Numerous New York-based stars highlighted among Hall of Fame finalists

A total of 16 finalists comprises the National Museum of Racing’s 2025 Hall of Fame ballot, including a litany of hopefuls that made their mark on the New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) circuit. The NYRA Press Office offers a look back at a number of these finalists that exemplified greatness as racehorses, trainers and jockeys.

Michael B. Tabor and Derrick Smith’s Rags to Riches ran her way into the history books by overcoming a stumbled start to outduel eventual Horse of the Year and future Hall of Famer Curlin by a head in a stretch-drive thriller to win the 2007 Grade 1 Belmont Stakes.

The victory provided trainer Todd Pletcher [previously 0-for-28 in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont] and jockey John Velazquez [0-for-20] with their first Classic win and helped set them on the path to their own Hall of Fame honors.

Rags to Riches became just the third filly to win the Belmont and the first since Tanya in 1905, while living up to the expectations of her immense pedigree as the daughter of 1992 Belmont Stakes-winning Hall of Famer A. P. Indy and graded-stakes winning dam Better Than Honour, who produced the previous year’s Belmont winner Jazil.

The Belmont victory marked a fourth consecutive Grade 1 score after the supremely talented chestnut annexed the Las Virgenes and Santa Anita Oaks ahead of a 4 1/4-length romp in the Kentucky Oaks with the late Hall of Famer Garrett Gomez at the helm.

With Gomez committed to Kentucky Derby runner-up and Preakness third-place finisher Hard Spun for the Belmont Stakes, Pletcher was able to pluck Velazquez from a call on eventual Belmont seventh-place finisher Slew’s Tizzy.

Street Sense, the Kentucky Derby winner, skipped the Belmont after his hard-fought head defeat to Curlin in the Preakness, but a formidable field remained with Hard Spun, and Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby-winner Tiago among a solid field of seven.

“She was a good-sized filly, but what I thought made her so well-suited for the Belmont is that she was such a strong galloper,” Pletcher said. “She had a big, long stride and when she got into that rhythm, she could continually keep clicking off those quarter-miles. It just seemed like she was made for the Belmont Stakes.”

In front of a crowd of nearly 50,000 screaming fans, Rags to Riches went to her nose from the outermost post but quickly recovered under a patient Velazquez, who let the filly find her feet and a comfortable position in fifth through the opening turn.

"I remember it pretty vividly. With all the agonizing we had done to hopefully make the correct decision to run in the Belmont, all our hopes were eliminated immediately. I just felt, 'there goes any chance of winning now,'” Pletcher said. “Johnny did an unbelievable job just staying on. Her nose was literally on the ground and for him to stay on board was an accomplishment in its own right, but then he made all the correct decisions along the way to not panic and allow her to creep back into the race and start to use that stride of hers.”

Slew’s Tizzy and C P West dueled through sensible splits with a hard-held Hard Spun in third to the outside of Curlin and Rags to Riches unhurried in fifth. Rags to Riches advanced wide through the final turn as Curlin came alive on the rail to split the pacesetters and vie for the lead.

Rags to Riches was in front as the field straightened for the wire with Curlin full of run to the inside to greet her and the lengthy Belmont stretch set to serve as the battleground for racing glory.

“These two, in a battle of the sexes in the Belmont Stakes,” exclaimed track announcer Tom Durkin.

Rags to Riches, ears pinned, refused to be headed as Robby Albarado worked in vain aboard a tenacious Curlin.

“A desperate finish,” roared Durkin. “Rags to Riches and Curlin, they’re coming down to the wire. It’s going to be very close, and it’s going to be…a filly in the Belmont! Rags to Riches has beaten Curlin and a hundred years of Belmont history, the first filly to win it in over a century.”

It was an emotional victory for all involved, including an exuberant crowd that welcomed the filly back to the winner’s circle.

“At the top of the stretch when her and Curlin hooked up, it was an epic race between two terrific horses,” Pletcher said. “For me, it was the most exciting race I've ever been a part of, and I've had many people I don't know stop me in airports over the years to talk about it. That's the race that everyone refers to - it was a historic race.”

Rags to Riches is one of only 12 fillies to have won a Triple Crown race and is part of an exclusive group of just 24 fillies that have lined up for the grueling stamina challenge that is the Belmont Stakes, including Ruthless, who won the inaugural edition in 1867. In victory, Rags to Riches won a race that eventual Hall of Fame fillies Genuine Risk [2nd, 1980] and Winning Colors [6th, 1988] failed to capture after winning the Kentucky Derby to kick off the Triple Crown trail.

