RACING:AIDAN O'BRIEN'S hugely successful 2011 campaign yielded another result in America during the early hours of yesterday as Cape Blanco joined a select group of Ballydoyle stars to pick up an Eclipse award.
The prestigious and coveted awards celebrate the best of American racing and Cape Blanco was the overwhelming choice of voters as America’s champion turf horse of 2011 in a ceremony in Los Angeles.
Just two other O’Brien stars – Johannesburg in 2001 and High Chaparral in 2002 and 2003 – have landed an Eclipse prize and Cape Blanco earned his for a hat-trick of Grade One successes during the summer and autumn in the US.
The son of Galileo, the Irish Derby and Irish Champion Stakes winner in 2010 crossed the Atlantic three times to win the Man O’War at Belmont and the Arlington Million before completing the streak in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic in October. He picked up a knee injury in that race and was retired to stud in Kentucky.
Cape Blanco was a clear Eclipse winner, garnering 172 votes, well clear of the runner-up Acclamation on 55. Another of O’Brien’s top performers in the US last year, the Breeders’ Cup hero, St Nicholas Abbey, was third on 16.
Accepting the award, the Coolmore Stud spokesman, Dermot Ryan, said: “On behalf of all the owners of Cape Blanco, I would like to thank all of those who voted for him – I commend them on their judgment!” He added: “Cape Blanco is a very special horse by a very special sire. He made more transatlantic flights in 2011 than many people make in a lifetime. And every time he came here, he got the job done, twice defeating a great champion himself in Gio Ponti.”
O’Brien won seven Group One races in the US last year. In addition to St Nicholas Abbey and Cape Blanco’s hat-trick, Wrote also won at the Breeders’ Cup while Together scored in the QEII Cup at Keeneland. Treasure Beach landed the Secretariat Stakes on the same day Cape Blanco scored in the Arlington Million.
At the Eclipse ceremony, the top filly Havre De Grace was voted Horse Of The Year, creating history as the third successive filly to claim an award in American racing. The previous two winners were Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta. The Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom was voted champion three-year-old male while the unbeaten Breeders’ Cup winner Hansen is the Eclipse juvenile champion.
In other flat racing news, both Jim Bolger’s Hurricane Havoc and Ken Condon’s Marvada are scheduled to fly the Irish flag in Friday’s Group Two Cape Verdi over a mile on turf at the Meydan track in Dubai.
