Meade's Helvic Dream an early Cartier contender
The Noel Meade-trained Helvic Dream is one of the early contenders in two categories for the 2021 Cartier Racing Awards.
The 31st annual Cartier Racing Awards will be presented in November and Meade's Group 1-winning Helvic Dream enters the ealrly list of contenders in the Horse of the Year and the Older horse of the Year categories.
Helvic Dream and champion jockey Colin Keane gave Castletown trainer Noel Meade his first Group 1 success last month at the Curragh when winning the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the expense of the Aidan O'Brien-trained favourite Broome.
The Cartier Racing Awards were established in 1991 to reward excellence in horseracing.
There are eight equine awards - the Cartier Horse Of The Year, the Cartier Older Horse, the Cartier Sprinter, the Cartier Stayer, the Cartier Three-Year-Old Colt, the Cartier Three-Year-Old Filly, the Cartier Two-Year-Old Colt and the Cartier Two-Year-Old Filly.
The list below shows points earned up to last Sunday 6th June
CARTIER HORSE OF THE YEAR
There is a three-way tie at the top of the Cartier Horse of the Year standings with Classic winners Mother Earth, Poetic Flare and St Mark’s Basilica all on 64 points. Helvic Dream is in eighth place and has 40 points.
TOP 12
Mother Earth 64
Poetic Flare 64
St Mark's Basilica 64
Skalleti 56
Snowfall 56
Adayar 52
Palace Pier 48
Helvic Dream 40
Broome 40
Incarville 40
Mare Australis 40
Pyledriver 40
CARTIER OLDER HORSE
Skalleti (56) leads the Cartier Older Horse standings having completed a hat-trick of Group-race victories for trainer Jerome Reynier and owner Jean-Claude Seroul with a swooping win in the G1 Prix d’Ispahan at Longchamp on May 30.
Last season’s Cartier Three-Year-Old Colt Palace Pier (48), trained by John & Thady Gosden for Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, recorded a third G1 success of his career with a dominant display in the Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes at Newbury on May 15.
Broome, Helvic Dream, Mare Australis and Pyledriver also feature among the contenders in the same category with 40 points each.
TOP SIX
Skalleti 56
Palace Pier 48
Helvic Dream 40
Broome 40
Mare Australis 40
Pyledriver 40
The awards are delivered through a combination of points earned by horses in Pattern races (30%), combined at the end of season with the opinions of a panel of racing journalists/handicappers (35%) and votes from readers of Racing Post and The Daily Telegraph (35%).