Nominees announced for 2015 Cartier Racing Awards

Edited Press Release

Nominations for the 2015 Cartier Racing Awards, European horseracing's equivalent of the Oscars, were released on Friday.

The nine Cartier Racing Awards will be revealed and presented before an invited audience of 300 at the Dorchester Hotel, London, England, on Tuesday evening.

In addition to the eight equine awards, headed by the Cartier Horse of the Year, the Cartier/Daily Telegraph Award of Merit goes to the person or persons who, in the opinion of the special 17-strong Cartier Jury, has/have done the most for European racing and/or breeding either over their lifetime or within the past 12 months.

The four nominations for Cartier Horse of the Year include two 2015 classic winners – Golden Horn (trained by John Gosden) and Legatissimo (David Wachman) – who are up against three-year-old sprinter Muhaarar (Charles Hills) and five-year-old Solow (Freddy Head).

Golden Horn was the impressive winner of the Derby (Eng-G1) at Epsom Downs on the first Saturday in June and gained three more Group 1 victories, including the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (Fr-G1), during 2015.

Legatissimo captured the One Thousand Guineas (Eng-G1) at Newmarket in early May, was beaten a short-head in two other classics and won two more Group 1s.

Solow remained unbeaten all year, collecting an amazing five consecutive Group 1 victories, culminating in the Queen Elizabeth II S. on British Champions Day at Ascot last month, while Muhaarar has proved an outstanding speedster, winning four Group One sprints.

The Cartier Older Horse category sees Solow taken on by two mares and a filly. Treve (Criquette Head-Maarek), the 2013 Cartier Horse of the Year and Cartier three-year-old filly, won two more Group 1s this year and finished fourth when trying for an unprecedented third Arc success.

Four-year-old filly Amazing Maria (David O'Meara), who won two Group 1s, and five-year-old mare Esoterique (Andre Fabre), also a dual Group 1 winner in 2015, are the others up for glory.

The top three-year-old colts have been outstanding in 2015, exemplified by Golden Horn and Muhaarar.

Last year's Cartier two-year-old colt Gleneagles (Aidan O'Brien), winner of the Two Thousand Guineas (Eng-G1) at Newmarket and Irish Two Thousand Guineas (Ire-G1) at the Curragh plus Royal Ascot's St James's Palace S. (Eng-G1), and Golden Horn's stablemate Jack Hobbs (John Gosden), successful in the Irish Derby (Ire-G1), are the other contenders for the Cartier three-year-old colt award.

Cartier Racing Awards 2015 nominations in alphabetical order are:

Cartier Horse of the Year

Golden Horn
Legatissimo
Muhaarar
Solow

Cartier Older Horse

Amazing Maria
Esoterique
Solow
Treve

Cartier Three-Year-Old Colt

Gleneagles
Golden Horn
Jack Hobbs
Muhaarar

Cartier Three-Year-Old Filly

Covert Love
Found
Legatissimo
Simple Verse

Cartier Sprinter

Goldream
Mecca's Angel
Muhaarar
Twilight Son

Cartier Stayer

Order of St George
Simple Verse
Trip To Paris
Vazirabad

Cartier Two-Year-Old Colt

Air Force Blue
Buratino
Johannes Vermeer
Shalaa

Cartier Two-Year-Old Filly

Acapulco
Ballydoyle
Lumiere
Minding

The Cartier Racing Awards were established in 1991 to reward excellence in horseracing.

European horseracing's top awards are delivered through a combination of points earned by horses in Pattern races throughout 2015 (30%), combined at the end of season with the opinions of a panel of racing journalists (35%) and votes from readers of Racing Post and The Daily Telegraph plus Channel 4 Racing viewers (35%).

Public voting commenced on October 21 and ended on Tuesday, November 3, following the early-morning running of Melbourne Cup (Aus-G1) in Australia.