Two Year Old Glory – 2004
Two Year Old Glory
2004 Eclipse Award Winners
With the Breeders Bowl just around the corner and lots of owners and trainers nervously watching the rankings, I thought we would take a look back at End of the Year Eclipse winners in the two year old division and see what these owners have to look forward to in the future.
According to Yoss, there are over 22,700 two year olds bred this year. The owners of these youngsters are obviously hoping for long careers with many wins and much excitement ahead. It just seems logical that if you have a successful two year old, your chances are even better long term for the success of your horse. We are going to look at the most successful of the two year old crop for the past five years. These horses are the Eclipse Award winners, given to the best of the best, the division champions for the year in the two year old category.
This article looks at the winners from two years ago, 2004.
| DIVISION | NAME | 2 YR Old | 2 Yr $$$ | 3 Yr Old | 4 Yr Old | LIFETIME | EARNINGS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dirt Filly | DUBAI PROSPECTOR | 6 / 2-4-0 | $856,525 | 6 / 2-2-0 | 4 / 0-0-1 | 16 / 4-6-1 | $1,836,725 |
| Dirt Colt | CADER YDRIS | 4 / 4-0-0 | $753,120 | 13 / 4-4-0 | 11 / 3-0-2 | 28 / 11-4-2 | $1,721,255 |
| Turf Filly | MUMBAI | 5 / 5-0-0 | $660,060 | 11 / 2-4-1 | 12 / 4-0-3 | 28 / 11-4-4 | $1,174,810 |
| Turf Colt | GENERAL’S CHARIOT | 8 / 6-1-0 | $1,001,460 | 12 / 8-2-0 | 9 / 2-4-1 | 29 / 16-7-1 | $4,024,210 |
We’ve already looked at the 2005 crop of Eclipse winners and were mostly disappointed. You start to ask yourself, is there life after TWO? Are all of the best youngsters destined to be burn outs for the rest of their careers?
Pick your chin up and take a look at the 2004 crop. Much better results and we have one colt that is a man among men. He alone is worth waiting for, the horse that most of us can only dream of. All of these did better than the following crop. They were all multiple winners as three year olds and all but one were multiple winners at four and the one that didn’t kind of fell off the face of the earth as Sim horses sometimes do. Let’s take a look at the Two Year Old Class of 2004:
(If you click on the name of the horses below it will take you to their write up for their Sim Eclipse award in the year that they won)
DUBAI PROSPECTOR won two straight Graded stakes at three including the GI LOOL OAKS. She then finished second in the prestigious Bluegrass Derby and had another second in a regular stakes. She only ran 6 times as a three year old but even less at four when she had one third and raced three more times with not much to show then kind of quit. She has now gone 13 weeks without racing and you have to wonder if she will return to the track.
CADER YDRIS started off his three year old campaign with five first or seconds including two Graded wins sandwiched around a poor showing in the BlueGrass Derby. He later had another Stakes win and generally had a pretty successful year. He won one Stakes race and a couple of Allowances at four and finished third in a Graded Stakes. His last race was a 106 SPF and a win and he may be back in Stakes company soon.
In an interesting twist, MUMBAI switched to the dirt and won her sixth consecutive race by finishing first in the SANTA JEZEBEL GIII. She later went back to the grass and won the prestigious 1000 GUINEAS GI. Two more Stakes wins and good competitive speeds made for a very successful campaign. Her four year old season has been more of the same. A second in a GIII, a couple more Stakes wins and several seconds as well. She has held up nicely and had a couple of triple digit SPFs just two back. She still is looking good.
The big guy that I spoke and dreamed of earlier is, GENERAL’S CHARIOT . Folks, this is a special horse and we may someday see him in the Sim Hall of Fame. After four Graded wins as a juvenile, he topped that with SIX Graded wins and two Stakes wins as a three year old. This year in his four year old circuit, he has only won TWO more Graded Stakes and finished at least fourth in all nine Graded races he has entered. He has run 20 consecutive races with an SPF of 99 or better and has reached as high as 110 and 111. In his last two races he showed no signs of slowing down with a Graded win and second by a nose with 107 SPFs. He looks like he can run forever and has moved over $4million in earnings. I bow to his greatness.
So now we are really confused. One year of very average and a year of special horses. We are dealing with a small group of horses but what is the norm among these award winning horses as they mature. Next we will look at previous years and see if we can get this all straightened out. Stay tuned!
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