Juddmonte's Close Hatches is Top Older Female
Image:
Description:
Though her 2014 campaign didn't end the way her connections had hoped,Close Hatches put together a strong enough résumé to capture the Eclipse Award as champion older female.
Owned by Juddmonte Farms and trained by Bill Mott, Close Hatches won four of six starts and earned $1,340,000 during her 4-year-old season. She won three of the top races in North America for fillies and mares going long on the dirt and in most cases did so with ease.
Close Hatches, by First Defence and bred in Kentucky by Juddmonte's Millsec division, began 2014 by winning the grade II Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn Park in March. In her previous start, her last of 2013, Close Hatches had finished second to eventual 3-year-old filly champion Beholder in the Breeders' Cup Distaff (gr. I) at Santa Anita Park.
Close Hatches did her best work from April through August with three consecutive grade I victories. The filly captured the Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn, the Ogden Phipps Stakes at Belmont Park—topping Princess of Sylmar and Beholder—and the Personal Ensign Stakes—by five lengths at the distance of 1 1/8 miles—at Saratoga Race Course.
It was that fine three-race run that sealed the championship for Close Hatches. She was so dominant in the Personal Ensign that when she returned in October to race in the grade I Juddmonte Spinster Stakes on dirt at Keeneland, she was the 1-5 favorite in a field of six.
Close Hatches didn't run her usual race and finished a disappointing fourth, more than seven lengths behind the victorious Don't Tell Sophia. And then, at 3-1 in the Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff at Santa Anita, she finished a well-beaten 11th behind the victorious Untapable—voted the champion 3-year-old filly of 2014—and Don't Tell Sophia.
Mott at the time said Close Hatches had been training as well as usual, and that he couldn't determine what led to her disappointments in her final two races of the year. But when she was good, she was very good.
Voting (Only first-place votes from members of the consolidated voting entities: National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form, and National Turf Writers and Broadcasters):
Close Hatches, 155; Dayatthespa, 64; Don't Tell Sophia, 19; Judy the Beauty, 15; Iotapa, 7; Beholder, 5.