CALIFORNIA CHROME IS HORSE OF THE YEAR AGAIN
As wonderful and amazing as the Chrome is, the show is getting old from one standpoint – the owner. Perry Martin, who still co-owns the horse, had a dreadful acceptance speech for Horse of the Year…
Chrome at Taylor Made – photo by Laura Donnell for Taylor Made
with files from horse-races.net..
The 46th annual Eclipse Awards were held Saturday night at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Florida, honoring the champions of North American racing in 2016. Of the 264 eligible voters representing the NTRA, the NTWAB and Daily Racing Form, 248 (93.94%) took part in this year’s voting. Finalists were determined in each category by voters’ top three selections, using a 10-5-1 point basis. Eclipse Award winners are determined solely by first place votes. There were three categories with a unanimous winner this year: 2-year-old Male, 3-year-old Female, and Older Male.
California Chrome was named Horse of the Year as well as the unanimous choice for Champion Older Male. These gave him a total of four Eclipse title along with Champion 3-year-old Male and Horse of the Year in 2014. California Chrome won 7 of 8 starts this year, including the Dubai World Cup and the TVG Pacific Classic to become the all-time leading North American money earner with $14,502,650. He is only the third horse since the award was made official in 1938 to be named Horse of the Year in non-consecutive years, after 1952 and 1954 champion Native Dancer, and 1981 and 1984 champion John Henry.
Horse-races.net has a super listing of all winners with photos and vote tallies…
http://www.horse-races.net/library/eclipse16-winners.htm
RAFAEL HERNANDEZ INJURED AT TURFWAY
Woodbine’s newest jocket Rafael Hernandez was unseated during the second race at Turfway Park on Friday evening, when his mount clipped heels and stumbled down the backstretch. According to the Daily Racing Form, Hernandez suffered a laceration to his right knee which will force him to miss five weeks of racing.
Following the race, a stewards inquiry led to the disqualification of Just A Dixie Dunk, ridden by Albin Jiminez, for interference with Hernandez’ mount Irish Filibuster. Though Irish Filibuster did not go all the way to the ground, his stumble was forceful enough to unseat Hernandez. Irish Filibuster galloped around the track trailing the racehorses, but later had to be euthanized after diagnosed with a broken knee.
Hernandez is a veteran of over 2,000 career victories, and spent much of 2016 at Woodbine.
PEGASUS POST POSITION PARTY
Arrogate’s final Pegasus workout – Saturday at Santa Anita – from TVG. Arrogate heads to Florida for a Tuesday arrival.
Post positions for the richest horse race in the world – the $12 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) –
will be drawn Monday, Jan. 23 at Pegasus Park at Gulfstream Park.
The park will open at 4:30 p.m. and the post position draw will take place at 5 p.m.
The inaugural running of the innovative Pegasus World Cup Invitational, to be contested at nine furlongs, will
feature one of the most highly anticipated match-ups in Thoroughbred racing history between Arrogate and
California Chrome.
Others expected to try and upset the two Horse of the Year candidates include Keen Ice, the only horse to beat
Triple Crown winner American Pharoah during his 3-year-old season, Woodward (G1) winner Shaman Ghost, Clark
Handicap (G1) runner-up Breaking Lucky, Stephen Foster (G1) winner Noble Bird, and South American import Eragon.
The post position draw will be streamed on http://www.gulfstreampark.com/racing/xbtv-live and
http://www.xbtv.com/.
First race post time for Pegasus World Cup Invitational Day is 11:30 a.m. The race will be televised on NBC from
4:30-6 p.m. For more information and tickets, go to PegasusWorldCup.com.
What: Post position draw for Pegasus World Cup Invitational
Where: Pegasus Park, Gulfstream Park
When: 4:30-7 p.m., Monday, Jan. 23
Draw: 5 p.m.
