Watch: Eclipse finalist Crispin discusses breakout season

Jockey Alexander Crispin is one of three finalists for the Eclipse Award as outstanding apprentice of 2020. The winners in 17 equine and human categories will be announced during a virtual ceremony starting at 8 p.m. Thursday.

Maryland-based riders have captured 11 of the 46 Eclipse Awards as champion apprentice, the most recent being Weston Hamilton in 2018. Other winners are Chris McCarron (1974), Ronnie Franklin (1978), Alberto Delgado (1982), Allen Stacy (1986), Kent Desormeaux (1987), Mike Luzzi (1989), Mark Johnston (1990), Jeremy Rose (2001), Ryan Fogelsonger (2002) and Victor Carrasco (2013). Hamilton and Carrasco continue to be based in Maryland.

Maryland Jockey Club host and analyst Naomi Tukker had a chance to talk to Crispin about his 2020 season and what it would be like to win the Eclipse Award.

Crispin graduated from Puerto Rico’s famed Escuela Vocacional Hipica in December 2019 and made his pro debut last Jan. 1 at Hipodromo Camarero. After coming to the U.S. late last winter, Cripsin was fifth in his mainland debut aboard Time Marches On March 7, 2020, at Turfway Park.

He continued to ride in the Midwest, picking up his first win on March 12 on Thorpe d’Oro at Turfway, until moving his tack to Delaware Park for the summer. Crispin finished the Delaware meet as its leading apprentice, ranking second overall with 58 wins and fourth with more than $1.3 million in purse earnings.

Crispin arrived in Maryland in late October, two weeks into Laurel Park’s fall meet, and wound up leading all apprentice riders and ranking third overall with 29 wins while banking $725,920 in purses earned.