Will Take Charge, who will race for Willis Horton & Three Chimneys Farm in 2014 before retiring to Three Chimneys for the 2015 breeding season, was the overwhelming winner as Champion 3-Year-Old Male at Saturday’s Eclipse Awards.
The chestnut colt had a series of disastrous trips in the first half of the year, aside from wins in the Rebel-G3 and Smarty Jones Stakes.
The second half of the year, however, the D. Wayne Lucas trainee showed his stuff, with victories in the Travers Stakes (gr. I), Pennsylvania Derby (gr. II), Clark Handicap (gr. I), and seconds in the grade I Breeders’ Cup Classic (by a nose) and grade II Jim Dandy Stakes.
That string of efforts was sufficient to earn Will Take Charge the Eclipse as champion 3-year-old male.
Owned by Willis Horton, who sold an interest and breeding rights in the horse to Three Chimneys toward the end of the year, the son of Unbridled’s Song made 11 starts at seven different racetracks from Arkansas to New York to California and he kept getting better with every start. His victory over Game On Dude in the Clark pushed his 2013 earnings over $2.9 million.
The votes below are first-place votes from members of the consolidated voting entities, NTRA, Daily Racing Form, and National Turf Writers And Broadcasters.
Will Take Charge, 231; Orb, 15; Palace Malice, 1; Goldencents, 1; Verrazano, 1.
