2018 Cartier Racing Awards nominations released

The nominations for the 28th annual Cartier Racing Awards were unveiled on Sunday.

Horses trained by John Gosden in Newmarket have gained the Cartier Horse of the Year Award three times in the last four years - Kingman (2014), Golden Horn (2015) and Enable (2017).

Britain's champion Flat trainer holds a very strong hand again, being responsible for four of the five nominations for the 2018 Cartier Horse of the Year - Cracksman, Enable, Roaring Lion and Stradivarius.

Thus brilliant four-year-old filly Enable, winner of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (Fr-G1) for the second year and the recent Breeders' Cup Turf (G1), could become the third horse to win the Cartier Horse of the Year Award twice, following on from Frankel (2011 & 2012) and Ouija Board (2004 & 2006).

The 28th Cartier Racing Awards will be presented at a glittering ceremony before an invited audience of approaching 300 at the Dorchester Hotel, London, England, on the evening of Tuesday, November 13, 2018.

European horseracing's equivalent of the Oscars are delivered through a tried and tested combination of points earned by horses in Pattern races (30%), combined at the end of season with the opinions of a panel of racing journalists/handicappers (35%) and votes from readers of Racing Post and The Daily Telegraph plus ITV Racing viewers (35%).

The longstanding and prestigious awards were established in 1991 to reward excellence in horseracing. There are eight equine awards, ranging from the Cartier Horse of the Year to the Cartier two-year-old colt and Cartier two-year-old filly.

The nominations for each of the equine awards, in alphabetical order, are as follows:

CARTIER HORSE OF THE YEAR

Alpha Centauri

Cracksman

Enable

Roaring Lion

Stradivarius

CARTIER OLDER HORSE

Cracksman

Enable

Lightning Spear

Poet's Word

CARTIER THREE-YEAR-OLD COLT

Masar

Roaring Lion

Sands of Mali

Saxon Warrior

CARTIER THREE-YEAR-OLD FILLY

Alpha Centauri

Laurens

Sea of Class

Wild Illusion

CARTIER SPRINTER

Battaash

Mabs Cross

Merchant Navy

Sands of Mali

CARTIER STAYER

Holdthasigreen

Kew Gardens

Stradivarius

Vazirabad

CARTIER TWO-YEAR-OLD COLT

Advertise

Quorto

Ten Sovereigns

Too Darn Hot

CARTIER TWO-YEAR-OLD FILLY

Fairyland

Hermosa

Pretty Pollyanna

Skitter Scatter

In addition to the eight equine awards, the Cartier/Daily Telegraph Award of Merit goes to the person or persons who, in the opinion of the special 15-strong Cartier Jury, has/have done the most for European racing and/or breeding either over their lifetime or within the past 12 months. The 10 latest recipients have been Sir Michael Stoute, Aidan O'Brien, Jack Berry, Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Jim Bolger, Team Frankel, Barry Hills, Richard Hannon, John Oxx and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.