TheEclipse Award is an AmericanThoroughbredhorse racing award named after the 18th-centuryBritishracehorse andsire,Eclipse.
AnEclipse Award Trophy is presented to the winner in each division. The trophy is made by a few small selected American foundries with expertise in studio bronze casting. It is then mounted on the hand-crafted native Kentucky walnut base to comprise the Eclipse Award on which a brass plate recites the award winner.
The equivalent award inAustralia is theAustralian Thoroughbred racing awards, inCanada theSovereign Awards, and inEurope, theCartier Racing Awards.
The Eclipse Awards were created by three independent bodies in 1971 to honor the champions of the sport.[1] Due to conflicting award winners forHorse of the Year in five years from 1949 to 1970, racing executive J.B. Faulconer gathered the interests ofDaily Racing Form and theThoroughbred Racing Associations (TRA), making them compromise on a unified set of awards, which would be called the Eclipse Awards.[2]
Although widely viewed as a national standard, they are not an official national award as Thoroughbred racing in the United States has nosport governing body. The Eclipse Awards selections are made by theNational Thoroughbred Racing Association,Daily Racing Form and theNational Turf Writers Association who select all finalists at the end of the year.[3] Those same voters then vote any of the three finalists in each category.
Winners are announced in January of the next year. J. B. Faulconer, the first full-time publicity director atKeeneland, is credited with starting the Eclipse Award program. TheLexington, Kentucky artist and sculptorAdalin Wichman designed the Eclipse Award, each of which is individually cast in the traditionallost wax method and is hand finished.
The Eclipse Awards are supported by official partners which in recent years has expanded significantly and in 2019The Jockey Club became one of them.[4]
Prior to creation of the Eclipse Awards, theThoroughbred Racing Associations of North America and theDaily Racing Form each published their own opinion of annual champions.
For more than a century, annual champions have been chosen by various bodies and these have been compiled and condensed with Eclipse Award winners byThe Blood-Horse magazine.[5] Majority ownerThe Jockey Club states that "BloodHorse magazine is the flagship publication" and that its "mission is to serve the Thoroughbred owner and breeder with integrity."[6] According toESPN,The Blood-Horse is the thoroughbred industry's most-respected trade publication.[7] TheNational Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Website is among the initiatives and organizations supported by The Jockey Club.[8] The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame uses the 1887-1935 Champions published byThe Blood-Horse when referencing champions in the biography of its inductees.[9][10]Churchill Downs Incorporated annually published a list of champions in which they state that "Champions prior to 1936 were selected retrospectively by a panel of experts as published byThe Blood-Horse magazine."[11] In his 2007 book titledMasters of the Turf: Ten Trainers Who Dominated Horse Racing's Golden Age, author andThoroughbred racinghistorianEdward L. Bowen used the 1887-1935 Champions published byThe Blood-Horse when referencing champions of that era.[12]
As well,Thoroughbred Heritage has their own list of "Champions of the Turf" with many from much earlier years based on a retrospective assessment by their own experts.[13]