Spotlight on Trainers & Jockeys: Best & Worst Performances of the Year

by Steve Davidowitz | Nov 17 2011

There are 20 Eclipse Award Trophies up for grabs at this year's prestigious ceremony, which is scheduled to take place on January 16, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California. The award for Horse of the Year is hugely popular with most racing fans, but this year I find myself particularly interested in two other categories: top trainer and top jockey.

I've been to a lot of races this season and I've seen performances by trainers and jockeys that have been good, bad and downright ugly. What rubs me the wrong way is that more often than not the Eclipse Award trophy for America's top trainer goes to someone like Todd Pletcher, or Bob Baffert, or Steve Asmussen - trainers who compile lots of wins and lots of moneys won. The thing is, there are often more worthy trainers who do fantastic work with far fewer horses.

While not discounting good works by the elite trainers named above, I believe the best training feats I saw this year were by Graham Motion, Dale Romans and Billy Mott.

Motion's work with ANIMAL KINGDOM was masterful. First, he got him ready for Grade 1 competition by switching the son of turf champion Leroidesanimaux via a Graded stakes win on the Polytrack at Turfway Park after good turf performances in Florida. Motion followed the Turfway win with a crucial, very strong six furlong workout on the dirt at Churchill Downs, a week before the colt would score an impressive upset win in America's most famous race.

Romans, cited here in previous columns as the best 'new trainer' on the national scene for his work with several major stakes winners, capped off his fine work in 2011 with Preakness Stakes winner SHACKLEFORD by upsetting the Grade-1 Breeders' Futurity at Keeneland with the maiden 2-year-old DALLAHAN… and then topped that with COURT VISION's shocking 64-1 upset in the Breeders' Cup Mile. Romans is more than on the way up, he now is among the best horse trainers in the sport.
 
But the best pure work of horsemanship I saw all year was accomplished by Hall of Fame trainer Billy Mott for his specific development of the 3-year-old filly ROYAL DELTA and the Breeders' Cup Classic winner DROSSELMEYER.  

No horse, male or female, looked stronger and more professional as the year went on than Royal Delta, who came to hand for Mott in the Black Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico in May, who won the historic 1-1/4 mile Alabama Stakes at Saratoga in August, and who completely dominated the $2 million Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic with a decisive come from behind win that left the competition (all accomplished thoroughbreds) looking like $50,000 claimers.

And what about Drosselmeyer? I doubt there is a horseman alive other than Mott who could have gotten this decent borderline Grade-1 horse to win the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic.

While Drosselmeyer did win the 2010 Belmont (because for the most part Drosselmeyer is a grinder whose forte is long distance racing), he had not won a Graded stakes before or since… yet Mott had him at his lifetime peak on Breeders' Cup Day.
 
On the other end of the training spectrum I know we have injunctions and stays of execution and a long series of maneuvers built into our legal system, but it amazes me that Dick Dutrow is training horses actively now after he was given a 10-year suspension in New York for a cumulative load of race day drug violations. If there was an anti-Eclipse Award that would signify the most negative accomplishments in the sport, Dutrow would be its poster child.

Why a full stay of his suspension? Keep him out of jail with a stay, for sure; permit him to keep an active trainer's license pending his run in the courts, but why is it necessary to permit complete and unfettered access to racehorses on the backstretch? Why should he be permitted to participate in the sport while the legal maneuvers continue?

Would the courts allow an indicted bank robber keep his licensed gun? Would the Securities and Exchange Commission permit a stockbroker to continue trading activities while he is appealing his suspension from a brokerage house?

Admittedly, some of Dutrow's violations seem less important than parking tickets, but several violations over the past several years in several jurisdictions involved illegal substances that do not belong in horse racing. That said, I think Dutrow does not belong in horse racing right now, especially in a sport that publicly says it is trying to clean itself up.

At the same time, when the appeals run their course and Dutrow's suspension actually begins, it will be another black eye for racing if he merely proves to be a scapegoat and does not represents any real change. This will be judged strictly on one crucial point:

When Dutrow is gone - even if it is at a somewhat reduced term - will the promiscuous abusers of drugs in racing go on as usual the second he leaves the track? Or will other violators be brought to justice through tighter testing and greater enforcement of existing rules?

And as for the top jockeys…? The best jockeys I saw in 2011 were as follows: John R. Velazquez, Ramon Dominguez, Rafael Bejarano, Julien Leparoux and J.J. Castellano. But they all suffered through periods in which they looked like raw apprentice riders. No doubt, one of them will win the Eclipse this year, but the jockey who looked the best at the end of the season was a surprise to me: Corey Nakatani.

Not only did Nakatani win six races on one card at Belmont Park on October, 8, but he also went to the Breeders' Cup with no fanfare and scored two Breeders' Cup wins on MY MISS AURELIA in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (on Friday, Nov. 4) and AMAZOMBIE in the $1.5 million Breeders' Cup Sprint (on Saturday, Nov. 5). Both horses should be named Eclipse Award winners in their respective divisions.

Nakatani certainly will not win his own Eclipse this year, but I think he is bent on continuing his surge at this late date in his 25-year career by looking to 2012 and 2013 as opportunities to make a strong case for consideration in the Hall of Fame. From what I saw in 2011, Nakatani will be worth some attention at the betting windows as he tries to do that.

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