Lady’s Secret Tops Eclipse Winners : For Filly, It’s Likely a Prelude to Horse-of-Year Award

Lady’s Secret, thoroughbred racing’s Iron Gray Lady, Tuesday was named an Eclipse Award winner as the best older filly or mare in 1986.

The filly, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Gene Klein and trained by Wayne Lukas, not only was the choice of all three voting groups--the National Turfwriters Assn., Daily Racing Form and Thoroughbred Racing Assns.--she was also voted No. 1 on all 229 votes cast.

Lady’s Secret is favored to win the horse-of-the-year award, which will be announced Jan. 30 at Aqueduct.

Bradley M. Shannon, owner of Manila, who was voted male turf champion, was asked at the awards news conference what chance he thought his colt had of being named horse of the year.

“Very, very slim,” Shannon said. “I think the filly is a great filly, the best filly to run in a long, long time.”

Lady’s Secret won 10 times as a 4 year old and was never out of the money in 15 starts, all graded starts. Three of her starts were against colts, and she won one of them--the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga. In her final race of the year, she won the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Distaff to boost her 1986 earnings to $1,871,053 and her career bankroll to $2,958,325.

Lukas, named trainer of the year, also trained Capote, voted the champion 2-year-old colt. Capote, beaten in his debut, won his only other three starts, including the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

Capote is owned by Barry Beal, Robert French Jr. and Klein. Klein and his wife were voted owners of the year.

Mel Stute also trained two Eclipse Award winners--Snow Chief, best 3-year-old colt, and Brave Raj, top 2-year-old filly. Snow Chief, the beaten favorite in the Kentucky Derby, won six of eight starts, including the Preakness, while Brave Raj also won six of eight races including the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filly. Both were injured before year’s end.

Manila finished second in voting for champion 3-year-old colts.

“I thought a lot of people would vote for him for 3-year-old because he raced against older horses all year and won the ($2-million) Breeders’ Cup Turf,” Shannon said.

On the grass, the 3-year-old Manila won seven of nine starts. In the Breeders’ Cup Turf, he finished ahead of Dancing Brave, considered by many racing observers to be the best horse in Europe in 20 years.

Other equine winners were Tiffany Lass, 3-year-old filly; Turkoman, older male; Estrapade, female turf; Smile, sprinter, and Flatterer, steeplechase.

All three voting groups voted for all but Turkoman and Tiffany Lass. The Thoroughbred Racing Assns. voted for Precisionist instead of Turkoman. The Daily Racing Form voted for Melair instead of Tiffany Lass.

Other human Eclipse winners were Pat Day, jockey; Allen Stady, apprentice jockey, and Paul Mellon, breeder. Mellon was selected by a six-member committee.

Other committee awards were ABC-TV for coverage of the Kentucky Derby; ABC Radio for coverage of the Triple Crown races; Louisiana Downs, which received a local television award for “Race Like the Wind,” and Janice Wilkman, who won a photo award for a picture of John Henry and groom Jose Mercado that appeared in the Oct. 30 Los Angeles Times.