Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Wealth of quality finalists
A change in voting rules and a bumper crop of finalists has the potential to produce a large number of inductees this year into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, whose 2018 final ballot was released Thursday.
There are 10 finalists – jockeys Robby Albarado, Corey Nakatani, and Craig Perret; trainers Mark Casse, John Shirreffs, and David Whiteley; and the racehorses Blind Luck, Gio Ponti, Havre de Grace, and Heavenly Prize.
In recent years, even though voters could chose as many candidates as they felt worthy, only the top four receiving votes would get in. Voters can still choose as many as they believe deserve induction, but this year the Hall of Fame has tweaked its rules to allow any candidate who receives support from more than 50 percent of the voters to get in.
The Hall of Fame has a policy of not releasing vote totals, but it is believed several candidates in recent years got support from more than 50 percent of the voters, but did not finish in the top four and thus were denied entry. The newest system makes it a straight up-or-down vote for all finalists.
Ballots are scheduled to go out March 1, and the inductees will be announced April 16. The induction ceremonies are Aug. 3 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where the Hall of Fame is located.
The 10 finalists this year were chosen by the Hall’s 18-member Nominating Committee, which reviewed dozens of candidates. To make the final ballot, a candidate had to receive support from at least 12 of the Nominating Committee members.
Albarado, 44, through Wednesday has won 5,115 races, including the Dubai World Cup, Breeders’ Cup Classic, and Preakness on Curlin, the 2007 and 2008 Horse of the Year. He also was the regular rider of the 2003 Horse of the Year, Mineshaft.
Nakatani, 47, has won 3,893 races, including 10 Breeders’ Cup races and three runnings of the Santa Anita Handicap, one of the premier races in Southern California, where he has been based for most of his career and has won numerous riding titles.
Perret, 67, retired in 2005 with 4,415 wins, most notably aboard Unbridled in the Kentucky Derby in 1990, the year Perret won the Eclipse Award as champion jockey. He also rode Bet Twice when he stopped Alysheba’s Triple Crown bid in the 1987 Belmont Stakes, and won four Breeders’ Cup races, including the Sprint aboard the Hall of Fame filly Safely Kept. He was the leading money-winning apprentice in 1967, before the advent of the Eclipse Awards.
Casse, 57, is still in the prime of a career that has seen him already win 2,430 races – entering Thursday’s action – and train several champions in both the United States and Canada, most notably Tepin, who won the 2016 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot and the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Mile. Casse is a ninetime Sovereign Award winner as champion trainer in Canada and in 2016 was inducted in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.
Shirreffs, 72, is best known for guiding the career of the popular Hall of Fame mare Zenyatta, who won 19 of 20 starts and two Breeders’ Cup races, and Giacomo, the 2005 Kentucky Derby winner. He is a multiple winner of many of the nation’s best races for females, boasting two Breeders’ Cup Distaffs, four runnings of the Vanity, and five of the Santa Margarita. One who has always preferred quality to quantity, he has won 470 races.
Whiteley, who died last year at age 73, like Shirreffs emphasized quality over quantity. His best runners included Eclipse Award-winning females Just a Game, Revidere, and Waya, and he won the 1979 Belmont Stakes with Coastal, denying Spectacular Bid the Triple Crown. He retired in 1995 with 678 victories. His late father, trainer Frank Whiteley Jr., is in the Hall of Fame.
Blind Luck won the 2010 Kentucky Oaks and 11 other races, including six Grade 1 races, during a 22-race career in which she won more than $3.2 million. She was the champion 3-year-old filly of 2010, when she also captured the Las Virgenes Stakes and Alabama Stakes. She had memorable battles with fellow nominee Havre de Grace, including losing by a neck in the 2010 Cotillion but prevailing by nose in the 2011 Delaware Handicap. She was trained by Hall of Famer Jerry Hollendorfer.
Gio Ponti was a three-time Eclipse Award winner who captured seven Grade 1 grass races, including four straight in 2009, the year he was named both the champion male turf horse and champion older male. He finished second to Zenyatta in that year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, run on a synthetic surface at Santa Anita. He won 12 times in 29 starts and was second in 10 other races while racing for five seasons, all under the care of trainer Christophe Clement.
Havre de Grace was the Horse of the Year and champion older female of 2011, the year she won three Grade 1 races, most notably the Woodward Stakes against males. She was trained at ages 2 and 3 by Tony Dutrow, for whom she won the Cotillion Stakes, before being transferred by owner Rick Porter to Larry Jones. She won nine times in 16 starts.
Heavenly Prize was the champion 3-year-old filly of 1994, when her victories included the Alabama, Gazelle, and Beldame, all Grade 1 races. She also won the Frizette at age 2 and four more Grade 1 races at age 4 – the Apple Blossom, Hempstead, Go for Wand, and John A. Morris – and completed her career with nine wins in 18 starts. She died in 2013 at age 22. She was trained by Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey.