My Eclipse votes

[cj]

Can't change them now, but feel free to rip away.

[GMB@BP]

Looks good to me.

Wonder if we will ever see another Jockey from the west coast win an Eclipse, seems like its almost always a NY rider.

[Fager Fan]

I hate the people Eclipses. It seems none of the voters can be bothered to look at the number and quality of stock to see who really did an exemplary job. And in the case of the trainers, how many of their horses they're really training.

[cj]

Looks good to me.

Wonder if we will ever see another Jockey from the west coast win an Eclipse, seems like its almost always a NY rider.

They have the most purse money, and thus draw the best riders. It could change, but probably not anytime soon.

[thaskalos]

Can't change them now, but feel free to rip away.

They should add a category for "Best TV-Personality of the Year". Why should Todd Schrupp be denied this award year after year?

[Fred Mertz]

Just out of curiosity, how do you measure/assess best trainer of the year? Thanks.

Yours does train Gun Runner.

[cj]

Just out of curiosity, how do you measure/assess best trainer of the year? Thanks.

Yours does train Gun Runner.

That was a big part of it for me, Gun Runner. There are no set criteria or anything. It was tough for me to pick between Chad and Steve.

[GMB@BP]

Its interesting that Pletcher is one short of having the same amount of Eclipse awards as Bob Baffert and Wayne Lukas combined.

[cj]

Its interesting that Pletcher is one short of having the same amount of Eclipse awards as Bob Baffert and Wayne Lukas combined.

I think many voters just default to the money title winner.

[dilanesp]

Can't change them now, but feel free to rip away.

Are you sure about your steeplechase selections? :)

[cj]

Are you sure about your steeplechase selections? :)

I did my best!

[AstrosFan]

What date is the awards?

[classhandicapper]

No arguments here. We have very similar selections. I think we are different in the top slot on female sprinter (which was a very difficult category), trainer, and a couple of 2nds and 3rds we have flip flopped.

[Fager Fan]

The press shouldn't vote on the people awards. For the most part, for example, they have no clue what superior horsemanship is. Trainers should vote for the trainer award, Breeders for Breeders, jockeys for jockeys, owners for owners.

[cj]

The press shouldn't vote on the people awards. For the most part, for example, they have no clue what superior horsemanship is. Trainers should vote for the trainer award, Breeders for Breeders, jockeys for jockeys, owners for owners.

I'd be fine with that, but plenty of bad trainers and jockeys out there that don't their crafts either. :)

Other sports do the same thing. Cy Young isn't voted on by pitchers, etc. Interesting discussion.

[MonmouthParkJoe]

Can’t argue with those selections

Anywhere I can find a list of all the people that have a vote?

[Afleet]

Can't change them now, but feel free to rip away.

they don't have best juicer category?

[cj]

they don't have best juicer category?

I don't pick the categories. But if that was one:

Best Juicer (https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/breville-reg-the-juice-fountain-reg-elite/3246328?ioid=HH000120&mcid=PS_google_nonbrand_kitchenelectrics_&adpos=1t2&creative=227212244051&device=c&matchtype=b&network=g&mrkgadid=652663178&mrkgcl=609&rkg_id=h-a48fec1f834c59780995af7a60225949_t-1514673418&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwKebleay2AIVkGV-Ch2gdAAREAAYAiAAEgKojPD_BwE)

[Lemon Drop Husker]

Why Songbird in the 2 hole?

She only ran 3 times and beat nobody this year.

[cj]

Why Songbird in the 2 hole?

She only ran 3 times and beat nobody this year.

Thought it was a weak division, otherwise I wouldn't have picked three start Forever Unbridled 1st. She won her other two and narrowly lost to the champ. It wasn't one of my stronger opinions for sure.

[Lemon Drop Husker]

Thought it was a weak division, otherwise I wouldn't have picked three start Forever Unbridled 1st. She won her other two and narrowly lost to the champ. It wasn't one of my stronger opinions for sure.

