When you see such an overwhelming vote margin for champion 3-year-old Eclipse Award of 243 first-place votes for Arrogate to Exaggerator and Nyquist's two votes, what immediately comes into question are the standards of those that give out Eclipse Awards. I am not so sure these standards benefit the sport. I write as a fan of horse racing–not an owner or breeder or someone in the industry.
The first question is whether there should be “standards” at all, or whether the award should go to whatever eligible horse that the voting turf writer considers the best, with that individual voter deciding for himself/herself what those standards should be. If you value horses running, and racing fans do, there is concern over the selection of Arrogate.
The nearly unanimous selection of Arrogate for champion 3-year-old teaches three things. First, a horse can literally earn end-of-the-year championship honors for only two performances in stakes company if they are outstanding enough. Exaggerator won three of the more important Grade Is (and they do range in importance), including the Santa Anita Derby, the Preakness, and the Haskell, yet was resoundingly defeated.
Second, it teaches it doesn't pay to take chances, run, and lose. Exaggerator narrowly lost the GI Kentucky Derby in an exciting rendition, came in second in the GII San Vincent S. and third in the San Felipe. Exaggerator also threw in a few clunkers, such an 11th in the GI Belmont S., an 11th in the GI Travers S., and a seventh in the GII Pennsylvania Derby. It raises the question whether this is so decidedly inferior a performance as to warrant being deemed lesser to a horse that had two admittedly magnificently historic races, but did not run in any other stakes company all year.
As everyone into horse racing knows by now, Arrogate ran the fastest Travers ever, running 1 1/4 miles in 1:59.36 for a track record, “demolishing” (as some turf writers put it) the mark of 2:00 set by General Assembly in the 1979 Travers. Remarkably, General Assembly earned that time in the slop and beat Hall of Famer Davona Dale in doing so.
To his credit, Arrogate proved in spades that his Travers victory was not a fluke. This is not a given. The reader may not know that many of the horses that had the fastest times in Travers did not go on to remarkable post-Travers careers. General Assembly went on to win the Vosburgh at Aqueduct at seven furlongs, but that was it for his post-Travers victories. Honest Pleasure at 2:00.20 ran the third fastest Travers at the 10-furlong distance in 1976. While Honest Pleasure had a whole slew of stakes victories pre-Travers, his only stakes victory after the Travers was the Ben Ali H. the following year. On the other hand, Easy Goer, who had the fourth fastest 10-furlong Travers of all time with 2:00.80 time in 1989, went on to win the Woodward, the Jockey Gold Cup, and the Suburban. But then there is Thunder Rumble who had the fourth fastest 10-furlong Travers in his time of 2:00.99. He was the first New York-bred horse to win the Travers in 125 years when he won the race in 1992. But Thunder Rumble had only two post-Travers stakes wins, the Saratoga H. at four and the Governor S. at five.
The point is, Arrogate's duplication of a historical performance in his GI Breeder's Cup Classic proving that he was not a one horse wonder was hardly a foregone conclusion and is deserving of high praise. I could not wait to see him run again. But the connections of the horse that was completely absent from stakes company during the Kentucky Derby prep races, the Triple Crown and the Haskell made yet another decision–to skip the Jockey Gold Cup, the Pacific Classic and the Pennyslvania Derby. It paid to not race when it was time for Eclipse awards.
Finally, Arrogate's Eclipse Award teaches that winning the Breeder's Cup Classic has exaggerated importance in end of the year honors. I understand that his race is not just another Grade I, but there needs to be limits on how much weight should be placed on just one race.
Look, I am just a racing fan and can appreciate the historical significance of Arrogate's two outstanding performances. But in an era where horses are running less and less, I have concerns whether nearly unanimously end-of-year honors to a horse that only ran in two stakes races is a good thing.
It is a valuable thing for a racehorse to be durable and run. In almost no other sport (save those of a martial nature) could an athlete participate in so few occasions and win athlete of the year in his/her category.
Perhaps what the Eclipse Awards is some type of “Kingston” award, for most wins or most placed finishes to reward durable horses. Arrogate has already had accomplishments that a horse like Round Table or Bold Ruler never had. But those horses ran and that gives horse racing fans competition to watch–the very essence of sport.
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