The American Champion Male Turf Horse award is an American Thoroughbred horse racing honor. In 1971 it became part of the Eclipse Awards program and is awarded annually to a Colt or Gelding, regardless of age, for their performance on grass race courses.
The award originated in 1953 when the Daily Racing Form (DRF) named Iceberg II their champion. The Thoroughbred Racing Association (TRA) added the category in 1967. The organisations disagreed only once, in 1968.
The Daily Racing Form, the Thoroughbred Racing Associations, and the National Turf Writers Association all joined forces in 1971 to create the Eclipse Award. From 1953 through 1978 it was awarded to male or female horses although the only female champion was Dahlia in 1974. In 1979 an individual category was created for each of the sexes.
Read more about American Champion Male Turf Horse: Records
Famous quotes containing the words american, champion, male, turf and/or horse:
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“What a terrible thing has happened to us all! To you there, to us here, to all everywhere. Peace who was becoming bright-eyed, now sits in the shadow of death; her handsome champion has been killed as he walked by her very side. Her gallant boy is dead. What a cruel, foul, and most unnatural murder! We mourn here with you, poor, sad American people.”
—Sean OCasey (18841964)
“Shall it be male or female? say the cells,
And drop the plum like fire from the flesh.”
—Dylan Thomas (19141953)
“Oh! snatchd away in beautys bloom,
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear
Their leaves, the earliest of the year;”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (17881824)
“Half the failures of this world arise from pulling in ones horse as he is leaping.”
—Julius Hare (17951855)