HRN’s Capone gets honorable mention in Media Eclipse Awards

For his post-race interview with jockey Jackie Davis last summer at Saratoga, Horse Racing Nation’s Andrew Capone earned an honorable mention in the 2022 Media Eclipse Awards.

Winners and runners-up were announced in six categories Friday by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters.

See more on Andrew Capone's honorable-mention video.

Capone, who produced daily video previews and post-race jockey interviews at Saratoga, was honored in the audio-multimedia category. His “Jockey gets her 1st Saratoga win on filly trained by her dad” featured Davis, the daughter of Robbie Davis. The video was created and posted Aug. 13 after Davis rode Vallelujah to victory in the fifth race on the card.

Horse Racing Radio Network was the category winner for its live broadcast of the Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 4 and 5 at Keeneland. It marked the third time Mike Penna’s network won a Media Eclipse Award.

Other winners included:

Photography, Wendy Wooley, “Elbow Room Please,” The Paulick Report, Oct. 1.

Writing feature-commentary, Tim Layden, “Beneath the Super Bowl’s Turf: The Ghosts of Hollywood Park,” NBCSports.com, Feb. 8. 

Writing news-enterprise, Tom Law, “Big Tally,” Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, July 1.

Live television programming, NBC Sports, Breeders’ Cup, Nov. 4 and 5, Lindsay Schanzer, NBC Sports producer of horse racing.

Feature television programming, NBC Sports, “Cody’s Wish,” Nov. 5, Jack Felling, coordinating producer.

Winners will be presented their trophies at the 52nd annual Eclipse Awards at The Breakers Palm Beach in Florida on Jan. 26.

Audio-multimedia – Horse Racing Radio Network

Horse Racing Radio Network on-air team was led by Penna, who also is president of the company. The HRRN analyst team included Bobby Neuman, Jude Feld and Jeff Bloom. Keeneland announcer Kurt Becker provided the live call of the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

The broadcast was produced by Lee Dellapina along with engineer Shawn Seay. Production assistance was contributed by Feld, Justin Taylor, Keith O’Brien, Fanny Salmon and Michelle Penna.

Judges in the audio-multimedia category were Glenn Crouter, former lead television anchor for Woodbine Live Network and sports and lifestyle announcer for Newstalk 1010 in Toronto; Bob Curran, longtime vice president of corporate communications for The Jockey Club; and Julie Sarno, free-lance writer, former editorial staff member of BloodHorse, staff member at Meadowlands and department head at Del Mar.

Feature-commentary writing – Tim Layden

Layden, a writer-at-large for NBC Sports, won his third Media Eclipse Award for “Beneath the Super Bowl’s Turf: The Ghosts of Hollywood Park,” which was published on NBCSports.com on Feb. 8. Layden, from Simsbury, Conn., won his first Eclipse Award in 1987 for newspaper writing for Capital Newspapers in Albany, N.Y., and in 2018 for Sports Illustrated for his feature-commentary article on track announcer Chic Anderson.

Super Bowl LVI in February 2021 was being played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., which was once the site of Hollywood Park, one of America’s most prominent and successful racetracks.

Honorable mention in the feature-commentary category went to three-time Eclipse Award winner Natalie Voss for “After Rough Entry To The World, ‘Gumbo’ The Colt Is Overcoming The Odds,” which appeared in The Paulick Report on Sept. 5, and to former Eclipse Award winner Bryce Miller for “Complicated Case of Horse Racing Trainer Peter Miller Returns to Del Mar,” which was published in the San Diego Union-Tribune on July 21.

Judges in the feature-commentary category were Reid Cherner, former sports and racing writer and columnist for USA Today; Tom LaMarra, director of communications and backstretch services for the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association; and Amy Owens, communications associate at Keeneland.

News-Enterprise – Tom Law

In “Big Tally,” Law, born and raised in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., covered the 2022 Preakness for Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred and reported on the victory by Early Voting. This was the second Eclipse Award for Law, who shared the 2011 audio-multimedia and internet Award with Greg Charkoudian of Thoroughbred Times, where he worked for more than 14 years in Lexington, Ky., before joining ST Publishing as managing editor in 2012.

