The three-year-old looked invincible on the course, winning four Group One races, the French 2000 Guineas, Coral Eclipse, French Derby and the Irish Champion Stakes.
The horse has earned owners Derrick Smith, Susan Magnier & Michael Tabor £2.21m in career prize money with over £1.8m in prize money in 2021 alone.
On Wednesday evening, the horse also picked up the best three-year-old Colt award at the 31st annual Cartier Racing Awards at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
The colt becomes the sixth horse owned by a member of a Coolmore partnership to be crowned Cartier Horse Of The Year. The others are; Giant’s Causeway (2000), Rock Of Gibraltar (2002), Hurricane Run (2005), Dylan Thomas (2007) and Minding (2016).
The well-respected awards were first introduced in 1991. A combination of ranking factors selects the winners. A 30% weighting is given to the number of points earned in Pattern races. 35% of a horse’s score is made up from the views of a panel of racing journalists/handicappers. The remaining 35% of the ranking is from the votes from readers of the Racing Post and The Daily Telegraph.
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum’s owned Palace Pier, which is trained by John and Thady Gosden, picked up the Older Horse of the Year award. Last year’s winner of the Three-year-old Colt of the Year picked up the award in recognition of a fine season that saw wins in the Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes, the Queen Anne Stakes, and the Prix du Haras de Fresnay-le-Buffard Jacques le Marois. Palace Pier took the award over other nominees, including Lady Bowthorpe, Mishriff and Torquator Tasso.
The Three-year-old Filly of the Year award went to the Aidan O’Brien trained Snowfall. The Filly won the Epsom Downs Classic by 16 lengths, the biggest ever margin in the history of the G1 Cazoo Oaks. The daughter of Deep Impact took the award over Alcohol Free, Mother Earth and Saffron Beach, who were also nominated.
G1 Darley July Cup winner Starman took the Cartier Sprinter honour. The David Ward owned horse, trained by Ed Walker, was selected over Creative Force, Emaraaty Ana and Winter Power, who was also nominated.
The Cartier Stayer award was won by Trueshan, who had victories in the G1 Qatar Goodwood Cup, the G1 Qatar Prix du Cadran and the G2 QIPCO British Champions Long Distance Cup. The Alan King trained horse took the award over Hurricane Lane, Stradivarius and Subjectivist.
Full list of winners at the Cartier Horse of the Year awards;
- Horse of the Year – St Mark’s Basilica
- Older Horse of the Year – Palace Pier
- Three-year-old Colt of the Year – St Mark’s Basilica
- Three-year-old Filly of the Year – Snowfall
- Sprinter of the Year – Starman
- Stayer of the Year – Trueshan
- Two-year-old Colt of the Year – Native Trail
- Two-year-old Filly of the Year – Inspiral
David Elsworth won the Cartier/Daily Telegraph Award of Merit 2021. Elsworth is one of Britain’s most successful dual-purpose trainers over a career spanning 67 years. Notable victories for the 81-year-old include the Grand National and the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Highlights of the 31st annual Cartier Racing Awards will be shown on Sky Sports Racing on Friday evening.
