Eclipse Award Races Will Not Necessarily Be Won by Swiftest

The Eclipse award voting for 1997 is so tricky that five of the seven winners on Breeders’ Cup day could be shut out when the divisional champions are announced next Thursday.

Favorite Trick and Countess Diana, who won the Breeders’ Cup races for 2-year-olds at Hollywood Park, are shoo-ins for Eclipses, but the others may be caught in tight votes. Consider:

* Skip Away, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, has been denigrated by some voters because he was beaten in seven of 11 starts. Skip Away could lose to Favorite Trick or Gentlemen in horse-of-the-year voting, and Gentlemen has a chance to outpoll him for best older horse.

* Chief Bearhart, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf, has since been named Canada’s horse of the year, but a victory by Marlin in the Eclipse voting for best male on grass would not be a surprise. Marlin suffered a career-ending injury in his last race, missed the Breeders’ Cup and never raced against Chief Bearhart. Marlin’s four wins included the San Juan Capistrano at Santa Anita and the Arlington Million. The voters--about 300 turf writers, track racing secretaries and Daily Racing Form representatives--are being asked to weigh Marlin’s body of work against Chief Bearhart’s big win in November.

* Spinning World reinforced his reputation as the best miler in the world with a convincing win in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, but he will finish behind Chief Bearhart and Marlin in the voting.

* In most years, a win like Ajina’s in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff would have clinched the Eclipse for best 3-year-old filly, but this year the voters are faced with the Blushing K.D. dilemma. Before an injury in July, Blushing K.D. won six of eight races, including the Fantasy at Oaklawn Park, the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs and the Monmouth Oaks. Ajina, who never ran against Blushing K.D., won three of nine, all of the victories in Grade I races.

* In three of the last four years, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint has also been voted sprint champion, but Elmhurst, despite his win at Hollywood Park, had an early season record like Skip Away’s. The most consistent sprinter was Smoke Glacken, whose season ended in mid-July. He was undefeated in six sprints, but never ran in a Grade I race.

If all five--Skip Away, Chief Bearhart, Spinning World, Ajina and Elmhurst--are left at the Eclipse voting altar, it would be unprecedented. The Breeders’ Cup’s goal is to decide champions on the track, and since 1984, when the series began, it has usually worked out that way. Through 1993, either four or five of the annual Breeders’ Cup race winners also won Eclipse awards. In 1994 and 1995, the number fell to three for the first time.

The year 1994 included the coronation of Holy Bull as horse of the year even though he skipped the Breeders’ Cup, but winning the Classic lately has not been a prerequisite for a national title. Last year, Cigar ran third in the Classic and still won the title. The year before Holy Bull, grass horses dominated and Kotashaan edged Lure in a vote so close that a change by four voters would have swung it the other way.

Richard Mandella, who had Kotashaan and trains Gentlemen for R.D. Hubbard and his partners, is hoping to win again in another close vote. The outcome will be announced Feb. 10. Gentlemen traveled East to beat Skip Away in the Pimlico Special, the only time they met, and in Gentlemen’s only two losses he bled from the lungs in the Santa Anita Handicap and raced with an ulcerated throat in the Woodbine Mile.

Because of that illness, Gentlemen missed the Breeders’ Cup, depriving Eclipse voters of a definitive race. There is no right or wrong to the horse-of-the-year vote this time, and the selection here, without a lot of conviction, is Gentlemen. There’s a suspicion, however, that Favorite Trick, the precocious 2-year-old, will carry the day. The Gentlemen-or-Skip Away crowd will be self-defeating, and there’s even a splinter group that will send some votes the way of Silver Charm and Formal Gold. Favorite Trick’s camp is substantial and undivided.

Two-year-olds have won horse of the year before, but none since Secretariat in 1972.

Secretariat wasn’t undefeated as a 2-year-old. He lost twice, against maidens in his first start (Herbull was the winner), and via a disqualification as the Belmont Park stewards moved up Stop The Music to first place in the Champagne Stakes. There were other horse-of-the-year candidates in 1972: Riva Ridge, Secretariat’s stablemate, won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont, and Key To The Mint, another 3-year-old, won the Travers and beat older horses three times. Early on, though, Charlie Hatton, the influential pundit for the Racing Form, began a Secretariat bandwagon that was unstoppable. Then and now, none of us have regretted our vote.

QUICK TURNS

Futuristic made his debut as a 3-year-old Friday at Santa Anita by scoring a half-length win over Artax, who was 2-5 after his second-place finish to Real Quiet in the Hollywood Futurity. Futuristic, ridden by Alex Solis in place of the suspended Chris McCarron, may hook up with Artax again in the Santa Catalina Stakes on Feb. 1. . . . In Friday’s feature, the $76,050 Hill Rise Handicap, Ladies Din, a gelding who was claimed in July out of a Del Mar race for $32,000, won by 1 1/4 lengths. . . . Advancing Star, winner of the Hollywood Turf Express on Nov. 28, is entered in both stakes this weekend, but barring rain will run in today’s $100,000 Monrovia Handicap on grass. . . . Sunday’s $100,000 El Conejo Handicap, at 5 1/2 furlongs on dirt, drew seven horses, including Exotic Wood and Paying Dues. Exotic Wood has won nine of 13 starts and was fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Hollywood Park. Paying Dues, second in the 1996 Sprint, has raced only twice since then and will be making his first start in almost a year. He underwent surgery last year for a chipped ankle.