“For me, what defines a Hall of Famer is an athlete that accomplishes something that is really difficult to do and rarely happens,” Pletcher said. “She's still the last filly to have won the Belmont. To accomplish something very few others have, to me that's what encompasses a Hall of Fame resume.

“Some of her critics say she didn't make enough starts,” Pletcher continued. “So, I would challenge those same critics that put Justify [6-for-6, 2018 Triple Crown winner] in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot - which in my opinion, he 1000 percent deserved - I think it was right that they elected him and now I think it's right that she gets her chance.”

Pletcher said that Rags to Riches more than earned Champion 3-Year-Old Filly honors.

"I think people lost sight of how strong her resume is outside of the Belmont,” Pletcher said. “To win the Kentucky Oaks and Santa Anita Oaks, she wasn't a one-hit wonder. She had a very strong 3-year-old championship resume even without the Belmont.”

And for Rags to Riches to defeat an eventual two-time Horse of the Year under less-than-ideal circumstances in racing’s true ‘Test of the Champion’ only further cements her greatness in Pletcher’s mind.

"It truly is the test and for her to be able to do it was Hall of Fame material in my eyes but when you add on the fact that she beat Curlin, that makes it even more impressive,” Pletcher said. “It was the ultimate horse race. I went through every emotion you could go through in a race from the stumble at the start to thinking you're about to win to thinking Curlin is going to come back and get you. It was a remarkable race and a great race for horse racing.”

Rags to Riches did not race as an older mare after sustaining a hairline fracture in her right front pastern after finishing second in her subsequent start in the Grade 1 Gazelle. She retired with a record of 7-5-1-0 for purse earnings in excess of $1.3 million, but her magical moment in the Belmont Stakes captured the imagination of the nation and put her in unique company as a victorious filly in one of the oldest and most cherished events in the sport.

*
There is just one jockey on the Hall of Fame ballot this year, but his list of achievements is one that seems like it would take the careers of multiple jockeys to accomplish.

Jorge Chavez lands on the Hall of Fame ballot 14 years after he hung up his riding boots from a more than 30-year career. Chavez, a 63-year-old native of Callao, Peru, began riding in his home country and moved to the United States in 1988, a journey that saw him rise to the highest level and become the leading rider at NYRA from 1994-99, the latter year awarded him the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey.

In the later part of his well-traveled career, one of the many top jockeys that Chavez competed alongside in New York was Hall of Famer Ramon Dominguez, who was inducted in 2016.

“Jorge was a fierce athlete with great tenacity,” Dominguez said. “From my personal experience, I know Jorge is deserving of this honor, and his statistics suggest the same.”

Among Chavez’s 41 Grade 1 victories were a Kentucky Derby win with Monarchos in 2001, and triumphs in New York’s most significant races when taking the 1996 Travers with Will’s Way, the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park three times with You and I [1995], Langfuhr [1997] and Swept Overboard [2002], and the 1999 Carter at Aqueduct Racetrack with Artax, among others.

Chavez, who also posted Breeders’ Cup wins with Artax [1999 Sprint] and Beautiful Pleasure [1999 Distaff], retired in 2011 with 4,526 wins from 27,763 starts and earnings of $161,792,580. The top-earning mount of his career was Behrens [$3,345,000], whom he piloted to five graded stakes victories that included the 1999 Grade 2 Suburban at Belmont.

Dominguez expressed his great respect for his fellow competitor, saying the venerable rider is more than deserving of the honor of enshrinement.

“When it comes to giving an opinion about a jockey, we so frequently have an opinion about what is a ‘good’ jockey,” Dominguez said. “I don’t think there is a clear, defined way to say what makes a good jockey. But at the end of the day, people aren’t going to say a jockey is good if they don’t win. Jorge was a winner. He was very relentless in terms of getting the most out of his horse. He was one that would forwardly-place his horses, and they ran for him at any level. He also was able to adapt throughout his career to where he was equally successful coming from any position.”

As for Chavez’s character, Dominguez said the rider was always one to put his mind to his work over anything else.

“He was always somebody very quiet, very friendly, and definitely competitive. He always did his best to win races,” Dominguez said. “He’s somebody who wasn’t looking to start a conversation per se, minded his own business and focused on his riding. He did well in Peru and then came to the U.S. It’s a story that’s really remarkable with how he was able to make it to the top of the standings for six years in New York. It’s nothing short of incredible.”

Those year-end titles in New York also encompassed 12 meet titles at Aqueduct and Belmont, details that Dominguez says define just how extraordinary Chavez’s career was.

