What an Eclipse Award is
An Eclipse Award is a championship title for a completed racing season. It recognizes a horse or person in a defined category for achievements in North America across the year, so it is a verdict on a campaign rather than on any one afternoon. The NTRA dates the awards to 1971 and notes that the Thoroughbred Racing Associations and Daily Racing Form separately honored annual champions before the Eclipse Awards began.
The name comes from Eclipse, the undefeated 18th-century English racehorse and sire.
Because the title is annual and retrospective, an Eclipse Award tells you how a horse's full season was judged after the fact. It is not a rating that updates during the year, and it is not assigned by a rules-based formula the way a race grade is.
See also: What graded stakes actually mean · The 2026 US graded stakes list
Who votes
Voting is conducted jointly by three organizations: the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), Daily Racing Form, and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters (NTWAB). NTRA's announcements describe its part of the electorate as member racetrack racing officials and Equibase field personnel.
The electorate therefore combines racing-media representatives with racetrack officials and the personnel who chart races for Equibase. The NTRA's 2025 winners announcement reported 220 participating voters out of 240 eligible.
| Voting body | Who it represents |
|---|---|
| National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) | Member racetrack racing officials and Equibase field personnel |
| Daily Racing Form | Eligible representatives of the racing publication |
| National Turf Writers and Broadcasters (NTWAB) | Eligible racing writers and broadcasters |
The two-stage count, and why it matters
The arithmetic runs in two separate stages, and they answer different questions. In each category a voter ranks three choices, which are scored on a 10-5-1 point basis: 10 points for the first selection, 5 for the second, 1 for the third. Those point totals determine the three finalists in the category. The award itself is then decided solely by first-place votes.
So the point total is a shortlisting device. It decides who is named a finalist in early January; it does not decide the championship. A horse that collects a large number of second and third selections can finish high in points, reach the finalist list, and still not win, because only first-place votes count in the second stage.
This also explains why the finalist announcement and the ceremony are separate events with separate results. Finalists are published once voting closes; winners are announced later from the first-place tallies on the same ballots.
| Stage | What is counted | What it produces |
|---|---|---|
| Ranking | Each voter's top three choices, scored 10-5-1 | The three finalists in each category |
| Award | First-place votes only | The champion in each category |
The 17 championship categories
These are the categories decided by the championship ballot for the 2025 awards. Eleven are equine divisions and five cover people, with Horse of the Year sitting on its own as the seventeenth. The equine divisions distinguish age, sex, surface, or distance role.
Read the divisions as distinct questions, not a ranking from most to least important. Some campaigns can fit more than one category, but voters decide each category separately.
| Category | What it recognizes |
|---|---|
| Two-Year-Old Male | The season's leading juvenile colt or gelding |
| Two-Year-Old Filly | The season's leading juvenile filly |
| Three-Year-Old Male | The leading sophomore colt or gelding |
| Three-Year-Old Filly | The leading sophomore filly |
| Older Dirt Male | Horses four and up, judged on dirt and main-track form |
| Older Dirt Female | Fillies and mares four and up, judged on dirt and main-track form |
| Male Sprinter | The leading male at sprint distances |
| Female Sprinter | The leading female at sprint distances |
| Male Turf Horse | The leading male on turf |
| Female Turf Horse | The leading female on turf |
| Steeplechase Horse | The leading jump racer |
| Owner | Outstanding owner of the year |
| Breeder | Outstanding breeder of the year |
| Trainer | Outstanding trainer of the year |
| Jockey | Outstanding jockey of the year |
| Apprentice Jockey | Outstanding apprentice jockey of the year |
| Horse of the Year | The season's outstanding horse across all divisions |
Horse of the Year is its own ballot line
Horse of the Year is voted as a distinct category, on the same ballot as the divisional titles but counted separately. No race result carries it automatically. Winning the Kentucky Derby, sweeping the Triple Crown, taking the Breeders' Cup Classic, or being voted champion of a division does not confer it; each of those is a separate outcome, and Horse of the Year is decided by its own first-place votes.
The same horse can win Horse of the Year and a divisional title, but the two votes are cast independently and a divisional title is not an automatic qualification for the overall award.
This is the single most common misreading of the awards. A headline that a horse has won racing's most valuable or most famous race says nothing definite about how the year-end ballot will treat it, because voters are weighing an entire campaign against other entire campaigns.
See also: The Triple Crown series · The Breeders' Cup
The 2025 awards, as a dated example
One cycle makes the calendar concrete. For the 2025 awards, voting closed on January 1, 2026. The finalists in each category were announced on January 4, 2026. The ceremony, the 55th, took place on January 22, 2026, and Sovereignty was voted 2025 Horse of the Year. Sovereignty was also voted champion three-year-old male in the same balloting.
