Horse-of-Year Honor Is No Longer a Given

A horse doesn’t have to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic to be voted horse of the year, but it sure helps. When Tiznow won the $4-million Classic last year and later salted away horse-of-the-year honors, he was the seventh horse to convert victory in the richest race in the U.S. to a national championship.

But since the Classic has been run 17 times, there are obviously other ways to the throne room, and this could be one of those years. In varying degrees, eight horses are left in this year’s horse-of-the-year picture, a situation that will be sorted out or further muddled by the end of today’s eight-race Breeders’ Cup card at Belmont Park.

One of the eight candidates isn’t even running on the $13-million Breeders’ Cup program. Point Given, winner of five Grade I races this year, among them the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, was retired because of a tendon injury in September, but some voters figure he’s done enough to lock up the title. Others want to digest today’s results before making up their minds.

About 200 voters--turf writers, Daily Racing Form representatives and track racing secretaries--will have their ballots tallied at the end of the year.

Since the first Breeders’ Cup was run in 1984, there is precedent for a horse winning the title without finishing the season. Only two years ago, Charismatic’s career ended in June with an injury in the Belmont Stakes and he was still voted horse of the year. Cat Thief’s victory in the Classic, then and now looked upon as an aberration, was of no import to the voters.

Ironically, there is a scenario today that could propel a stablemate of Point Given’s into the hearts of the electorate. Should a longshot win the Classic--an outsider like Cat Thief--and Officer runs his sixth straight dynamite race in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, some voters might reason that they’re to choose between Officer and Point Given, both trained by Bob Baffert.

A 2-year-old seldom wins horse of the year, but Favorite Trick, undefeated in eight races, capped the 1997 season with a win in the Juvenile and became the first juvenile titlist since Secretariat in 1972.

Besides Point Given and Officer, six other horses--starting with Tiznow, last year’s champion, and including Aptitude, Sakhee, Galileo, Fantastic Light and Kona Gold--could survive the final shaking of the tree.

Yes, Kona Gold. And, yes, Fantastic Light. Everything else would have to fall into place--all of their rivals would have to be defeated--but strange things in bunches are not out of the question on Breeders’ Cup day.

Sprinters, like 2-year-olds, are not supposed to win horse of the year. But suppose some outlandish horse--Orientate, say--wins the Classic, and suppose Fantastic Light doesn’t win the Breeders’ Cup Turf. There are some voters out there who prefer to support Breeders’ Cup winners, and if Kona Gold won the Sprint for the second straight year, and in a record time to boot, he would give some voters pause.

For his part, Bruce Headley, who trains Kona Gold, will not play the naysayer.

“It’s occurred to me [a horse-of-the-year possibility],” he said. “My horse did get some votes for horse of the year last year.”

Realistically, the horse-of-the-year favorites are Point Given, Aptitude and Sakhee. Aptitude is the 2-1 morning-line favorite in the Classic and Sakhee, winner of the Arc de Triomphe--as big in France as the Kentucky Derby is here--and running on dirt for the first time, is listed at 8-1.

Point Given--and this is at least a half-strike against him--never raced against older horses, whereas Aptitude, a 4-year-old colt, has been butting heads with his peers from the start. Since July, he’s undefeated, although he needed the marginal disqualification of Futural, in the Hollywood Gold Cup, for the win that started the three-race streak.

Trainer Bobby Frankel, 0 for 36 in the Breeders’ Cup but running a potentially potent group of six horses today, has already begun the campaign for Aptitude.

“If Aptitude wins the Classic, he should be horse of the year,” Frankel said. “He’s beaten all comers in the best fields assembled over the course of the year.”

Nary a horse has won both the Arc and the Breeders’ Cup Classic--mainly because none has ever tried. The five previous Arc winners that shipped over for the Breeders’ Cup ran in the Turf.

“If Sakhee adds the Classic to his Arc win,” said Simon Crisford, the manager of Sheik Mohammed’s racing interests, “he will go into the books as one of the greatest of all time.”

A foreign horse needs to knock the voters’ socks off to win horse of the year here. All Along, whose owner, Daniel Wildenstein, died this week, did exactly that en route to the North American title in 1983. At the end of the pre-Breeders’ Cup era, the French filly won the Washington D.C. International at Laurel, the Turf Classic at Belmont and the Rothmans International at Woodbine at the end of the year.

But even if Sakhee pulls off a signal feat, the voters could still snub him.

“Many Eclipse Awards voters appear to have trouble giving this continent’s top prize to horses that run here just once,” editor Steven Crist wrote recently in the Daily Racing Form, before he knew that Sakhee was running in the Classic.

“If [voters didn’t have trouble with one-time starters in the U.S.], Daylami [the Breeders’ Cup Turf winner] and not Charismatic would have won the 1999 award,” Crist added. “And Charismatic had a less compelling record than Point Given does this year.... Point Given ran exclusively against ... a truly substandard crop of American 3-year-olds.... I voted for Daylami over Charismatic, and would probably vote for a Classic-winning Galileo over Point Given. But I suspect I would be in the minority again.”

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In the wake of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, the Breeders’ Cup is not expected to set any attendance records today. A turnout of 40,000 would make New York Racing Assn. officials happy.

The main track will be fast and the turf will be firm, but temperatures won’t get any higher than the high 40s.... Injuries have resulted in three scratches: Fleet Renee in the Distaff, Numerous Times in the Mile and Slew Valley in the Turf.

Galileo doesn’t like gray horses, and Friday morning, while being ponied to the training track, the colt caused a gray pony to shy away and start bucking. The pony belonged to Wayne Lukas, who was helping fellow trainer Aidan O’Brien escort his horses. Lukas, 66, was unseated, landed on his feet and grabbed his pony. Galileo was not injured and went on to his galloping exercise.

“One more jump like that,” Lukas said, “and my horse won’t be a pony anymore.”