Bricks And Mortar takes top honor
Breeders’ Cup Turf winner is horse of the year. Injured Omaha Beach is retired.
On a day when Bricks And Mortar was named horse of the year for 2019, the star-crossed racing career of Omaha Beach came to an end.
Omaha Beach was scratched from the $3-million Pegasus World Cup after an X-ray of his rear hind ankle showed an irregularity. He was scheduled to make the final start of his career on Saturday at Gulfstream Park before being retired and becoming a stallion.
Omaha Beach first came to national prominence when he was the favorite in the Kentucky Derby, However, a throat issue, a trapped epiglottis, was discovered a few days before the Derby and he was scratched.
His return was a sensational come-from-behind win in the Santa Anita Sprint Championship. He followed that with a second in the Breeders’ Cup Mile and then won the Malibu Stakes by almost three lengths. It was his 10th and final race. He won five times, finished second four times and third once. He started his career on the turf before moving to the dirt in his fourth race.
“He went out for a gallop this morning, cooled out great, but we noticed something later,” trainer Richard Mandella told the Daily Racing Form in Hallandale, Fla. “We X-rayed his right-hind ankle. It’s questionable what’s there, but we ... can’t take a chance.”
Also, at Gulfstream were the annual Eclipse Awards, where Bricks And Mortar was honored. It was also a testament to how far California racing fell last year. It had only one winner, that in the 2-year-old male division with Storm The Court, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and trained by Peter Eurton.
Last year, Southern California-based horses won eight Eclipse Awards, led by
Triple Crown winner and 3-year-old male horse winner Justify, older dirt male Accelerate and his owners Kosta and Pete Hronis. The year before the region had five Eclipse winners, and California had won four of the previous five horse-ofthe-year honors.
Bricks And Mortar, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf and his other five races in 2019, also won Male Turf Horse and joined Covfefe as a two-award winner by taking the 3-year-old filly and Female Sprinter awards. Older Dirt Male was Vino Rosso, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic and Older Dirt Female was Midnight Bisou.
An overarching theme of the evening was safety, first brought up by Belinda Stronach, chairman of the Stronach Group, and later by Alex Waldrop, chief executive of the National Thoroughbred Racing Assn.
“2019 was a pivotal year for thoroughbred racing the U.S.,” Waldrop said. “We faced serious questions from the American public. Questions about safety and transparency of our sport. We answered some of those questions but our work is far from done. All of us in this sport and this business must do our part to make safety of horses and riders our No. 1 priority. Every race, every day, every racetrack.”