Is Flightline worthy of an Eclipse Award? Our voters weigh in

It took less than 82 seconds for Flightline to inject himself into this year’s Eclipse Awards conversation.

Should a horse who had not so much as touched the track for a graded stakes the first 359 days of 2021 be voted the champion male sprinter on the basis of a single Grade 1 victory in his age group and two other runaway wins in lower-level races?

No rival got within 11 1/2 lengths of Flightline in any of his three races, all victories. No other contender in his division had more than one Grade 1 win. Only one rival, Special Reserve, got more triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures from Daily Racing Form but zero Grade 1 scores.

On the other hand, Flightline raced only three times, and his biggest victory was not in open company but, rather, against other 3-year-olds.

It will take a lot more than 82 seconds to decide whether Flightline should leapfrog Aloha West, Dr. Schivel, Golden Pal, Jackie’s Warrior and Yaupon. But time is short. With a ballot deadline of Jan. 10, some of Horse Racing Nation’s voting members in the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters weighed in Wednesday.

Ed DeRosa: This year’s Eclipse Award for champion sprinter tests the question, do you vote for who would win a race among the contenders or the most accomplished sprinter? I.e., is it an award of style or substance? If the former, then Flightline is a slam dunk. But awards for me are about accomplishment. The lack of a Grade 1 win against older males disqualifies both Jackie’s Warrior and Flightline from consideration. As of right now I’m leaning toward Golden Pal.

Brad Stephens: I strongly considered voting for Flightline after his dominant win Sunday. But even with the wide margin and gaudy speed figure, he still made only one stakes start this season, and it came against 3-year-olds. If he replicated that effort in a race like the Alfred G. Vanderbilt, Bing Crosby or Forego, he would have my vote. Without a win against older sprinters on his resume, I will look elsewhere. Aloha West won the division’s most important race and, in a year where no sprinter won more than one Grade 1 event, he has my vote.

Chip Gehrke: My Eclipse ballot will have Flightline as my No. 3 choice, which, for me, is an extreme compliment. In my opinion there is no way he should be awarded the Eclipse off of his 2021 record. Outside of the hyperbole that casting a No. 1 vote for Flightline would be, it is extremely short-sighted and disrespectful to the horses who did the heavy lifting throughout the season, running much more and over multiple race tracks. Running in one stakes race the last week of the season is not Eclipse-worthy, no matter the result. Contrast that with Jackie’s Warrior, who in a 147-day span between May and September ran in five graded stakes against the best in his division, winning four of the five and finishing a close runner-up in the other. Jackie’s Warrior raced on six tracks in five states, facing the best in his division. He defeated the highly regarded and eventual Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Life is Good in one of the best races of 2021, the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes (G1) at Saratoga. Flightline will have his chance at an Eclipse in 2022 if he can put together a legitimate and Eclipse-worthy résumé. Lastly, I believe that casting a No. 1 vote for Flightline would be negligence by Eclipse voters who would basically render the entire 2021 season moot with gross recency bias over one race. I also believe all Eclipse Awards should have eligibility requirements, such as a minimum number of starts in stakes races to be eligible. No horse should be allowed to win an Eclipse off of one stakes appearance, ever.

Tom Pedulla: As much I am in awe of Flightline’s Malibu and cannot wait to see what he might become, any horse must have more than one impressive line on his résumé to earn my Eclipse vote. Voters are looking for black type, not maiden special weight and allowance optional claiming victories.

Laurie Ross: The buzz on social media is a raging debate between Dr. Schivel and the flashy newcomer Flightline. It all boils down to one question: Should we vote for the dazzling, lightly raced Flightline or someone more accomplished? There’s no doubting the breathtaking talent of Flightline. Only five horses have posted multiple triple-digit figures in the same stratosphere as Flightline in the last 17 years. As eye-catching as he is, Flightline isn’t as accomplished as the rest of the Eclipse Award candidates. Like the Oscars, the Eclipse Awards voting process reviews the candidate records for the year. Flightline owns victories against three insubstantial fields – maidens, allowance optional claimers and a weak edition of the Malibu Stakes. Only one Malibu rival, Dr. Schivel, owned a graded victory. Two other candidates, Dr. Schivel and the consistent Jackie’s Warrior, are more accomplished than Flightline. I can’t vote for Flightline this year as his is a case of few accomplishments against suspect fields. But I suspect next year is Flightline’s year.

Finally, yes, I have a vote. My DNA has me loathe to hop on a popular bandwagon. There is no shortage of horses who have looked like the next big thing only to fall far short of unrealistic expectations just one race later. Yes, Flightline’s 118 Beyer speaks for itself. But it also spoke in December. Would the Beyer team have given him that big a number had the race been run a week later? I doubt the subjective bar would have been set that high so early in a new year. Still, double-digit margins also speak for themselves, and so does what my eyes tell me about a horse that just looks the part of the best sprinter I have seen in 2021.

Before Sunday, my frontrunners, alphabetically, were Dr. Schivel, Golden Pal and Yaupon, The lean now is to Flightline. If only the deadline were not looming so quickly.

Years ago, sports writer Bob Padecky wrote in the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press-Democrat that “history is best written after the passage of time, smoothing out the raw edges of hyperactive impulse.”

How much smoothing can be done on an 82-second performance in the next 12 days?