First thoughts on the new champions
The morning after the 2024 Eclipse Awards
By Frances J. Karon
Here are some quick takeaways on the pedigrees of some of the Eclipse Award winners last night.
Immersive impressive
We have previously taken note of the excellent Nyquist/Bernardini cross, which was a natural fit: Nyquist’s sire Uncle Mo had gotten Grade 1 winner Mo Town in late November of 2017 and Grade 2 winner Mopotism in mid-January of 2018—both out of Bernardini mares—just as Nyquist was set for his first breeding season at Darley America, where Bernardini also stood.
With 202 (of a possible 208) first-place votes in the champion 2-year-old filly category, Godolphin’s homebred Immersive became the second N. American 2-year-old champion sired by Nyquist (a champion 2-year-old himself) and produced from a daughter of champion 3-year-old Bernardini, after 2020 Sovereign Award winner Gretzky the Great.
Of course, it’s not just Bernardini that Nyquist favors, as other sons (and a grandson) of his sire A.P. Indy have clicked with him too. (And yes, the cross works with other sons of Uncle Mo, as Laoban, Outwork, and even Mo Town himself have graded winners on it.) Immersive is Nyquist’s second champion 2-year-old filly in the U.S. after Vequist in 2020, and Vequist’s dam is by A.P. Indy’s Mineshaft (the 2003 Horse of the Year), and we were eight votes shy of celebrating two new champions by Nyquist from mares by sons of A.P. Indy, as Johannes (dam by Congrats) came in second last night to Godolphin’s Rebel’s Romance in the turf male division.
Nyquist started off 2025 with a new graded stakes winner, Cavalieri, who won the Grade 3 La Canada last weekend. Her broodmare sire Stephen Got Even is a son of—you guessed it—A.P. Indy.
Grandsires of champions on top and bottom
Nyquist is a son of Coolmore America’s recently departed Uncle Mo, the broodmare sire of 2024 Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna, whose vote tally in the 3-year-old filly division was unanimous and who received 193 votes (to runner-up Sierra Leone’s 10 votes) for HOTY. With his influence felt on both sides of the pedigree, Uncle Mo hits the truest definition of an influential sire.
And he was not alone. Twenty-six-year-old Medaglia d’Oro, who stands alongside Nyquist at Darley America, can even do one better than Uncle Mo’s feat of being the grandsire of two of last night’s champions: as noted here, Medaglia d’Oro is the paternal grandsire of Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna) and sprint female Soul of an Angel (Atreides), and he’s the broodmare sire of older male National Treasure (Quality Road), a new stallion at Spendthrift.
Medaglia d’Oro has another distinction that is unlikely to be duplicated. He’s the sire and paternal grandsire of two filly Horses of the Year (Rachel Alexandra and Thorpedo Anna).
If not for bad racing luck, Medaglia d’Oro’s night could potentially have gone better: his son East Avenue was favored in the Juvenile, and had the colt not lost all chance with a bad stumble out of the gate, the outcome of the race may have been different, earning East Avenue champion 2-year-old male honors.
East Avenue, by the way, is one of four stakes winners—including Godolphin’s undefeated Grade 2 winner Good Cheer—from their sire’s 2022 crop, conceived when Medaglia d’Oro was 22.
Another box checked for Into Mischief
As noted in this post, despite going into last night as the sire of five Eclipse Award winners, Spendthrift’s Into Mischief had yet to be represented by a champion 2-year-old male, but Citizen Bull has rectified that omission. Like his 2-year-old filly counterpart Immersive, Citizen Bull is bred on a cross that’s well known to produce the highest quality, as, along with Life Is Good and Practical Joke, he’s one of three Grade 1 winners (from a total of 11 stakes winners on the exact cross) sired by Into Mischief and produced from a daughter of Distorted Humor.
Citizen Bull may be a first 2-year-old champion colt for Into Mischief, but he’s the second Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and 2-year-old champion under his first three dams, as third dam Evil Elaine (Medieval Man)—a minor stakes winner 39 years ago—produced 1997 Horse of the Year/champion 2-year-old male Favorite Trick (Phone Trick), who died in a 2006 barn fire alongside Saratoga Six, the sire of Immersive’s third dam Sassy Pants. Evil Elaine is also fourth dam of Coolmore America’s exciting young sire Tiz the Law (Constitution).
Classy ’n Smart
Champion male sprinter Straight No Chaser is out of the winning Johannesburg mare Margarita Friday, whose other stakes-winning foal is the minor black-type filly Hangover Saturday (Pomeroy). The now-6-year-old son of Speightster is owned by MyRacehorse, so this morning might be a ‘hangover Friday’ for some of the many happy MRH shareholders.
Straight No Chaser is not the first champion sprinter in his immediate female family: his fourth dam Big Dreams (Great Above), a stakes winner at Louisiana Downs and Atlantic City, produced 1990-1991 champion springer Housebuster (Mt. Livermore). But he is the only Grade 1 winner by Speightster, a lightly raced son of Speightstown who won three races, including the Grade 3 Dwyer, in four starts. Speightster stood at WinStar alongside his sire (as well as Distorted Humor, the broodmare sire of Citizen Bull) and died in February of 2022 just as he was about to begin his first season at Northern Dawn Stables in Ontario, Canada.
Speightster would have been a most welcome addition to the Canadian stallion ranks, as he comes from a Sam-Son family full of Canadian champions and Hall of Famers. His dam Dance Swiftly was a full sister to 1991 Canadian Horse of the Year Dance Smartly (Danzig), a filly who won the Canadian Triple Crown and earned champion 3-year-old filly honors in both the U.S.—where she won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff—and Canada. Dance Smartly’s dam/Speightster’s granddam Classy ’n Smart (Smarten) was a Canadian champion 3-year-old as well as Outstanding Broodmare (aka Broodmare of the Year)—as were her poorly named dam No Class (Nodouble) and daughter Dance Smartly—and the family has been highly influential in N. American pedigrees.
Classy ’n Smart’s influence at last night’s awards ceremony extends beyond Straight No Chaser, as she’s the dam of Grade 1 winner and leading sire Smart Strike, the sire of Horse of the Year and phenomenal sire Curlin. As we wrote here, Hill ‘n’ Dale’s Curlin enjoyed banner years at the 2022 and 2023 Eclipse Awards, when he was represented three individual winners each year—Elite Power, Malathaat (whose dam is a half-sister to Soul of an Angel’s sire Atreides), and Nest in 2022; and Cody’s Wish (a Horse of the Year), Elite Power, and Idiomatic in 2023. Even a superstar like Curlin would find that three-champions-per-season momentum hard to maintain, but he didn’t come up empty, as Idiomatic’s repeat win in the older female category extended her sire’s streak to four consecutive years of getting at least one Eclipse champion.