On Monday night, the most anticipated Horse of the Year announcement in 26 years highlights the 40th annual Eclipse Awards dinner, which is to be held at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach Hotel in Florida.
Will it be the wildly popular mare who had won all five of her starts in 2010, Zenyatta or will it be the nation’s leading older horse, who won the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Blame?
The President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Alex Waldrop will make the announcement and it is expected to come between 9:30 and 10 p.m. Eastern Time at the end of what promises to be a marathon evening. To the black-tie dinner, more than 500 people are expected to attend.
For that Eclipse Award, the colt Blame and the filly Zenyatta are finalists. At Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky, Blame beat a fast-closing Zenyatta by a head Nov. 6 in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. In Zenyatta’s 20-race career, it was the only loss.
Racing writers and racetrack officials are the Eclipse Awards voters. On Jan.4, the voting was completed and in each category, the three top vote getters were identified as finalists. In racing publications, some writers said they voted for Zenyatta, as she generated a lot of publicity for racing and because she won five of her six 2010 races. Other writers said that they voted for Blame, as Blame beat Zenyatta. Blame had won four of the five 2010 races.
Two horses that began their careers at Calder Casino & Race Course, Awesome Feather and Big Drama are favored to win other Eclipse awards. For the 2-Year-Old Filly Award, Awesome Feather is a finalist. She won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filly stakes Nov. 5 and has won all six of her 2010 races.
Other categories are slam-dunk decisions and are as close as the Zenyatta-Blame battle. Lookin At Lucky (3-year-old male), Goldikova (female turf horse), Uncle Mo (2-year-old male), Awesome Feather (2-year-old filly) and Blind Luck (3-year-old filly) are expected to win by landslide margins.
Finalists Ramon Dominguez, Garrett Gomez and John Velazquez could be separated by only a few votes in one of the most interesting categories, the top jockey.