“New York is the big leagues, and he did well both on a daily basis and with horses at the highest level of racing,” Dominguez said. “Overall, he was well-rounded in terms of his consistency on the track, and anyone who looks at his numbers and what he accomplished that this is a jockey that absolutely belongs in the Hall of Fame.”

*
Christophe Clement, a native of Paris, France, ranks 11th all-time in total earnings with $182 million through over 2,560 wins in more than 30 years of excellence since 1991. His top earners, Gio Ponti [$6.1 million] and Tonalist [$3.6 million], are just two examples of the consistency and versatility that make the Frenchman one of the leading active trainers in the sport.

Gio Ponti won seven Grade 1s from 2009 to 2011, including NYRA’s Man o’ War [2009-10] and Manhattan [2009] as he hit the board in 23-of-29 starts. He was a model of consistency at the highest level for five years, whether going short or long, on firm or soft turf, and even synthetic, Clement made sure the Tale of the Cat bay showed up.

In 2009, Gio Ponti won four consecutive Grade 1s in the Frank E. Kilroe Mile, Manhattan, Man o’ War and Arlington Million – ranging from one-mile to 11 furlongs on grass. After he was second in the 1 1/2-mile Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic, Clement tried him in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic, where he was collared by the Hall of Fame mare Zenyatta to finish a one-length second in the 10-furlong synthetic event at Santa Anita.

Castleton Lyons’ Gio Ponti, a former $45,000 RNA, was named 2009 Champion Older Horse and Champion Grass Horse– a title he defended at age 5 in 2010 with a campaign featuring two Grade 1 scores, two top-level seconds including in the Breeders’ Cup Mile to Hall of Fame mare Goldikova, and a close fourth in the Group 1 Dubai World Cup on synthetic.

“Gio Ponti displayed great consistency, versatility, and class, and retires completely sound after five very successful years on the track. I would like to thank Christophe Clement and all of his staff for handling Gio Ponti with such expertise,” owner Shane Ryan said in Gio Ponti’s retirement release published in BloodHorse.

Clement proved his talents extended far beyond turf as Tonalist won the 2014 Grade 1 Belmont Stakes. The Tapit bay missed the Kentucky Derby trail with a lung infection, but Clement got him into top shape, taking Belmont Park’s Grade 2 Peter Pan and prompting a challenge to Triple Crown-contender California Chrome in the ‘Test of the Champion.’

Tonalist, piloted by now Hall of Famer Joel Rosario, charged through five horses late as they all battled to the wire of the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes, prevailing by a head over Commissioner to earn Clement a Classic win as now Hall of Famer California Chrome was fourth.

“He was sick before the Wood Memorial, and we couldn’t run him in it, so we couldn’t run in the Derby, we aimed for the Peter Pan. Christophe Clement did a good job of getting him ready, and he surprised me,” owner Robert S. Evans in the post-Belmont Stakes press conference. “It wasn’t a very nice day – there were thunderstorms, lots of rain, and a muddy track. And [Tonalist] just galloped, and that’s the clue he was a good horse because he was only three-quarters fit. So we had four weeks to get ready for [the Belmont], and Christophe had him just right.”

Later that summer, Tonalist defeated elders in the 10-furlong Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup, and as a 4-year-old he impressively repeated in that event. He soon cut back to take another signature NYRA dirt event in the Grade 1 Cigar Mile Handicap and close out a 16-7-4-2 career.

Clement, demonstrating continued excellence, set his career-high in earnings last year with $12.7 million. He captured 14 total graded stakes, with contributions on all three surfaces, and a trio of Grade 1s on turf– LSU Stables’ Far Bridge captured the Grade 1 Resorts World Casino Sword Dancer and Joe Hirsch Turf Classic, while West Point Thoroughbreds and Steven Bouchey’s Carson’s Run took the Saratoga Derby Invitational.

“He is a superb horseman,” said Terry Finley, CEO of West Point Thoroughbreds. “He, and his son Miguel, are incredibly effective as they run that stable. He is a wonderful man – a family man, who cares about his family, the business, and he certainly cares about his horses. I really can’t say enough good things about my friend Christophe Clement.”

Finley said that Clement showcased his top horsemanship with Carson’s Run, a Cupid chestnut out of the Henny Hughes mare Hot N Hectic, who wasn’t expected to be a Grade 1 contender. He is now a dual Grade 1-winner, with a 7-for-10 on-the-board record and in excess of $1.5 million in earnings.

