The National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), Daily Racing Form
and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters (NTWAB) announced Wednesday that
Claire Novak has won the 2011 Media Eclipse Award for Writing in the
Feature/Commentary category for “Pressure off Durkin at Belmont,” which appeared
on ESPN.com on June 10.
This is the first Media Eclipse Award for Novak, a native of Lake Zurich,
Illinois, who now resides in Lexington, Kentucky, and is a horse racing
correspondent for ESPN.com.
Prior to this year’s Belmont Stakes, Novak wrote a profile of the renowned
racecaller Tom Durkin, on his reflections weeks after his decision to step down
early in 2011 as the NBC Sports’ “Voice of the Triple Crown.” In the piece,
Durkin revealed his anxieties, the nerve-racking preparations to leave the
network position, but also a man more at peace with his new circumstances. Novak
also spoke to Louisiana Downs’ racecaller Travis Stone, who idolized Durkin
growing up, and the thoughts of Larry Collmus, who replaced Durkin as NBC’s
Triple Crown announcer.
“It’s a great honor to win an Eclipse Award and something I wished for as a
kid growing up,” said Novak, who began writing about Thoroughbred racing after
graduating high school. “Tom Durkin is one of the most recognized and respected
fixtures of our industry. Everybody knows his name, but did people really know
what he was going through calling these major network races? I wanted to
convey this emotional part of his career and his reaction to the changes he was
experiencing.”
Novak, who founded Hopeful Farm Foundation with Children with special needs
in Lexington, also gave special thanks to Larry Goff, web editor for the racing
site on ESPN.com.
The complete article is available at:
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/triplecrown2011/news/story?id=6648531.
Honorable mentions in the Features/Commentary category went to Joe Drape for
“A Day in the Life of Todd Pletcher,” which was published in The New York
Times on August 21, and to Bob Ehalt for his two part series on the “1971
Triple Crown,” which appeared in Thoroughbred Times on April 30 and May
21.
The panel of judges for the Feature/Commentary Writing category was comprised
of Bob Curran of The Jockey Club; Jane Goldstein, former publicity director of
Santa Anita Park; and Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun.
The 41st Annual Eclipse Awards will be held on Monday, January 16, at the
Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, California. For hotel accommodations and
Eclipse Awards dinner reservations, contact Michele Ravencraft at the NTRA’s
Lexington office, (859) 422-2657, or e-mail mravencraft@ntra.com.