Bricks and Mortar a Unanimous Choice Champion Turf Male
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Photo: Skip Dickstein
Bricks and Mortar wins the Breeders' Cup Turf at Santa Anita Park
It's one down, and potentially one to go for Bricks and Mortar.
A finalist in two categories, the multiple grade 1 winner was rewarded in his first swing at an Eclipse Award as he was named champion turf male in a unanimous vote after an undefeated 2019 campaign.
A son of Giant's Causeway owned by Seth Klarman's Klaravich Stables and William H. Lawrence, Bricks and Mortar is also a finalist and the favorite to be named Horse of the Year later in the Jan. 23 program at the 49th annual Eclipse Awards.
"Well, we got one. At least we will not head home empty-handed," Lawrence said.
Trained by Chad Brown, Bricks and Mortar dominated the turf division, winning all six of his starts—five of them in grade 1 stakes—and earning $6,723,650 in a campaign that spanned January to November.
Thursday's awards ceremony at Gulfstream Park brought Bricks and Mortar full circle as his 2019 season started with a Jan. 26 victory in the inaugural edition of the $6,708,329 Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes (G1T), also at the Hallandale Beach, Fla., racetrack.
Now a stallion in Japan, Bricks and Mortar went on to capture the Muniz Memorial Handicap (G2T), Old Forester Turf Classic Stakes (G1T), Manhattan Stakes (G1T) and Arlington Million XXXVII (G1T).
Sent off as an even-money favorite and stretched out to 1 1/2 miles for the first time in the Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T), he faced an international array of 11 rivals and rallied in the stretch to score by a head in the $3.6 million stakes.
Retired with a record of 11 wins in 13 starts and earnings of $7,085,650, Bricks and Mortar's championship season was accentuated by overcoming a previous hock injury that sidelined him for 14 months until Brown brought him back to the races with a half-length victory in a Dec. 28, 2018 allowance optional claiming race at Gulfstream.
Bricks and Mortar, a son of the Ocean Crest mare Beyond the Waves, was bred in Kentucky by George Strawbridge Jr. and was a $200,000 purchase by agent Mike Ryan under the Oaks Bluff Partners pseudonym at the 2015 Keeneland September Yearling Sale from Stone Farm's consignment. He is one of three finalists for Horse of the Year, along with the sprinter Mitole and 3-year-old Maximum Security.