The National Thoroughbred Racing Association made it official Monday at the 2002 Eclipse Awards ceremony in Beverly Hills, Calif.: The lady is a champ.
Azeri became only the sixth member of the filly and mare division to be crowned Horse of the Year since the inception of the award in 1936, and she won in a landslide.
The 5-year-old mare bred by the late Allen Paulson and owned by his living trust was the overwhelming choice of all three voting blocs–the Daily Racing Form staff, members of the National Turf Writers Association and representatives of NTRA tracks. She received 37 of the 44 Racing Form votes cast, 107 of the 128 National Turf Writers’ votes and 107 of the 128 NTRA votes.
Azeri concluded a nine-race 4-year-old campaign in which she took trainer Laura de Seroux to the winner’s circle eight times by scoring a front-running five-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Arlington Park. Seven of her conquests came in Grade I races. Her only loss was a second-place finish in her second start of the year, the Grade II La Canada at Santa Anita.
Azeri also was selected the champion older female.
War Emblem, the Illinois Derby winner who went on to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness after his Chicago owner, Russell Reineman, sold a 90 percent interest in the colt to the late Prince Ahmed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, was selected the champion 3-year-old male. War Emblem received the second-most Horse of the Year votes–10 from the Turf Writers, one from the Racing Form and one from the NTRA.
Other horses earning 2002 Eclipse Awards: Vindication, 2-year-old male; Storm Flag Flying, 2-year-old female; Farda Amiga, 3-year-old female; Left Bank, older male; Orientate, sprinter; High Chaparral, male turf horse; Golden Apples, female turf horse; and Flat Top, steeplechase.
Like Azeri, Vindication, Storm Flag Flying, Orientate and High Chaparral won their Oct. 26 Breeders’ Cup races. Golden Apples finished fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf after winning Arlington’s Beverly D. two months earlier.
For the third straight year, Jerry Bailey was voted the outstanding jockey and Bobby Frankel the outstanding trainer. Richard Englander was the recipient of the outstanding owner award and Saudi Arabian Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms the outstanding breeder award, both for the second year in a row.
Ryan Fogelsonger was the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey.