Alright.

Honestly, my only real "beef" per say on your entire ticket.

:ThmbUp:

[Fager Fan]

I'd be fine with that, but plenty of bad trainers and jockeys out there that don't their crafts either. :)

Other sports do the same thing. Cy Young isn't voted on by pitchers, etc. Interesting discussion.

They may not be very good, but they probably still have more insight into good training jobs than most in the press. It's not who won the most G1 races.

The same goes breeders. There have been years where someone had 3 G1 winners out of a 12-mare broodmare band, yet Godolphin or someone gets the award for having 5 G1 winners out of their 250-mare broodmare band.

The same goes with owners. Repeat the rest of the paragraph above for them. I'd also look at whether they seem to be good managers of not just a star horse who happens to be in their barn, but the others as well, and how sporting they are.

It's been a pet peeve of mine for years that there is seemingly no in-depth thought about what makes those entities exemplary, just pick 3 at or near the top of the earnings list.

I think in sports such as baseball, it doesn't take that much expertise to be able to know quality of play when you see it. With horses, I think few understand that training a sound, talented animal to a G1 win can be a whole lot less difficult than what may be entailed in training another animal. I also don't know of many trainers who don't recognize (and downgrade for) the animals really being trained by others.

[Lemon Drop Husker]

They may not be very good, but they probably still have more insight into good training jobs than most in the press. It's not who won the most G1 races.

The same goes breeders. There have been years where someone had 3 G1 winners out of a 12-mare broodmare band, yet Godolphin or someone gets the award for having 5 G1 winners out of their 250-mare broodmare band.

The same goes with owners. Repeat the rest of the paragraph above for them. I'd also look at whether they seem to be good managers of not just a star horse who happens to be in their barn, but the others as well, and how sporting they are.

It's been a pet peeve of mine for years that there is seemingly no in-depth thought about what makes those entities exemplary, just pick 3 at or near the top of the earnings list.

I think in sports such as baseball, it doesn't take that much expertise to be able to know quality of play when you see it. With horses, I think few understand that training a sound, talented animal to a G1 win can be a whole lot less difficult than what may be entailed in training another animal. I also don't know of many trainers who don't recognize (and downgrade for) the animals really being trained by others.

Great.

Who do suggest?

[NTamm1215]

Great.

Who do suggest?

Klaravich should win the Owner's Eclipse. They had 3 different Grade I wins including the Preakness (King's Bishop and Frizette as well) and over 6.4 million in earnings. Juddmonte had $13.2 million in earnings in two races alone. They barely had over $3 million otherwise.

[Spalding No!]

Why Songbird in the 2 hole?

She only ran 3 times and beat nobody this year.
Did you follow the field from the Ogden Phipps to see how they faired the rest of the year?

Arguably the single most productive race this year.

[menifee]

Overall agree. But FM sprint were bad selections.

Ami's Mesa and Bar of Gold over Unique Bella?

Unique Bella won a G2, G1 and G3 sprinting. Also won a G3 and G2 routing which shouldn't count.

Ami's Mesa won a G3 on synthetic and finished second in the Breeders Cup. Other than that, you could have won those sprints at WO.

Bar of Gold finished 2nd in a G3 and won the Breeders Cup. Other than that no sprints in 2017.

You are giving way too much weight to the Breeders Cup. That race simply fell apart and resulted in a bizarre finish.

Unique Bella has a much better resume and is the better horse.

[classhandicapper]

Klaravich should win the Owner's Eclipse. They had 3 different Grade I wins including the Preakness (King's Bishop and Frizette as well) and over 6.4 million in earnings. Juddmonte had $13.2 million in earnings in two races alone. They barely had over $3 million otherwise.

Problems like these seem to come up all the time in the human categories.

How do you weight connections that had 1 horse that earned a ton of money and most of the Grade 1s vs. the connections that accomplished a little less overall but with a greater variety of horses?

How do you weight connections that have a ton of horses accumulating accomplishments on volume vs. another with with fewer accomplishments but better results based on percentages?

