TB Chat End of the Year Favorite Horses Awards

With the year just about over, I thought it would be a good time to share my Favorite Horses Awards picks. Please note that these horses are not my Eclipse predictions, these are just horses who I like. If I where an Eclipse voter (which I'm not), I might choose as part of my ballot.

Favorite 2yo Filly Hard Not to Like (Hard Spun): Not only does she defeat the males twice, but she runs a good race in the Breeders' Cup. She could be a horse to rekon with up in Canada next year with their Classics.

Favorite 2yo Male Creative Cause (Giant's Causeway): Third behind Hansen and Union Rags, this colt could be a special one. Especially his connections decide to go to Oaklawn, dispite having some good preps in their own backyard.

Favorite 3yo Filly Royal Delta (Empire Maker) and Daisy Devine (Kafwain): Royal Delta just for the fact that she is a flat out monster and if she where to improve could give Havre de Grace a run for her money next year. I've been a fan of Daisy Devine's since her good finish behind Boquet Booth in the Silverbulletday. She and Summer Soiree are this years takes to turf like a duck takes to water.

Favorite 3yo Male Archarcharch (Arch): Yes he didn't run again past May, but frankley he remained my favorite 3yo this year. Yep that's how much I didn't like any (other then Shack, Caleb and Thirsty) of the 3yo's.

Favorite Older Female Havre de Grace (Saint Liam): I hope she joins her dad as a HOY this year. Her DelCap runner up finish against Blind Luck could go down as the race of the year.

Favorite Older Male Court Vision (Gulch): Yes he only won 1 race, yes he denied Goldikova a chance at a four peat, but this is FAVORITE horses, not the best horses around.

Favorite Horse of the Year: Havre de Grace 

The Forgotten Weekend

This weekend was pretty much a bust, with rain in California and snow on the East Coast. Many tracks canceled thus canceling stakes races. This hurts the California horses who now lose time to get ready for their next races. With that being said we still had some nice stakes races to talk about.

Whirlaway: Unfortanlly Eightyfiveinafifty blew a turn thus blowing his chances to win (his jockey was taken to the hospital, Eighty reportly only needed a few stitches. Hopefully he'll be back!). Pepi Knows won the race, I assume that the Gotham is next for him.

Gulfstream Turf: Take the Points crossed the line first, however was DQ'ed to fifth after cutting off Yate's Black Cat in the stretch. Thus pushing Court Vision to the win. Obviously it was disapointing to see TTP be taken down, but I personally think he deserved to be.

Donn: Quality Road won in a track record with a visually impressive proformance. However, I would like to say how proud I am of Dry Martini and Delightful Kiss! I somewhat hope their connections decide to point them to the Oaklawn Handicap as that race could come up on the light side.

Essex: No one was going to catch Racing Bran, but I'm very proud of Prom Shoes' 3rd place finish. I think 1 or 2 more jumps he would have caught Win Willy for second. The Razorback is going to be an interesting race, as I expect we'll see the 1-2-3 from this race go into the prep for the OakCap.

This is going to be a bit of an odd week as Road to the Roses is expected to start. Unfortanlly the site is not up yet, so hopefully in the upcoming days it will be. When that information is up, I'll set up a league for TC readers and we'll go from there.