Eclipse Award

Billy Moorefield wants an Eclipse Award so badly, he is riding days at Pimlico Race Course and nights at Penn National.He is tied with Steve Hamilton as the leading apprentice at Pimlico, but said he heads the list at the Pennsylvania track. Through June 21, according to Daily Racing Form statistics, he is tied with J.A. Bracho as the nation's winningest apprentice.But such a hectic schedule almost cost him his life.Returning from Penn National last Saturday night, Moorefield, 23, fell asleep and drove off I-83 near Middletown Road in northern Baltimore County.

Jockey Rosie Napravnik (Hereford) closed out a career-best season Dec. 31, securing the highest spot ever for a female jockey on the North American leader board. Finishing the year with $12,451,713 in purse earnings and 193 wins with 191 seconds and 167 thirds in 1,200 starts, Napravnik finished eighth among the top jockeys in the nation in the year-end standings. Hall of Fame jockey Julie Krone set the record in 1988 when she finished the year with a ninth-place finish. She finished ninth again in 1992, and the record stood for the past 20 years.

Eclipse Award ballots were due Tuesday. Finalists were announced Thursday. Five represent Maryland. Reluctantly, I acknowledge not voting for any of them.My selections follow. I invite you to let me know yours, and I'll include them in a future column. (See box.)2-year-old fillyClearly the best, Silverbulletday won six of seven, including the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies.Finalists: Excellent Meeting, Silverbulletday.2-year-old colt or geldingAnswer Lively may not be the most talented, but in a year of no standouts he got my vote for winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

Jazz Napravnik didn't even wait for her sister, Rosie, to get across the finish line. She saw the way the jockey was riding Believe You Can in the Kentucky Oaks, saw the horse stretch its legs down the final hundred yards under guidance from a nearly motionless rider, and she knew. "I just left my box, ran toward the winner's circle," Jazz Napravnik said. With her win in Kentucky, Rosie Napravnik, 24, pushed her name even further into the discussion of the country's top jockeys.

Jockey Craig Perret was in Pennsylvania on a hunting trip last week when his agent, Roger Sutton, began campaigning for a 1990 Eclipse Award.Sutton knows some of the habits of Eclipse Award voters. Many of those who vote -- Daily Racing Form employees, the nation's racing secretaries and members of the National Turf Writers Association -- pay close attention to the performances of the horses they vote for but never look past the top of the standings for jockeys, trainers and owners when casting their ballots for those awards.

BAL HARBOUR, Fla. -- One week after launching his breeding career at a stud farm in Kentucky, Skip Away was named Horse of the Year for 1998 at the annual Eclipse Awards dinner last night at a posh beach resort just north of Miami Beach.Skip Away was the unanimous choice of the three voting groups despite losing his last two races. His first seven races last year clinched the coveted award. Skip Away won all seven, five of which were Grade I.Owned by Carolyn Hine, a native of Highlandtown, and trained by her husband Sonny, who labored for nearly three decades at Maryland tracks, Skip Away retired in November with earnings of $9,616,360, second only to Cigar's $9,999,815.

Jockey Rosie Napravnik (Hereford) closed out a career-best season Dec. 31, securing the highest spot ever for a female jockey on the North American leader board. Finishing the year with $12,451,713 in purse earnings and 193 wins with 191 seconds and 167 thirds in 1,200 starts, Napravnik finished eighth among the top jockeys in the nation in the year-end standings. Hall of Fame jockey Julie Krone set the record in 1988 when she finished the year with a ninth-place finish. She finished ninth again in 1992, and the record stood for the past 20 years.

Jazz Napravnik didn't even wait for her sister, Rosie, to get across the finish line. She saw the way the jockey was riding Believe You Can in the Kentucky Oaks, saw the horse stretch its legs down the final hundred yards under guidance from a nearly motionless rider, and she knew. "I just left my box, ran toward the winner's circle," Jazz Napravnik said. With her win in Kentucky, Rosie Napravnik, 24, pushed her name even further into the discussion of the country's top jockeys.

An article in Tuesday's Sports section about the sale of thoroughbred horses incorrectly stated that Deputy Minister was the horse of the year in 1979. Affirmed had that honor. Deputy Minister won the Eclipse Award in 1981.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 12/12/98

Based on his accomplishments -- a Breeders' Cup victory, a Champagne win, an Eclipse Award -- Timber Country should be a strong winter-book favorite for the Kentucky Derby. He's not. ,, That's how much respect is out there for Afternoon Deelites.Owned by Burt Bacharach, who apparently is a lot better at coming up with song lyrics than horses' names, Afternoon Deelites is 3-for-3, including an impressive 6 1/2 -length victory in the Hollywood Futurity.