There are no rules or guidelines. It depends on what you personally value.

I remember having an internal debate with myself in the year Bob Baffert won because of American Pharaoah. No one would argue that Baffert was a bad selection. I think he won in a landslide. But I still think Chad Brown had the better overall training year because BB's earnings and Grade1s were heavily weighted by one great horse. CB did it with a variety of horses. He also did well on dirt. The uniqueness of the Triple Crown swung the vote.

[cj]

Overall agree. But FM sprint were bad selections.

Ami's Mesa and Bar of Gold over Unique Bella?

Unique Bella won a G2, G1 and G3 sprinting. Also won a G3 and G2 routing which shouldn't count.

Ami's Mesa won a G3 on synthetic and finished second in the Breeders Cup. Other than that, you could have won those sprints at WO.

Bar of Gold finished 2nd in a G3 and won the Breeders Cup. Other than that no sprints in 2017.

You are giving way too much weight to the Breeders Cup. That race simply fell apart and resulted in a bizarre finish.

Unique Bella has a much better resume and is the better horse.

All of Unique Bella's wins were in races restricted to 3yo other than the LA Express race which was a very, very weak race. It was a very weak division this year in my opinion so I weighted the BC quite heavily.

[GMB@BP]

All of Unique Bella's wins were in races restricted to 3yo other than the LA Express race which was a very, very weak race. It was a very weak division this year in my opinion so I weighted the BC quite heavily.

Has there ever been a year that the BC FM sprint champion has not been the eclipse award winner since the race was instituted?

I cant recall one, its a defacto one race award.

[dilanesp]

Problems like these seem to come up all the time in the human categories.

How do you weight connections that had 1 horse that earned a ton of money and most of the Grade 1s vs. the connections that accomplished a little less overall but with a greater variety of horses?

How do you weight connections that have a ton of horses accumulating accomplishments on volume vs. another with with fewer accomplishments but better results based on percentages?

There are no rules or guidelines. It depends on what you personally value.

I remember having an internal debate with myself in the year Bob Baffert won because of American Pharaoah. No one would argue that Baffert was a bad selection. I think he won in a landslide. But I still think Chad Brown had the better overall training year because BB's earnings and Grade1s were heavily weighted by one great horse. CB did it with a variety of horses. He also did well on dirt. The uniqueness of the Triple Crown swung the vote.

The TC really wreaks havoc with these awards. They voted Affirmed HOTY in 1978, which raises the question of how many times would Seattle Slew have had to beat his ass to swing the vote.

[Fager Fan]

The TC really wreaks havoc with these awards. They voted Affirmed HOTY in 1978, which raises the question of how many times would Seattle Slew have had to beat his ass to swing the vote.

I wouldn't call it havoc. I'm neither a big fan of Baffert or American Pharoah, but the series is hard, and Baffert did it, kept the horse in good form, and sound, and had him win the BCC after (along with other races). Affirmed beat far better to win his TC than did Slew, so I wouldn't beat up on Affirmed too much here. He won the TC and more that year, he deserved it.

So to the earlier poster, that was a harder feat than Brown winning a few races with multiple horses. Baffert absolutely deserved the award that year. This is a good example of looking at an exemplary training job, and that the trainer and not an assistant did, that should count for more than who with their 200 head of $500k and up horses won the most.

[chuckster1968]

Great Accuracy; disagree on the trainer position, I would give top trainer to Chad Brown then Asmussen and Karl Broberg... Chad Brown for the quality of the horses he brings

Also, I believe Battle of Midway better 3 year old than West Coast. overall by the end of the year.

[classhandicapper]

So to the earlier poster, that was a harder feat than Brown winning a few races with multiple horses. Baffert absolutely deserved the award that year. This is a good example of looking at an exemplary training job, and that the trainer and not an assistant did, that should count for more than who with their 200 head of $500k and up horses won the most.