Treat those dates as an illustration of the cadence rather than a fixed schedule. The pattern has been consistent, with voting closing at the turn of the year, finalists published within days, and the ceremony late in January, but the specific dates are set each year and should be checked against the NTRA's current announcement.
The example also shows the two votes working separately. Sovereignty holding both the divisional title and Horse of the Year is a result of the ballot, not a rule that one follows from the other.
Honors given at the ceremony that are not ballot categories
Several well-known Eclipse honors are presented at the same ceremony but are not part of the 17-category championship ballot, and they are chosen by different processes. Grouping them together with the divisional championships is a common error in secondary coverage.
When you see a claim that a person or horse won an Eclipse Award, it is worth checking which one. A Media Eclipse Award for feature writing and a championship in the Older Dirt Female division are both Eclipse Awards, and they share almost nothing procedurally.
- Award of Merit: recognizes a lifetime of contribution to the sport and is listed separately from the championship vote tallies.
- Special Eclipse Awards: recognize career excellence in some years and are listed separately from the championship vote tallies.
- Horseplayer of the Year: goes to the winner of the National Horseplayers Championship, so it is settled by a handicapping competition result.
- Moment of the Year: determined through a separate NTRA-run vote on the season's standout moment.
- Media Eclipse Awards: given in media categories such as photography, multimedia, writing, and television, and determined by a judges' panel for each category.
Category names and criteria change
The division list is not fixed for all time, which matters when comparing champions across eras. The clearest recent example: the Older Male and Older Female categories were renamed Older Dirt Male and Older Dirt Female, effective with voting on the 2015 awards. The renamed categories carry a narrower stated criterion, limited to performances on dirt and main-track surfaces in North American races, with synthetic-surface races treated as main-track races for these two divisions.
The practical effect is that an older horse's turf form no longer counts toward these titles. A horse that split its season between dirt and turf is judged in the older dirt division on the dirt half only, and its turf half belongs to the turf divisions instead.
So a champion older male from 1990 and one from 2025 were not measured against the same definition. Before treating any historical Eclipse Award as directly comparable to a current one, check what the category meant in that year.
How to use an Eclipse Award when reading a record
A championship line in a horse's record is a useful summary signal and a poor substitute for the record itself. It tells you that the season received the decisive first-place support in its division from the Eclipse electorate, which is real information about how that campaign was judged.
What it does not tell you is which races produced the verdict, at what distances and surfaces, against what opposition, or whether the horse was better early or late in the year. Those details sit in the past performances and the race conditions, and a division label compresses all of them into two or three words.
The most reliable reading is the plain one: use the award to know that a season was highly regarded, then read the actual campaign to understand why.
See also: How to read past performances · The graded stakes list
Common questions
What are the Eclipse Awards?
They are North American Thoroughbred racing's annual championship awards, established in 1971 and named after the undefeated 18th-century racehorse Eclipse. The NTRA, Daily Racing Form, and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters conduct the voting after the racing season, recognizing horses and people for achievements in North America.
How is Eclipse Award voting counted?
In two stages. Voters rank three choices in each category, scored on a 10-5-1 point basis, and those point totals determine the three finalists. The award itself is then determined solely by first-place votes, so leading the points does not by itself win the category.
Who votes for the Eclipse Awards?
Three organizations conduct the vote: the NTRA, Daily Racing Form, and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters. The NTRA's voting group consists of member racetrack racing officials and Equibase field personnel, so the electorate combines racing media with people working inside racing operations.
How many Eclipse Award categories are there?
The championship ballot for the 2025 awards covered 17 categories: Two-Year-Old Male, Two-Year-Old Filly, Three-Year-Old Male, Three-Year-Old Filly, Older Dirt Male, Older Dirt Female, Male Sprinter, Female Sprinter, Male Turf Horse, Female Turf Horse, Steeplechase Horse, Owner, Breeder, Trainer, Jockey, Apprentice Jockey, and Horse of the Year. Other honors presented at the ceremony, such as the Award of Merit and the Media Eclipse Awards, are chosen separately.
Does winning the Triple Crown or a Breeders' Cup race make a horse Horse of the Year?
No. Horse of the Year is its own ballot category, decided by first-place votes across the whole season. No single race result and no divisional championship carries it automatically.
Which horse was voted 2025 Horse of the Year?
Sovereignty, at the 55th Eclipse Awards ceremony on January 22, 2026. Voting for the 2025 awards closed on January 1, 2026, and the category finalists were announced on January 4, 2026. Sovereignty was also voted champion three-year-old male in the same balloting.
Why is the category called Older Dirt Male instead of Older Male?
The Older Male and Older Female categories were renamed Older Dirt Male and Older Dirt Female effective with voting on the 2015 awards. The renamed divisions limit the stated criteria to performances on dirt and main-track surfaces in North American races, with synthetic-surface races treated as main track, so turf form is judged in the turf divisions instead.
Further reading