Animal Kingdom's Kentucky Derby triumph resonated as the deciding factor in the most dramatic category at the 41st Eclipse Awards ceremony on Monday night in Beverly Hills, as the Team Valor International home-bred prevailed as champion 3-year-old male of 2011.
After enjoying an unforgettable 2011 as a partner in Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom and several other Team Valor stars, Norton Herrick also proved to be an astute handicapper of the stable itself, taking down the prize in the popular Follow the Valor contest annual contest.
Team Valor International received 121 entries for its popular Follow the Valor contest that challenged partners to predict the stable's win total for 2011. With a month left in the season, 45 partners are with in close range of the moving target.
BELMONT, N.Y. – Jockey Rajiv Maragh on Sunday will begin serving a seven-day suspension for a careless riding infraction for the incident at the start of last Saturday's Belmont Stakes. The suspension, handed down by the three New York stewards, was originally 10 days but was reduced to seven after Maragh waived his right of appeal.
The blame of Animal Kingdom's bad fortune seems to have fallen on one horse in the Belmont Stakes (G1), but is Isn't He Perfect really the sole horse to blame?
Kentucky Derby champ Animal Kingdom finished in first-place in the final NTRA Three-Year-Old Poll of 2011. The colt led the voting ever since he posted his victory in the Run for the Roses as a 20-1 longshot.
Now what? That was what horse owners and trainers who survived the Triple Crown were thinking Sunday in the wake of Ruler on Ice's improbable victory in the 143rd running of the Belmont Stakes. With long-shot winners in each of the three legs of the series, the 3-year-old division is still in search of a champion.
If one image sums up the scrambled state of this year's three-year-old division, it's Animal Kingdom's clipping heels in the opening strides of Saturday's Belmont Stakes, eliminating his chances before the real running even started. The same tired theme has repeated itself all season: a talented colt, on the verge of solidifying his status as the leader of the classic generation, was tripped up -- only this time, it happened literally and not just figuratively.
Animal Kingdom finished a hard-charging second in the Preakness Stakes. He was within a half a length of Shackleford at the finish and he was closing fast. He had no excuse for the result.
Animal Kingdom leads the pack of favorites if trainer Graham Motion decides to run him in this year's edition of the Belmont Stakes. The horse came in 2nd during the Preakness, and lost by less than a length to Shackleford.
