Bricks And Mortar in Eclipse Awards sweep

Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Bricks And Mortar (l) has been honoured as the best in the United States.

Bricks And Mortar has had a perfect year, and the Eclipse Award voters have given his team an historic sweep of top honours.

After going six for six – all on the turf – at six tracks last year, Bricks And Mortar and his connections swept all eligible categories on Thursday (Friday AEDT).

He was the 2019 Horse of the Year with his rider Irad Ortiz jr the jockey Eclipse Award winner and trainer Chad Brown recognised as the sport’s best for the fourth consecutive year.

Bricks And Mortar also was the unanimous pick as the best male turf horse after five Grade One wins including the Pegasus World Cup, and a Grade Two.

“We ran him against the best competition we could find,” part-owner Seth Klarman said.

“He danced every dance.”

Klarman’s Klaravich Stables Inc and William H. Lawrence also won the Eclipse as top owner. The top breeder went to George Strawbridge, Jr., another part of Bricks And Mortar’s connections.

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The only other time a horse and its connections swept the Eclipse Awards was 1981, when John Henry was Horse of the Year and trainer Ron McAnally, jockey Bill Shoemaker, owners Dorothy and Sam Rubin and breeder Golden Chance Farm took the trophies.

Bricks and Mortar raced 13 times in his career, winning 11 and retiring with just over $7 million in earnings.

He beat out Maximum Security – the would-be winner of the Kentucky Derby had he not been demoted for interfering with other horses as he entered the straight – and Mitole for Horse of the Year.

They did not go home empty-handed. Maximum Security won the Eclipse as the top three-year-old male, and Mitole was the Eclipse winner as the best male sprinter.

Maximum Security’s disqualification in the Kentucky Derby was recognised as the sport’s moment of the year.

Covfefe won two Eclipse Awards, one as top three-year-old and the other as top female sprinter.

The other awards went to Storm the Court (2yo male), British Idiom (2yo filly), Vino Rosso (older dirt male), Midnight Bisou (older dirt female), Uni (female turf horse), Winston C (steeplechase horse) and Kazushi Kimura (apprentice jockey).

The Eclipse Awards are voted on by members of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the Daily Racing Form and National Turf Writers And Broadcasters.