John Pricci

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - There might have been better years than 2006 and certainly worse, but we cannot remember when so many monumental events marked thoroughbred racing’s place on the sports docket — and virtually all segments of the industry were involved.

A jockey made front page news in January when Jerry Bailey — arguably the best rider who ever lived — retired, and again when Russell Baze won his 9,531st career race in December to become the winningest jockey ever.

At mid-year, apprentice sensation Julien Leparoux became the first "bug boy" in nearly six decades to win a riding title at the storied Churchill Downs meet that ended in July. His talents suggest that someday he might join the conversation when the names of Bailey and Baze are mentioned.

But it also was a time when Kieran Fallon, the dominant European superstar, was banned in Britain for allegedly conspiring to fix races and laundering money.

It was a year when trainers separated themselves from the pack. Michael Matz became the first trainer in 50 years to win a Kentucky Derby after one prep within 13 weeks of the race by 6 1/2 lengths, a margin not matched in 60 years. Kieran McLaughlin trained his horse to a victorious Breeders’ Cup Classic off a two-month respite. And Todd Pletcher set money and graded stakes standards that may never be matched by anyone but himself.

But it was Pletcher who, along with the equally prolific Steve Asmussen and Scott Lake, was set down for abusing legal medications under the trainer responsibility rule.

It was also the year of the racetrack. Fair Grounds renewed a centuries-old tradition by reopening after being shuttered in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The New York Racing Association finished a bad third in the Ad Hoc Committee Franchise Derby field, filed for bankruptcy protection then subsequently sued New York State for, among other things, unconscionably interfering with the VLT installment process at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Most significantly, 2006 was a time when major venues altered their playing fields by installing new demonstrably safer surfaces at Keeneland and Woodbine called Polytrack and a synthetic oval at Hollywood Park known as Cushion Track. Arlington Park, which experienced significant problems with their surface throughout the year, recently announced that it, too, would switch to an artificial surface in 2007.

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But, of course, it was the horses that mattered most: The remarkable saga of Barbaro, a performer of record recalling Derby stature followed by his tragic breakdown and still on-going miraculous recovery and the emergence of Bernardini who picked up the mantel circumstantially dropped by Barbaro in the Preakness. Invasor, a Triple Crown champion in Uruguay, came to America and went undefeated in a four-race Grade 1 campaign. The singular achievement of Lava Man and his first ever Santa Anita Handicap, Hollywood Gold Cup and Pacific Classic sweep, who would throw in the Grade 1 Whittingham on turf for good measure. But then there was the sad passing of a exciting sprint champion named Lost In the Fog, and--for those fortunate not to have signed the sales slip--the comic relief provided by the off-again, on-again, off-again racing career of the $16 million juvenile breeze-up duffer, The Green Monkey.

On balance it was a sensational year for what occurred between the fences. The following is how one turf writer’s marked his ballot to determine the sport‘s champions:

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