Honorable mention in the news-enterprise category went to five-time Eclipse Award winner Jay Hovdey for “Flightline Lands a Special Place in History,” which was published in the BloodHorse daily Sept. 4, and to Paul Halloran for “Fairytale” about Cody’s Wish, a story that was published in the Saratoga Special on Aug. 31.

Judges in the news-enterprise category were Bob Kieckhefer, racing writer for United Press International; Dan Liebman, former editor of BloodHorse and the State-Journal in Frankfort, Ky.; and Robert Yates, writer for Oaklawn media relations.

Television, live racing programming – NBC Sports

For the third consecutive year, NBC Sports won the Eclipse Award for live television programming for its broadcast on NBC, Peacock and USA Network, culminating its two-day coverage of the 39th Breeders’ Cup, highlighted by Flightline’s runaway win in the $6 million Classic.

Joining Schanzer on the production team were director Kaare Numme, assistant producer Caroline Sayer, assistant director Jared Sumner, associate director Jeff Burriesci and editorial producer Amy Zimmerman.

The NBC talent team was comprised of Ahmed Fareed, Jerry Bailey, Randy Moss, Britney Eurton, Donna Brothers, Kenny Rice, Nick Luck, Matt Bernier, Steve Kornacki and Larry Collmus.

Judges in the live television programming category were Jeannine Edwards, multiple award-winning reporter and analyst for ESPN from 1995 to 2018; Dick Jerardi, who covered more than three decades of Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup races for the Philadelphia Daily News; and Chris Svendsen, director for CBS Sports.

Television feature – NBC Sports

In “Cody’s Wish” NBC Sports produced a feature that aired on USA Network on Nov. 5 on one of the most heartwarming stories of 2022 about teenager Cody Dorman and the racehorse Cody’s Wish. Dorman was stricken at birth with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects many parts of the body. At age 4, in a chance visit through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Cody went to Gainsborough Farm in Versailles, Ky., and immediately bonded with a young foal who was later named Cody’s Wish.

After Cody’s Wish had begun racing, Dorman came to see him win his first race at Churchill Downs in 2021. Cody went to subsequent races to see Cody’s Wish win twice more. After the segment aired, Cody also was at Keeneland to see Cody’s Wish win the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

“Cody’s Wish” was narrated by former NBC award-winning broadcaster Tom Hammond. Ryan Yeager was the editor.

Honorable mention in the television-feature category went to ESPN for “Bob Baffert Conversation,” produced by Kris Kugler, which aired May 6.

Judges in the television-features category were Liz Bronstein, television showrunner and executive producer and creator of the Animal Planet 2008-09 series “Jockeys”; Bruce Casella, television producer and director at Pushin a Rock Productions; and Lenny Shulman, Emmy Award-winning writer-producer, author and former senior correspondent for BloodHorse.

Photography – Wendy Wooley

Wooley, from Lexington, Ky., won her first Eclipse Award for “Elbow Room Please,” a head-on photograph of the $500,000 Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs on Oct. 1, depicting a furious stretch battle between Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike and eventual 2021 Kentucky Derby runner-up Hot Rod Charlie. Wooley’s image captured Rich’s Strike’s jockey Sonny Leon attempting to elbow jockey Tyler Gaffalione and his mount Hot Rod Charlie in the battle to the wire. Hot Rod Charlie prevailed in the Lukas Classic by a half-length.

Honorable mention in the photography category went to former Eclipse Award winner Scott Serio of Eclipse Sportswire for his photo “The Coach” of Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, which appeared first on Hipismo.net on Nov. 15.

Judges in the category were Mark Abraham, free-lance photographer and current deputy director of the U.S. Senate press photographers gallery; Rob Carr, Getty Images chief sports photographer; and Mike Kane, veteran Thoroughbred journalist and photographer.