It's been an extraordinary year for Havre de Grace - the racehorse, not to be confused with the Harford County city of the same name where the Susquehanna River meets the Chesapeake Bay. There are plenty of folks who live in Havre de Grace the city, however, who no doubt will be rooting for Havre de Grace the horse Saturday evening around 7 p.m. when the filly goes postward in the $5 million Breeders Cup Classic at Churchill Downs in Louisville....

Forest Boyce, a graduate of Garrison Forest and the Maryland Institute College of Art, finished a distant second in the Eclipse Award voting for Outstanding Apprentice Jockey. Omar Moreno won with 197 first-place votes, followed by Boyce with six and Freddy Lenclud with four. Boyce, based at Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, ended her rookie season with 129 wins, 125 seconds and 109 thirds out of 757 mounts. Those finishes amounted to $2,065,984 in purse winnings.

Charles R. Lewis, a veteran thoroughbred horse trainer and Hall of Fame rider, died Wednesday from pneumonia at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The Ruxton resident was 91. Mr. Lewis was born in Washington and raised in the horse country of Warrenton, Va.; he began riding when he was 8 years old. "He got the bug early," said a son, D. Randolph "Randy" Lewis of Sparks. "He was a natural rider." By age 16, Mr. Lewis was already gaining fame as an expert rider, which led to numerous equestrian events and opportunities to compete and win prizes in hunt races throughout Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida and New York.

It remains to be seen whether Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro will win the 2006 Eclipse Award for top 3-year-old male when awards are announced Monday, but his owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, and the University of Pennsylvania's George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at New Bolton Center have already won. The Jacksons and hospital representatives are expected to be present to accept the Special Eclipse Award for outstanding individual achievements in,...

DECLAN'S MOON SOON could be crowned the most overrated racehorse in America. The Eclipse Award finalists will be announced today and the winners Jan. 24. The Eclipse Awards, of course, represent horse racing's championships. But they also represent an opportunity to discourage the cowering opportunism and the premature retirements that have compromised competition, as well as the sport's popularity, in recent years. That's one reason Declan's Moon, a Maryland-bred, didn't get the vote as champion 2-year-old from this corner.

On the coldest day of this new year, the What A Summer Stakes yesterday at Laurel Park featured a sizzling performance by Xtra Heat, a horse for all seasons. Embarking upon her 2003 campaign, the 5-year-old Xtra Heat led every step in winning the six-furlong stakes named in honor of What A Summer, the Maryland-bred mare who won the Eclipse award in 1977 as outstanding sprinter. Xtra Heat's victory at 1-5 odds broke a rare two-race losing string and indicated to her new owners that their plan for the Laurel-based mare remains on course.

The rain was heavy as Sonny Hine kept dry yesterday under the shedrow of the stakes barn at Pimlico. Hine and his wife, Carolyn, had just arrived after a difficultdrive from New York, and their champion Skip Away, riding in a large horse van, was somewhere behind them."

For the second straight year, Cigar and his two-legged associates dominated voting for horse racing's most prestigious awards.In results announced yesterday, Cigar won the Eclipse Award for outstanding older horse, while awards also went to his owner, Allen E. Paulson; his trainer, Bill Mott, and his jockey, Jerry Bailey.Cigar's human connections also won last year, riding the back of the great Maryland-bred who thrilled the racing world by winning 16 races in a row.Although the 1996 Horse of the Year will not be announced until Feb. 4 at the Eclipse Awards dinner in Bal Harbour, Fla., Cigar is the odds-on favorite to win as he did in 1995.

Xtra Heat heads the list of horses and people in Maryland racing announced yesterday as finalists for the 2001 Eclipse Awards, the coveted statuettes that denote "champions" of the sport. Laurel-based Xtra Heat was named a finalist in two categories: 3-year-old filly and sprinter. Other finalists with Maryland ties were Scott Lake (trainer), Ramon Dominguez (jockey) and Jeremy Rose (apprentice jockey). Finalists for Horse of the Year were Johannesburg, Point Given and Tiznow. Winners will be announced Feb. 18 at the 31st Eclipse Awards banquet in Miami Beach, Fla. Voting for the awards were racing writers, employees of the Daily Racing Form and representatives of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Beautiful Pleasure gained a one-race advantage yesterday in her rivalry with Heritage of Gold. A pair of 5-year-old mares, they met for the fifth time in the Grade I $400,000 Personal Ensign Handicap at Saratoga before a sun-drenched crowd of 23,775. In four previous meetings, each had finished in front of the other twice. Beautiful Pleasure led all the way for a commanding five-length victory. The loss was the first of the year after five wins for Heritage of Gold, who perhaps struggled in her first attempt at 1 1/4 miles on dirt.