“He showed what kind of horseman he was, from taking him from where he was to where he is now,” Finley said. “We think he is near the top of his class for older grass horses going long. It is great when you have a horse like him, who may not have the pedigree, but Christophe really loves all his horses and really loved this horse.”

Last summer, Clement trained Dontlookbackatall to win the Grade 3 Caress presented by Albany Med Health System at Saratoga as her third stakes score in a row. She finished in the top-two in 11 consecutive starts, among a 16-6-6-0 record with $659,565 in earnings for owners West Point Thoroughbreds, Scarlet Oak Racing and Titletown Racing Stables.

“He had a spot for her at Saratoga, bypassed it and went to Parx and then came right back to Saratoga and won a graded stakes with her,” Finley said. “In the thick of the year, she was very, very effective and dangerous in any spot.

“She’s one who comes into my mind when looking at everything that is good and everything that is right about a trainer like Christophe,” Finley continued.

Dontlookbackatall may find her way onto Clement’s list of 22 horses that have earned $1 million or more, which notably includes Grade 1-winners Discreet Marq, Far Bridge, Forbidden Apple, Gufo, Relaxed Gesture, Rutherienne, Voodoo Dancer, and Winchester, among others.

Entering 2025, Clement had 41 Grade 1 victories to his name among 282 graded stakes, highlighted by three runnings of the Manhattan [2001, 2009, 2010] and a record five editions of the Sword Dancer [1999, 2011, 2021, 2022, 2024]. He also scored at the 2021 Breeders’ Cup with Pizza Bianca in the Juvenile Fillies Turf – with 13 placings at the World Championships, according to Equibase.

*

Among finalists in the trainer category is Ken McPeek, who has posted a career in which fortune has often favored the bold, never backing down from a challenge in racing’s highest levels of competition.

McPeek, who has become a regular face at Saratoga Race Course throughout the year at the Oklahoma training track, achieved a career Triple Crown in 2024 when Mystik Dan won the Kentucky Derby. That milestone fulfillment came 22 years after his first win in a Triple Crown event as Sarava left a raucous Belmont stunned as his 70-1 victory denied War Emblem a Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes.

McPeek would earn his next win in a Triple Crown race in unconventional fashion in 2020 as the filly Swiss Skydiver, winner of Saratoga’s Grade 1 Alabama, took a rescheduled version of the Grade 1 Preakness that October, four years before another filly would become a defining horse in his career.

McPeek has given the racing community an inside look at both his operation and the world of horse racing through 2024 Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna, a sensation at Saratoga from May through October of last year.

The Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks winner was stabled at the Spa’s Oklahoma training track for the bulk of her sophomore campaign, which saw her capture a pair of Grade 1s at the Spa in the DK Horse Acorn and Coaching Club American Oaks before finishing just a head shy of Fierceness to be second against males in the Grade 1 DraftKings Travers. The daughter of Fast Anna also provided McPeek with his first Breeders’ Cup win in last year’s Distaff to complete her dual Eclipse Award-winning season.

In addition to Thorpedo Anna, McPeek’s other Grade 1 performers in New York include 2012 Travers-winner Golden Ticket, who famously dead-heated with Alpha for the win, 2022 Belmont Derby Invitational-winner Classic Causeway, and 2018 Alabama victress Eskimo Kisses.

Through mid-March, McPeek has posted over 2,100 wins from over 14,000 starts, with total purse earnings in excess of $134 million.

*

Kiaran McLaughlin is now a jockey agent but is on the ballot for his training career that included 1,577 wins and over $120 million in earnings from 1995 to 2020. He trained the 11-for-12 Invasor, who won the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Classic after New York Grade 1 victories in the Suburban and Whitney en route to Hall of Fame-honors.

McLaughlin is known for training 2006 Belmont Stakes-winner Jazil, in addition to the popular Frosted, victor of the Grade 1 Wood Memorial, Metropolitan Handicap and Whitney on the NYRA-circuit, and Cavorting, who also won three top-level events in the Empire State.

The Lexington, K.Y.-native’s 41 Grade 1 wins were contributed to by a trio of champions, including the aforementioned 2006 Horse of the Year Invasor, 2007 Champion Turf Female Lahudood and 2012 Champion 3-Year-Old Filly Questing – who all earned at least one of their topflight triumphs in New York.

McLaughlin’s NYRA-circuit training titles include the 2008 Saratoga meet.

*

H. Graham Motion, who hails from Cambridge, England, has earned over 2,700 wins and $158 million since 1993. His arguably biggest wins came from 2011 Champion 3-Year-Old Colt Animal Kingdom, winner of that year’s Kentucky Derby and later the 2013 Group 1 Dubai World Cup.