You believe the extraordinary job Baffert did with American Pharaoah carries more weight than other brilliant accomplishments that year. I have no problem with that. Most agreed with you. That's why he got the award.

My point is only that it's a subjective judgement, perhaps a tradition because it's the Triple Crown, but there's no rule that says you should put more value on a bigger accomplishment with one horse than more accomplishments with many horses or vice versa.

There are tough decisions every year that depend on how you weight certain things that informed people might disagree about.

By the way, Chad Brown had an amazing year and not just because he gets good stock or had high volume. His percentages were incredible also and he started proving versatility.

(When you are making an assault on the Triple Crown and Dortmund is your second string, you are also getting good stock and doing a great job of training).

[classhandicapper]

All of Unique Bella's wins were in races restricted to 3yo other than the LA Express race which was a very, very weak race. It was a very weak division this year in my opinion so I weighted the BC quite heavily.

I wound up voting for Unique Bella, but I struggled with the decision for that very reason. I think a horse like Paulassilverlining deserved some consideration. She won 2 Grade 1s and a Grade 2 before tailing off. I put her second but easily could have used 2-3 other horses and flipped positions among the 4-5.

That category was rough. It wasn't easy weighting all the issues (at least for me).

[Fager Fan]

You believe the extraordinary job Baffert did with American Pharaoah carries more weight than other brilliant accomplishments that year. I have no problem with that. Most agreed with you. That's why he got the award.

My point is only that it's a subjective judgement, perhaps a tradition because it's the Triple Crown, but there's no rule that says you should put more value on a bigger accomplishment with one horse than more accomplishments with many horses or vice versa.

There are tough decisions every year that depend on how you weight certain things that informed people might disagree about.

By the way, Chad Brown had an amazing year and not just because he gets good stock or had high volume. His percentages were incredible also and he started proving versatility.

(When you are making an assault on the Triple Crown and Dortmund is your second string, you are also getting good stock and doing a great job of training).

The fact is that Brown, Pletcher, and Baffert (and to a slightly lesser extent, Asmussen, Hollendorfer, and a few others) are playing a numbers game. They are managers of a far-flung racing stable, but not really the hands-on trainers of those horses. Their assistants are really the trainers. But it works for them, because for reasons I'll never understand, owners with top horses keep sending them their horses.

Brown particularly has been interesting to watch. The guy got sent made horses from Europe and surprise, did well with them here, and that's how he got more horses. I'm pretty sure that it's only been over the past year that he's won grade 1s with horses his stable has managed since the start of their careers or done it on dirt. Brown is really driven to be at the top, and I'm sure would double his 300 head (or however many) if he can. And he cares a ton about that percentage. When Brown, Pletcher, Baffert, etc. can pick among a handful in their barn to go into any given race, it becomes far less difficult to put up a good percentage.

I've grown to very much dislike the game that these guys play. It's great for their resumes and bank accounts, but it's so patently unfair to other trainers (and their owners), and it's bad for the sport. They can have horses drop dead or get rare illnesses and all sorts of things but have become untouchable, as if they run the tracks instead of the other way around. They were talking in the obit of Van Berg that they used to have a rule about a trainer having to see his horses every 4 days at minimum to be considered the trainer of that horse. We need that rule back, and I'd propose that it needs to be stiffer than just seeing them every 4 days, but instead spending at least 2-3 days with those horses each week.

[VigorsTheGrey]

Can't change them now, but feel free to rip away.

You did real well...I think you only missed on Good Magic and Chad Brown...did Evin get best apprentice...?

[cj]

You did real well...I think you only missed on Good Magic and Chad Brown...did Evin get best apprentice...?

Yes, he did.

Most winners were pretty obvious, but I don't think I made any boneheaded votes like some I saw at least. :)

[upthecreek]

They should add a category for "Best TV-Personality of the Year". Why should Todd Schrupp be denied this award year after year?

I happened to tune in when he was making an ass of himself presenting the award for horseplayer of the year--5 mins. of my life I wont get back.