
Cogburn stands a cut above with his world record in a Grade 1 and his two Grade 2 victories. His Breeders’ Cup flop notwithstanding, he looks like a champion, even if his pet surface was greener than usual.
By process of elimination in the female division, Sweet Azteca is out for having gone a mile for her Grade 1 win. Soul of an Angel won twice when she was focused on sprints, but that is a thin case. Ways and Means won a Grade 1 and a Grade 2 but came in fifth in the Breeders’ Cup, so she merits consideration as a finalist. The same goes for Society, whose top-level win was augmented when she hit the board twice in graded stakes.
That leaves Vahva. She won a Grade 1, finished second and third in two others and had a Grade 3 victory. Much like Sierra Leone deserves added consideration for how many times he was in the money in the 3-year-old male category, Vahva should get the same respect among female sprinters.
If there were betting available for these awards, it would be best not to single Cogburn and Vahva. Instead, spread wagers would be prudent across multiple categories. If only.