“The Horse of the Year has to do something extraordinary.” 

That forceful decree from D. Wayne Lukas after Lady’s Secret dominated from start to finish in the 1986 Breeders’ Cup Distaff rang true then for the coveted Eclipse Award and remains a reality today.

Six females have been honored as Horse of the Year since the inception of the Eclipse Awards in 1971. Each was exceptional. Their legacies live forever in the Racing Hall of Fame.

Thorpedo Anna galloped to the precipice of joining this select group of female Eclipse Award winners as Horse of the Year by winning six of seven starts in 2024. The 3-year-old filly won five Grade 1 races, including the Longines Kentucky Oaks and the Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff. She lost once, by a head, to champion Fierceness when challenging males in the 1 ¼-mile Draftkings Travers Stakes. 

The Distaff win elevated Thorpedo Anna into the Horse of the Year discussion. Two starts later on Del Mar’s Nov. 2 World Championships card, she became the logical front-runner when Sierra Leone reeled in Fierceness to win the Longines Classic by 1 ½ lengths.  

“To repeat these performances all year, it’s fantastic. It’s a pleasure to see her run,” said trainer Patrick Biancone, whose All Along became the first female Eclipse Award winner as Horse of the Year in 1983. “[Thorpedo Anna] deserves it.”

Should Thorpedo Anna be crowned 2024 Horse of the Year Jan. 23, 2025, at The Breakers Palm Beach in Florida, she will join All Along, Lady’s Secret (1986), Azeri (2002), Rachel Alexandra (2009), Zenyatta (2010), and Havre de Grace (2011) in this exclusive club.

All Along proved a trendsetter in more ways than one. Not only was she the first female Horse of the Year, All Along also was the first foreign-based winner and the first to race solely on grass. 

All Along’s four wins in 1983 came across 42 days, starting Oct. 3 when she defeated 25 horses to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. The Targowice filly had taken her time returning to peak form after winning a Group 1 in France at 3 and finishing second by a neck in the 1982 Japan Cup, so she had something left in the tank after the Arc. 

All Along was dominant in the Turf Classic. (Coglianese Photos/Bob Coglianese)

Biancone suggested to owner Daniel Wildenstein that they ship to the U.S. and try for the "International Classic Series" and a shot at a $1 million bonus. All Along barnstormed through the first two legs of the series, winning the Rothmans International Stakes by two lengths at Woodbine and the Turf Classic by 8 ¾ lengths at Aqueduct. 

“It was a crazy, crazy period, you know, especially after she won the second leg over here, the Turf Classic,” Biancone said. “She was on ESPN every day and it was the sports story of the year at the time.”

All that stood between All Along, her connections, and a seven-figure check was the Washington, D.C., International Nov. 12. Jockey Walter Swinburn urged All Along to the front on the backstretch and opened up a commanding lead entering the stretch of a 3 ¼-length win, her fourth Grade 1 against males in six weeks.

It took 13 years for the first female Horse of the Year Eclipse Award winner, but racing’s “Iron Lady” ensured the wait for a second was brief. Lady’s Secret’s steamrolled through a 1986 season that was both a tour de force – 15-10-3-2 record, $1,871,053 in earnings – and a stark reminder of how much the game has changed in four decades. 

The gray filly by Secretariat won the Grade 3 El Encino Stakes in January at Santa Anita Park to kick off her 4-year-old season for Lukas and amassed eight Grade 1 wins among her 10 graded stakes victories over the next 11 months. She swamped older males with her speed over the Saratoga slop in a 4 ½-length Whitney Handicap romp and dominated her own division by 2 ½ lengths in a season-ending drubbing in the Distaff.  Winning owner Eugene Klein heaped praise upon his star filly while sipping Champagne after the Distaff. “She’s the best that ever ran,” he told BloodHorse. “There is no other Horse of the Year.” 

Sixteen years passed before another female proved up to Horse of the Year standards. Azeri had but a pair of sprint victories to her credit at the start of 2002 and had not yet competed in a stakes for trainer Laura de Seroux. She ran second by a length in the Grade 2 La Canada Stakes Feb. 9 at Santa Anita in her second start of the season, but jockey Mike Smith learned a lot about her in her first career defeat after she bobbled at the start. 

“That’s when I really knew I was on something special,” Smith told BloodHorse in 2003. “I knew at that point she could beat Grade 1 horses however she wanted to. I didn’t care if she got left, broke crooked, hopped, broke in front, it didn’t matter.”

Azeri winning the 2002 Breeders' Cup Distaff. (BloodHorse Library/Skip Dickstein)

Azeri had arrived and subsequently ripped off seven straight victories – five Grade 1s and two Grade 2s – by open lengths to produce a magical 4-year-old season for the Allen E. Paulson Living Trust. 

