Favorite Trick Is Voted Best of ’97

Favorite Trick, who won all eight of his races, most of them by comfortable margins, was a narrow winner in the vote for horse of the year for 1997.

The announcement was made Tuesday by actor John Forsythe, a couple of hours before the Eclipse awards banquet honoring all of last year’s champions. After beating out Skip Away, 1997’s best older horse, Favorite Trick became the first 2-year-old to win horse of the year since Secretariat in 1972. The only other 2-year-olds to be honored were Native Dancer (1954) and the filly Moccasin (1965), who won partial titles in years when two of the three current voting groups--the turf writers and track racing secretaries--conducted separate elections.

Needing a plurality from at least two of the three voting groups, Favorite Trick prevailed among the turf writers, 67-43, and held a 40-29 edge in the Daily Racing Form totals. The racing secretaries favored Skip Away, 16-11.

In the raw voting, Favorite Trick received 118 of the 299 votes. After him came Skip Away, 88; Gentlemen, 46; Silver Charm, 34; Formal Gold, 8; Spinning World, 2; Chief Bearhart, 1; Touch Gold, 1; and Ryafan, 1.

Sonny Hine, Skip Away’s trainer, appeared bitter about the outcome.

“We got the money, they got the award,” Hine said. “It’s politics. I don’t know what you have to do to win. My horse wins the $4-million race, and the other horse [Favorite Trick] is running under allowance conditions most of the time.”

It was Native Dancer’s nine for nine record 44 years ago that was approached by Favorite Trick last year. With trainer Patrick Byrne and jockey Pat Day, Favorite Trick traveled from Kentucky to New York and back in turning aside all rivals, then capped the season with a 5 1/2-length win in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Hollywood Park in November.

“This is a special colt,” Day said. “No 2-year-old has ever gone unbeaten and also won the Breeders’ Cup, so that says it all about this horse.”

Favorite Trick was a landslide winner in his own division. In results announced in early January, he polled 300 of the 301 votes cast by the turf writers, racing secretaries and the Daily Racing Form to win the Eclipse for best 2-year-old male. Skip Away, by contrast, edged out Gentlemen for the older-male-horse title.

This horse-of-the-year election was troubling for many voters. Favorite Trick was the only horse to dominate the entire year, but there are purists who believe 2-year-olds shouldn’t win because they’re untested in open company. Until he won the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the Breeders’ Cup Classic in his last two starts, Skip Away had been beaten in seven of nine races. Some voters supported Gentlemen, Silver Charm and Formal Gold, who all missed the Breeders’ Cup because of illness or injury. Gentlemen and Formal Gold were better than Skip Away in head-to-head battles, and Silver Charm, while not running after June, won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, two-thirds of the Triple Crown.

“All I did was buy a tuxedo--I didn’t know whether we were going to win or not,” said Joe LaCombe, the Brooklyn-born retired accounting executive who owns Favorite Trick in a partnership with John T.L. Jones’ Walmac International, a farm near Lexington, Ky.

On Byrne’s recommendation, LaCombe bought Favorite Trick for $100,000 a year ago at a Florida auction of unraced 2-year-olds. The colt had been sold as a yearling for $32,000.

“He had a beautiful stride and a great temperament,” LaCombe said.

At Churchill Downs the same day Silver Charm won the Kentucky Derby, Favorite Trick won his second race and his first stake. That margin was a neck, over Cowboy Dan, but the rest of the wins were more decisive. His biggest win in New York was in the Hopeful at Saratoga in August, which was followed by win No. 7 in the Lane’s End Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland in October and the Breeders’ Cup.

Byrne, who lost out to Bob Baffert, Silver Charm’s trainer, in a close Eclipse vote for best trainer, also trained Princess Diana, the champion 2-year-old filly. Byrne was forced to give up both horses when he took a private training job with Frank Stronach in late December.

Byrne’s early plan was to return Favorite Trick to the races by late February, but Bill Mott, the colt’s new trainer, isn’t expected to run him until early March at Gulfstream Park. Mott may run out of time getting Favorite Trick ready for the Kentucky Derby on May 2, but it could be just as well. A son of Phone Trick and Evil Elaine, Favorite Trick’s bloodlines don’t translate to running 1 1/4 miles, and then there’s also that other thing: A 2-year-old champion hasn’t won the Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979.

“We still think we can have him ready for the Derby off two prep races,” LaCombe said Tuesday night. “A pro like Bill Mott is capable of doing it. As for the bias that he can’t go the Derby distance, he was pulling away in the [1 1/16-mile Breeders’ Cup Juvenile], and he set a track record. That shows that he might be able to go farther.”

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Favorite Trick’s Record

Eight starts, eight wins, earnings of $1,231,998.

April 25: Keeneland, Maiden

May 3: Churchill, WHAS

May 26: Kentucky Breeders’ Cup

June 28: Churchill Bashford Manor

Aug. 13: Saratoga Saratoga Special

Aug. 30: Saratoga Hopeful

Oct. 18: Kneeneland Breeders’ Futurity

Nov. 8: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile