Flatter: Daring to be different with Eclipse Awards & Pegasus

Its history may be short, but past performances tell us the winner of the Pegasus World Cup will carry even odds of winning an Eclipse Award in about a year or being voted into the Hall of Fame in about six.

National Treasure followed the Eclipse template Thursday night, 362 days after he won the Grade 1 race that has been valued at $12 million, $16 million, $9 million and now $3 million since the Donn Handicap was rebranded eight years ago. Knicks Go established that pattern. So did Arrogate and Gun Runner for the Hall of Fame.

Eclipse Awards recap: How the night went in Florida.

In that spirit, put me down for Saudi Crown being my early favorite to be the top older dirt male of 2025 after he wins Saturday at Gulfstream Park, even if he were to have his season cut short by breeding ambitions. Good connections, good draw, good tactics against good speed. I just hope it is a good price, nothing shorter than 4-1.

I wish I could put a futures bet down on that. If we can bet on the Oscars, why not the Eclipse Awards? There must be some offshore site that would take action, even if writing those very words compels me to advise “don’t bet on it. Even if you don’t get caught gambling, you could well lose the money you have in an online gaming account if the company faces charges, since the U.S. government seizes assets in these cases whenever possible.” The preceding message was brought to you by the FBI. You can look it up when G-men and G-women are not unsealing files on presidential assassinations.

As long as I do not put my snark on TikTok, I am informed I stand a decent chance of my message not being shunted into oblivion while the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether it still should be protected by some little memo called the First Amendment. That apparently will happen before the Supremes hear the case of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act. They are deciding Friday whether to put it on their docket, and we will learn that decision Monday morning.

I have plenty of pith left over from watching Thursday night’s Eclipse Awards. For the first time since COVID, when it was declared the show must go on pre-recorded, I did not attend. Travel is something I have been told to avoid. Not by the FBI or TikTok silencers but, instead, by the professionals who monitor the manifestations of what Tom Brokaw has called geezerdom. So much for my annual trip to the racing prom.

There was only so much I could squeeze into the live blog I did for Horse Racing Nation. There was so little breathing room in the show that I felt like a one-armed paper hanger. Or to put that in 21st-century vernacular, I was almost out of bandwidth.

A few oddities came to mind, perhaps even quirkier than male-turf champion Rebel’s Romance spending less time in America than it took Stuart Janney to make his acceptance speech last year.

How was it Tyler Gaffalione could be a finalist for champion jockey when he got no first-place votes? How is it Brian Hernandez Jr. was not a finalist when he got one more first-place vote than Gaffalione? I do know the answer, but no amount of rationalizing the cosmetics of otherwise meaningless second- and third-place votes makes that a good look.

Come to think of it, when Echo Zulu was the landslide champion 2-year-old filly of 2022, the other finalists were Juju’s Map and Pizza Bianca. They got zero votes each. The two runners-up who had one first-place vote apiece were Twilight Gleaming and Baytown Valleygirl. Ah, the faded memories of Jeremy Balan’s protest vote. We somehow survived.

Of course we had the perfunctory “whoever the one voter who yada yada yada should have his voted taken away forever.” Nothing like mob rule to buttress the underpinnings of a supposed democracy. I am sure anyone who bet on Rich Strike to win Kentucky Derby 2022 was happy there was no such edict about lonely souls going against a tide of conventional wisdom at the betting window. It seems like a dichotomy to castigate an unpopular position in the court of public opinion while rewarding it in pari-mutuels.

This time the blowback on social media was aimed at the single vote for Bob Baffert to be the trainer of the year. Twelve months ago it was the singleton that went to the late Practical Move for horse of the year. We never did find out who that voter was, because it was cast either by Daily Racing Form or the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, neither of which reveals its votes or even its voters. For all we know there may be someone operating a vacuum cleaner with one hand who had an online Eclipse ballot in the other.

Racing is hardly alone. We saw that this week when one voter decided Ichiro Suzuki was not worthy of being a first-ballot entry in the baseball hall of fame. Philip Nolan did not face such a pillorying when Edward Everett Hale wrote The Man Without a Country 161 years ago. Then again, when Nolan wanted to send a message back from sea, he probably put it in a burner bottle.

Contrarianism used to be charming. Now it is tantamount to heresy. That being the case, why do we bother to have a vote for the Eclipse Awards? I guess it is for the same reason we cannot agree on the identity of a single racing czar let alone the concept of having one in America. Sorry, commissioner Repole.

Ideally, it seems, we just gather a few grand panjandrums into a dark room, they decide the winners, and a couple hundred people nod their ballots up and down.

The last time I checked, a unanimous vote for the hall of fame or an Eclipse Award does not come with special gold plating. It does not merit an extra line on the biographical narrative that shall last for all time, or at least until the writing fades. They don’t even take the plaque or trophy and put a ding in it just to signify a little resistance. But that is an eternal observation. Besides, shouldn’t the contrarian feelings against contrarians be protected, too?

In what may be the most contentious point of this bridge between the Thoroughbred snow ball at The Breakers and the winter blockbuster at Gulfstream Park, it says here the awards ceremony was much too hasty Thursday night. I felt like everyone was getting the bum’s rush, especially when they turned up the smooth jazz to abridge speeches. The house band sounded like someone piped in Water Colors channel 66 from SiriusXM.

This had nothing to do with the actual number of minutes the program took. That would be 112, not counting the 12 minutes of show-time drag to wait for a Santa Anita inquiry to be dealt with on FanDuel TV. This was more about a pace that set up for closers.

The Eclipse Awards are a no-win situation for so many people. For producers who have to endure divided opinion about the show being too long in person or too short on TV. For whomever types the graphics for the in-memoriam segment that always includes a misspelling. Yes, there was one Thursday night. Where’s Waldo? For voters who either are granted the privilege of queueing up in lockstep behind a single set of opinions or face the scars of ostracism. And for winners whose speeches don’t measure up to the prickly demands of onlookers.

I gave up my National Turf Writers and Broadcasters membership and with it my vote this year. The reasons are so boring that if I were to recite them in person, I would be that guy at the cocktail party who breaks up the group that was having a good time.

I did not, however, give up my opinions.

Kenny McPeek would have gotten my vote for trainer, because I think the story and the personality are intangibles that matter just as they did last year with Cody’s Wish. I thought Johannes deserved to be declared the best male on turf regardless of the flyover accomplishments of Rebel’s Romance. And I might have added a second streaming channel to get backstage reactions from the award winners without prolonging the show on the main channel. You’re welcome.

Now then, is anyone with me on Saudi Crown in the Pegasus?

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.