The exclamation point came in a front-running, five-length runaway in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, but the turning point came earlier in the year. Solving her starting gate issues led to Azeri’s breakout and five straight front-running wins to conclude her campaign.

“That’s when I realized she was on her way to becoming unbeatable,” de Seroux told BloodHorse in 2003. “They were cooked if they tried to go with her and they couldn’t catch her if they left her alone. How are you going to beat that?” 

The end of the first decade of this century marked the start of an unforgettable era of great racemares, highlighted (but certainly not limited to) three straight Horses of the Year in Rachel Alexandra, Zenyatta, and Havre de Grace from 2009 to 2011.

Perhaps the most critical component of Rachel Alexandra’s perfect 8-for-8 Horse of the Year season in 2009 came in May. Owners Dolphus Morrison and Mike Lauffer of L and M Partners and trainer Hal Wiggins indicated after her 20 ¼-length Kentucky Oaks romp that they had little interest in testing the budding star against males. Jess Jackson of Stonestreet Stables arranged the private purchase of the brilliant Medaglia d’Oro filly, transferred her to trainer Steve Asmussen, and supplemented her to the Preakness Stakes. The ball was now in Rachel’s court. To say she held serve would be the understatement of a lifetime.

Rachel Alexandra defeated Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird by a length as the 9-5 favorite in the Preakness, crushed fillies by 19 ¼ lengths in the Grade 1 Mother Goose Stakes, and dominated 3-year-old males in a six-length Haskell Invitational Stakes runaway. 

“I don’t think enough can be said about the fact that not only did she win a classic in the Preakness, she changed barns and did that,” Asmussen said.

Rachel Alexandra closed out an unbeaten season with a thrilling and determined victory by a head over older males in the Woodward Stakes.

“It’s hard to define,” Asmussen said when asked what made Rachel Alexandra so special. “It’s easy to say just her ability, but I think it’s far more than that when it came to Rachel. She’s just beyond belief special, and almost magical.”

Few racehorses made as many dreams come true as the great Zenyatta, who built a voracious fanbase while amassing 19 consecutive wins to start her career and three straight Eclipse Awards as champion older female for owners Jerry and Ann Moss. 

Zenyatta, above at Del Mar in 2010, attracted massive crowds. (Eclipse Sportswire)

Zenyatta had a flair for the dramatic with her late-rallying style. She was a finalist for Horse of the Year in 2008 and 2009, both undefeated seasons capped by Breeders’ Cup wins, the latter as the first and only female to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic. But it was her 6-year-old campaign that ended with a heartbreaking defeat to Blame in the 2010 Classic that garnered Zenyatta Horse of the Year honors after five Grade 1 wins and a second in six races.

For Dottie Ingordo-Shirreffs, wife of Zenyatta’s trainer, John Shirreffs, Zenyatta’s legacy extends far beyond her 19 wins in 20 starts on the racetrack. 

“What she did for the sport, uniting people, bringing people to the racetrack, bonding people together, friendships were made… and she was the impetus for all of it,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “She kind of put the whole sport on her back and carried it along with her for three, four years.”

Indeed, “60 Minutes” spent a week at the barn for a national segment that shined a light on Zenyatta, her racing family, and her fans.

“She had done so much for the sport, that’s above and beyond racing. She was a fundraiser, so many charities she helped make money for, she was just the total package so to see that be honored by the sport was really lovely,” Ingordo-Shirreffs said of the Horse of the Year recognition. “She was so much more than just a racehorse.”

Fox Hill Farms’ Havre de Grace, who completed the three-year Horse of the Year run by these fantastic females, had won the heart of trainer Larry Jones before her banner year began in 2011.  

“I said it before we even raced her this year: I thought she was the best one we ever had, and we’ve had some very good horses,” Jones told BloodHorse in September 2011.

Havre de Grace’s five graded stakes from seven starts in 2011 included the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap, Grade 1 Beldame Invitational Stakes, and Grade 1 Woodward Stakes against males.  Jones described Havre de Grace at the 2011 Eclipse Awards as “the perfect racehorse.”

Perfection, of course, is not a requirement for Horse of the Year, but as Lukas affirmed … extraordinary is expected. Racing fans will find out Jan. 23 if Thorpedo Anna will join All Along, Lady’s Secret, Azeri, Rachel Alexandra, Zenyatta, and Havre de Grace in this pantheon of female Horse of the Year winners.

“I think great horses,” Asmussen said, “are like great people, they do it for how it makes them feel and we’re just fortunate enough to be along for the ride.”