HURRICANE RUN (Montjeu [Ire]), winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe
(Fr-G1) and Irish Derby (Ire-G1), was named Horse of the Year at the 2005
Cartier Racing Awards, which were presented at the Four Seasons Hotel in
London’s West End on Wednesday. He defeated finalists AZAMOUR (Ire) (Night
Shift), DIVINE PROPORTIONS (Kingmambo), SHAMARDAL (Giant’s Causeway) and
WESTERNER (Danehill) for the honor and also won the Cartier Three-Year-Old Colt
Award.
Trained in France by Andre Fabre, Hurricane Run captured five of six starts
in 2005 and defeated the cream of Europe’s middle-distance performers with a
brilliant two-length victory in the Arc at Longchamp on October 2. He’s from the
outstanding first crop of Montjeu (Ire) and is expected to return to the races
at four.
Azamour is the Cartier Older Horse of the Year for 2005. Owned by the Aga
Khan and trained by John Oxx in Ireland, the four-year-old put up exemplary
performances to win the Prince of Wales’s S. (Eng-G1) during the Royal Ascot
meet at York and the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Diamond S. (Eng-G1) at
Newbury before finishing a good third in the Breeders’ Cup Turf (G1) at Belmont
Park.
Divine Proportions, last year’s Cartier Two-Year-Old Filly, gained the
Cartier Three-Year-Old Filly Award this time around. A winner of nine of 10
career starts, the Niarchos Family’s amazing performer was trained in France by
Pascal Bary and landed a pair of classics, the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches
(Fr-G1) (French One Thousand Guineas) and Prix de Diane (Fr-G1) (French Oaks),
this season before her stellar career came to a premature end when suffering a
tendon injury in the Prix Jacques Le Marois (Fr-G1).
For the second consecutive year, the Wildenstein Family’s Westerner won the
Cartier Stayer Award. The highlight of his season was a magnificent victory in
the Gold Cup (Eng-G1) at Royal Ascot at York, while he also put up one of his
best performances when second to Hurricane Run in the Arc.
AVONBRIDGE (Averti) edged out strong competition to take the Cartier Sprinter
Award. The Roger Charlton charge wrapped up his career with an outstanding win
in the Prix de l’Abbaye (Fr-G1) at Longchamp.
Ireland’s champion trainer Aidan O’Brien won both Cartier Awards for
Two-Year-Olds categories. GEORGE WASHINGTON (Danehill), a dual Group 1 winner at
the Curragh, was recognized as the top juvenile male in Europe, and
RUMPLESTILTSKIN (Danehill), an Irish and French Group 1 heroine, took the prize
for females.
The eight horse awards were decided by a carefully structured combination of
points achieved in Pattern races, the views of racing journalists on Cartier’s
Racing Panel, and votes from readers of Racing Post and The Daily Telegraph. The
Pattern races count toward 40 percent of the total, with the Cartier Racing
Panel’s deliberations also having a 40 percent share and the votes of the
newspaper readers making up the final 20 percent.
The Daily Telegraph Award of Merit for the person or persons who, in the
opinion of the 20-strong Cartier Jury, have done the most for European racing
and/or breeding either over their lifetime or within the past 12 months, goes to
Henry Cecil, the 10-time British champion flat trainer.
Cecil, one of the most popular and charismatic trainers of the modern era,
reached the top of his profession with winners of 32 European classics,
including all five English classics, and a phenomenal record of more than 3,000
individual winners.
The Cartier Racing Awards, now in their 15th year, are recognized as the most
prestigious within the European horseracing industry.