Two Year Old Glory – 2002 Edition
Two Year Old Glory
2002 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 three years ago, 2002. We previously looked at the select group from the 2003, 2004 and 2005 race seasons. If you haven’t checked those articles out, they are in the General Section at the Black Type Bugler.
| DIVISION | NAME | 2 YR Old | 2 Yr $$$ | 3 Yr Old | 4 Yr Old | 5 Yr Old | 6 Yr Old | LIFETIME | EARNINGS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dirt Filly | LAND SLAM | 9/ 5-1-3 | $863,270 | 20 / 4-3-1 | 12 / 0-0-0 | Retired | 41 / 9-4-4 | $1,506,143 | |
| Dirt Colt | ERUPTION | 6 / 5-0-0 | $664,180 | 14 / 4-2-1 | 11 / 1-1-1 | Retired | 31 / 10-3-2 | $2,604,930 | |
| Turf Filly | DELAWARE STATUE | 10 / 5-4-1 | $459,640 | 4 / 1-0-0 | 0 / 0-0-0 | 0 / 0-0-0 | 0 / 0-0-0 | 13 /5-4-1 | $459,640 |
| Turf Colt | EPIPHANY TOO | 8 / 4-2-1 | $691,155 | 13 / 1-2-1 | 11 / 3-2-2 | 14 / 2-7-1 | 10 / 1-1-0 | 56 /11-14-5 | $1,224,196 |
This is the fourth crop of Eclipse winners we’ve looked at and once again this one is kind of a mixed bag. It could have been helped a lot by one champ that dropped off the face of the earth. We have a six year old who is still running strong with no signs of retiring and a few more offspring to take a look at. Let’s take a look at the Two Year Old Class of 2002:
(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)
As a three year old, LAND SLAM raced more than any other horse in our study. She had 20 races and was nicely successful with two Graded wins and a couple more Stakes wins and plenty of competitive races thrown in. She did fare rather badly in both the Bluegrass Oaks and Breeders Bowl Sprint though with 13th place finishes in each. Whether or not the long season took it’s toll, at age four the bottom pretty much fell out. Going from Gradeds to Stakes and finally allowances, she never finished higher than a couple of fourths in her twelve races. She was then retired to broodmare status.
| LAND SLAM6 Year Old Mare
Progeny
She was bred to nice though not really top-of-the-line sires and in 53 races her offspring have gathered only three wins and $76k in earnings. Although CHARMEER was Stakes placed and entered into a Graded, all of the wins were either a MSW or claimer. A pretty lackluster showing as a broodmare for a champion filly. ERUPTION started off his three year old campaign a little off form trying to stretch out to compete in the Bluegrass Derby where he finished a disappointing 14th. He then dropped back to a mile and ran off a nice streak with three wins including two Graded wins and capped off with a Stakes win in the SHRL Stakes with an amazing 128 SPF. He ended the year with another Graded win and a 125 SPF. He ran eleven times as a four year old, with a second in a Graded and a Stakes win. At the end of the season he retired and became a male broodmare.
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