The Unofficial Champion Stayer Award
Several times in the past year, Left Coast Racing has advocated the creation of an equivalent to the Eclipse Award for Champion Sprinter to be awarded to top stayers or distance horses. There is no North American equivalent to the year-end stayers’ titles awarded in Australia, Hong Kong, and Europe. This oversight, dating back to when the Daily Racing Form first began naming annual champions in 1936, is partly due to historical reasons.
Back in the day, it was assumed that champion-calibre horses could naturally race over a distance of ground (1 1/2 miles and beyond) as well as the “classic” distances (1 to 1 1/4 miles). Sprinters were considered specialists who could not be expected to compete for Horse of the Year or other divisional honours, but who often showed sufficient talent to warrant their own awards category.
Over time, the ideal of horses needing to display stamina as well as speed to be considered for year-end honours went out of fashion. True “stayers” remained, but no specialist championship category was offered. Instead, distance specialists gradually fell off the radar as the sport and the breeding industry began emphasizing speed and precociousness. Classic distance or “cup” races like the Saratoga Cup and Jockey Club Gold Cup were shortened. Turf racing, where stamina was still considered valuable, served as a last refuge of horses with staying pedigrees, where they formed essentially a niche within a niche. Those stayers that couldn’t handle grass courses were relegated to the claiming ranks, ungraded “marathon” race series at second- and third-tier tracks, or steeplechases.
For 2008 the Breeders’ Cup is introducing the Dirt Marathon. In addition, several new distance races have been carded by racetracks, and other established races have been lengthened, to serve as preps for the new race. A “Marathon Division” has also been instituted, using the standard Breeders’ Cup point system. While the latter works fine in determining which horses get to run on October 25, it is not necessarily intended to choose a year-end distance champion. The system also ignores the performances of turf stayers. Stamina, as a desired characteristic in horses and their pedigrees, continues to play second-fiddle to speed.
To help correct that imbalance, and as part of this blog’s continuing effort to give due recognition to the distance specialists who best represent the qualities of stamina and durability in the Thoroughbred, Left Coast Racing presents The Unofficial Champion Stayer Award.
At the end of the year, the unofficial title of Champion Stayer will be awarded to the horse whose performances in North America at distances of 1 1/2 miles and beyond, on dirt, turf, and synthetic surfaces, are deemed to be superior to its rivals. This will be determined using a points system similar to that used by the Breeders’ Cup for its divisional standings:
| GI | GII | GIII/ Ungr. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 10 | 6 | 4 |
| 2nd | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| 3rd | 4 | 2 | 1 |
The primary difference here is that ungraded stakes are also included. This allows long-established stayers’ races that have over the years lost their graded status, such as the Gallant Fox Handicap, to be considered for the purposes of the Champion Stayer award. It also permits consideration of new races, such as the Cougar II Handicap, which remain ungraded but which are included in the Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” series.
Note also that ungraded races are given the same point value as Grade III’s. There are two reasons for this. First, it is for the sake of simplicity — this way, the existing Breeders’ Cup points system could be easily adapted without having to adjust the point distribution. Second, as Breeders’ Cup preps these races will tend to attract higher-class horses than ungraded stakes normally would — for that reason they arguably deserve quasi-GIII status, at least for this year. However, in the event of a tie, points earned in actual Grade III races will be weighted more heavily.
Also in contrast to the Breeders’ Cup “Marathon Division”, turf races are considered as well as races run on dirt and synthetic surfaces. For the purposes of this award, “a stayer is a stayer”, regardless of the surface the horse runs on — just as (in theory at least) the Eclipse Award for Champion Sprinter can go to a horse racing on dirt or grass, or both. Also, even with the new races being carded this year, the majority of stayers’ races are still run on grass — counting only dirt and synthetic surface races would not provide an adequate sample of races from which a champion could be determined. However, in recognition of the historical prominence that dirt racing still enjoys in North America, in the event of a tie points earned in dirt races will be weighted more than those from turf or synthetic surface races.
Finally, it should be noted that, for this year at least, the Dirt Marathon is officially ungraded, just like the other new races that the Breeders’ Cup has introduced this year and and last. As such, it would ordinarily count in the standings the same as other ungraded stakes races. However, as the race is implicitly being billed as the year-end stayers’ championship, it should arguably be considered equivalent to a Grade I race. The Dirt Marathon is not unique in this regard. Some observers have argued that the new Breeders’ Cup races introduced in 2007 and 2008 should have automatically been granted Grade I status by the U.S. Graded Stakes Committee. Therefore, for the purposes of determining the year’s Champion Stayer, points earned in the Dirt Marathon shall be the same as for any official Grade I race, i.e. 10 points for a win, 6 for place, and 4 for show.
While it is probably too much to expect “the powers that be” to change decades of standard procedure in response to the actions of one horse racing website, Left Coast Racing’s Unofficial Champion Stayer Award will stand as a small but sincere tribute to those horses who best represent the qualities of stamina and durability in the Thoroughbred.
