Horse Racing : Despite Criticism, Current Eclipse Award System Is the Best

NEW YORK —  The Eclipse Awards voting system, which seemed to have worked satisfactorily since 1971, is under fire. When Ferdinand was announced as horse of the year last week, in an election in which he led the total vote by a wide margin but could have lost the title if just one voter had a change of mind, there were immediate cries about the process being unfair.

Some of the criticism in these parts bordered on the irrational. It was suggested that there now exists, of all things, a West Coast bias in the voting--after all these years of bleating by Californians because the East Coast had more votes than they did.

The fact that three of the last four winners of the horse-of-the-year title have had California connections apparently has upset the New York press.

Ferdinand won the title in 1987 without leaving California, but the other so-called West Coast winners were really national horses who just happened to have trainers who were based in California. In her championship campaign in 1986, Lady’s Secret might have started at Santa Anita and ended there with a victory in the Breeders’ Cup, but in between she was as Eastern as clam chowder, winning six times in New York and New Jersey.

And in 1984, when John Henry won the title, the then-9-year-old gelding might have won his first three races in California, but his last three victories were at Arlington Park in suburban Chicago, Belmont Park in New York and the Meadowlands in New Jersey.

Because the three voting groups--the turf writers, racing secretaries from most major tracks and the Daily Racing Form--vary in number, it would be impractical to make the winner the horse with the most total votes. That would give the turf writers more influence in the election than they deserve. The one-bloc, one-vote system is still the best way to go.

Nevertheless, one of the owners accepting an Eclipse Award statuette at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel here Friday night still believes that his horse deserved even better.

Allen Paulson, who campaigned Theatrical while feuding with his partner, Bert Firestone, has a horse who won the male turf title but was second to Ferdinand for horse of the year.

Paulson believes that Theatrical’s credentials were better than Ferdinand’s, and he is not without a valid argument: Theatrical won 7 of 9 starts, 6 of the wins in major races at 4 different tracks; Ferdinand was 4 for 10--the first horse of the year to lose more races than he or she won--and had a much more restricted campaign, with his 2 major victories coming at Hollywood Park.

“Instead of having a vote, they ought to have a point system, based on high finishes in the big races,” Paulson said. “That would be a fairer way to settle a championship. They do it in automobile racing, and I think it would work in horse racing, too.”

Howard Keck was in Texas last week, and until a friend called him from Los Angeles, he didn’t know for several hours about the announcement in New York that Ferdinand had been voted horse of the year.

Keck bred Ferdinand, who races in the name of his wife, Elizabeth.

The decision to keep Ferdinand on the track, as a 5-year-old, in 1988 was made shortly after he won the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Hollywood Park on Nov. 21.

“He’s a sound horse, the breeding business isn’t that strong now and I’ve always liked to race older horses,” Howard Keck said. “If I had my choice, I’d never run a 2-year-old again. I’d wait for all of them to mature.”

Epitome, based solely on her victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, was voted the Eclipse Award for best 2-year-old filly, but the three-man committee that ranks the horses for the annual Experimental Handicap didn’t completely agree.

In the Experimental, Epitome and Over All were rated even, sharing high weight of 123 pounds. As expected, Forty Niner, the winner of the Eclipse Award for 2-year-old colts, was rated No. 1 on the colts’ side of the Experimental, at 126 pounds.

The Experimental, which has been commissioned by the Jockey Club in New York since 1933, is an annual rating of top 2-year-olds. It is based on horses’ performances at 2 and is not designed to project what they might do as older horses. This year’s committee consisted of racing secretaries Bruce Lombardi from New York, Howard Battle of Keeneland and Tommy Trotter of Gulfstream Park.

Goodbye Halo, who lost the Eclipse to Epitome in a split vote that was as close as Ferdinand’s horse-of-the-year decision over Theatrical, was ranked third on the Experimental, three pounds below Epitome and Over All. Also at 120 pounds were Dream Team and Terra Incognita, with Classic Crown and Variety Baby rated at 119.

Horse Racing Notes

Temperate Sil, preparing for Sunday’s $500,000 Strub Stakes at Santa Anita, worked six furlongs in 1:11 3/5 Wednesday on a track listed as good. With Grand Vizier entered to run today at Santa Anita, the rest of the Strub field is likely to consist of favored Alysheba, Candi’s Gold, On the Line, Masterful Advocate and Rupperto. . . . Very Subtle worked seven furlongs in 1:27 4/5 at Santa Anita Monday, her final tuneup for Saturday’s $150,000 La Canada Stakes. . . . Super Diamond, headed for the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on March 6, has finally been accepted as a star around the barn. “He used to muscle people around,” says trainer Eddie Gregson. “Now we just give him his way. He’s developed into a spoiled brat.” . . . Jorge Velasquez is getting close to $100 million in career purses, a total reached by three other Santa Anita jockeys--Laffit Pincay, Angel Cordero and Bill Shoemaker.