Another top contributor to Motion’s 32 Grade 1 wins through 2024 was 2014 dual Champion Main Sequence, the winner of that year’s Sword Dancer and Joe Hirsch Turf Classic in New York, as well as the top-level United Nations and Breeders’ Cup Turf elsewhere.

Motion has maintained a strong presence on the N.Y. turf, earning multiple Grade 1 victories in the Manhattan [2007, 17-18], Man o’ War [2005, 22] and Sword Dancer [2004, 14]. Motion added local Grade 1 dirt success with Bullsbay in the 2009 Whitney and Toby’s Corner in the 2011 Wood Memorial.

Motion, at the Breeders’ Cup, won the 2019 Juvenile Fillies Turf with Sharing after her dam Shared Account captured the 2010 Filly and Mare Turf nearly a decade earlier.

*

Other racing legends on the trainer ballot this year are the West Coast-based trio of John Sadler, who sent out the undefeated Flightline for a memorable six-length romp in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap en route to honors as Champion Older Dirt Male and Horse of the Year; dual Kentucky Derby-winner and five-time Breeders’ Cup-victor Doug O’Neill; and John Shirreffs, who won the 2005 Kentucky Derby with Giacomo, and campaigned Hall of Famer Zenyatta.

*

Many of racing’s most impactful stories surround horses who have overcome adversity to achieve greatness. There is perhaps no horse that embodies the thoroughbred spirit better than Sheep Pond Partners’ Lady Eli, whose brilliant career, which was nearly cut short after she contracted laminitis, was made even greater by her triumphant return to Grade 1 company.

Trained by now five-time Eclipse Award-winning and nine-time leading NYRA trainer Chad Brown, Lady Eli was flawless in her first six outings, including a 3-for-3 juvenile campaign in 2014 that featured wins in the Grade 3 Miss Grillo at Belmont Park and a statement victory in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita Park.

The Divine Park dark bay would return as a sophomore in 2015 to capture three stakes, including Belmont’s Wonder Again and Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational on July 4th. However, the latter performance’s shine was dulled shortly after when she stepped on a nail returning to the barn.

Lady Eli’s condition deteriorated, and she entered a battle with laminitis that threatened to not only end her racing career, but her life as well with an infection that raged on in both her front feet. With a guarded prognosis, Brown and his team worked tirelessly to nurse the star filly back to health at Belmont Park.

Day by day, Lady Eli improved, and, with great relief, it became apparent the filly would live. What lay as the most distant of hopes in the back of their minds was that her vigor signaled not just a return to adequate health, but to a strength that would allow her to race again. Those hopes came to fruition that December when she made her way to Brown’s winter base at Palm Meadows Training Center in Florida.

Lady Eli’s return in the summer of 2016 was met with great excitement from the racing community, and the beloved filly went on to reach the same level of excellence she left off at, including three additional Grade 1 victories in Belmont’s Flower Bowl Invitational, the Gamely at Santa Anita, and the Diana at Saratoga, the latter two a part of her Eclipse Award-winning season in 2017.

Lady Eli retired at the end of 2017 with a 14-10-3-0 record and $2,959,800 in earnings. She resides at Hill ‘N’ Dale Farms at Xalapa in Paris, Kentucky and has produced four foals.

*

A cherished group of racehorse finalists also includes Havre de Grace, who toppled males in the 2011 Grade 1 Woodward ahead of a score in the Grade 1 Beldame Invitational en route to honors as Champion Older Mare and Horse of the Year.

Also on the ballot is Blind Luck, who was named 2010 Champion 3-Year-Old Filly following a campaign that included a neck win over Havre de Grace in the Grade 1 Alabama.

Fellow racehorse finalists are eight-time Grade 1-winning multimillionaire Game On Dude; dual Grade 1-winning multimillionaire Kona Gold, who was named 2000 Champion Male Sprinter; dual Champion Female Sprinter [2012-13] Groupie Doll, a narrow nose second to Stay Thirsty in the 2012 Grade 1 Cigar Mile Handicap; and 2004 Champion 3-Year-Old Colt Smarty Jones, the winner of that year’s Kentucky Derby and Preakness, but was denied Triple Crown immortality by 36-1 longshot Birdstone, a one-length winner of the Belmont Stakes.

*
The results of the voting will be announced on Thursday, April 24, with the Hall of Fame induction ceremony to take place on Friday, August 1, at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., at 10:30 a.m. The ceremony is open to the public and is free to attend.