Now that all of the Eclipse Award ballots have been cast and the results fed to the tabulators, it’s safe to unleash Steve Kornacki into the conversation. Best known as the national election and poll analyst for the family of NBC news programming, Kornacki is revving up for a wild and crazy year, commencing with the Iowa Republican party caucuses of Jan. 15, followed by the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23.

Seemingly tireless, as if hooked to an IV energy drink, Kornacki’s 2024 election prep did not stop him from careful consideration of his 2023 Eclipse Award ballot and its impact on the divisional champions and Horse of the Year.

Kornacki gets an Eclipse Award ballot because he is a member in good standing of the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters Association. His membership in the organization was prompted by his addition to the NBC Sports telecasts of Triple Crown races in 2021, and he will be back again at his big board this year for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve and the Preakness Stakes, “telestrating” with fingertip arrows and squiggles as he navigates historic betting trends and fluctuating odds.

Kornacki and NBC Sports handicapper Eddie Olczyk. (Bill Denver/EQUI-PHOTO)

Kornacki comes by his racing bona fides naturally. He was raised to be a fan by family who made sure places such as Rockingham Park and Suffolk Downs were part of a well-spent youth. He plays the races often and handicaps with a system that defies scrutiny – a poor thing but his own.

“I played the Boxing Day card from Santa Anita,” Kornacki said, referring to the Dec. 26 opening day program. “I didn’t get much out of it, though. A lot of favorites, and on those days I’m not going to do well.”

As for his Eclipse Award ballot, Kornacki confessed to difficult choices in three particular categories: outstanding trainer, older dirt male, and Horse of the Year. He was not alone. An informal sampling of public comments from voters has found a hopper full of names in the mix, especially in those categories.

“I love talking to folks about it, getting different opinions,” Kornacki said. “It’s a fun process.

“Horse of the Year was obviously a slam dunk last year with Flightline,” he noted. “This year I went with Idiomatic, with Cody’s Wish second and Elite Power third. I could have easily put Cody’s Wish first if he had handled the stretch-out (in the Whitney Stakes), and do something more than what he did up to a mile. Elite Power, clearly, is a sensational sprinter. But that’s doing just one specific thing.

“What threw me to Idiomatic was, first, the number of races she ran,” Kornacki said. “To run nine times during the year, and win eight set her apart. And then there were the number of tracks and types of circumstances she dealt with. I thought there was a breadth of accomplishment and consistency that was deserving of the title. In this day and age, when top horses tend to run so infrequently, I think there’s something to be said about her kind of record.”

Just as citizens of the Granite State will be agonizing over their primary ballots later this month, Kornacki stared long and hard at the 2023 category for outstanding trainer before landing on Brad Cox, also the winner in 2020 and 2021.

“I’m still not sure I got it right,” Kornacki said, suggesting there is never a correct answer to knotty Eclipse Award questions. “There were his 12 Grade 1s with 10 different horses, and yet I was really torn between Cox and Bill Mott. Two of my three Horse of the Year votes went to Mott horses, and he had those three winners over the Breeders’ Cup weekend.

“I ended up swinging back to Cox, because I did give Idiomatic Horse of the Year,” he said. “That, combined with his stats, gave it to Cox by a nose.”

As only first-place votes determine the winners, third-place voters provide a free space to make a statement or push a longshot.

“I thought (trainer) Rick Dutrow deserved a nod,” Kornacki said. “To come off a 10-year suspension like he did, and take over a horse like White Abarrio, who didn’t seem to be able to do anything outside of Gulfstream Park, then turn him into what he became in six months deserved some kind of recognition. It also was a way of at least acknowledging the incredible turnaround of White Abarrio, who I didn’t think was necessarily either Horse of the Year or older dirt male material.”

Kornacki and a racing fan at Pimlico. (Bill Denver/EQUI-PHOTO)

To a jaded voter of several decades, Kornacki’s enthusiasm for the task is inspiring. He seems to bring the same focus applied to the second and third spots behind Arcangelo in the 3-year-old male Eclipse category that he does to the granular reporting of northern Georgia precincts late on a November election night. (For the record, he went with Geaux Rocket Ride and Arabian Knight.)

“I don’t want to sound too hokey, but I consider voting for Eclipse Awards an honor, a privilege, and a responsibility,” he said. “When I got the ability to vote, it was a real exciting thing. I don’t want anyone to look at me from afar and say, ‘Oh, he just quickly fills out a ballot and gets back to his day job.’ I try to put the time in, going through the PPs and watching replays if necessary, until I think I’ve given each category the proper study.”

Kornacki is also an exception to the average Eclipse Award voter who swims mainly in a Thoroughbred racing world. He finds himself often questioned by friends and colleagues about his attachment to an endeavor that recently has made the wrong kind of headlines.

“Unfortunately, between the raft of fatalities at Churchill Downs last year and the awful breakdowns of Maple Leaf Mel and New York Thunder at Saratoga, I heard, ‘What’s going on with all those deaths?’ from a lot from non-racing fans,” Kornacki said. “That’s the reality.

“I tell them statistically the numbers are going in the right direction,” he said. “I tell them these are animals that would run and compete if you put them together in a field, and could take a wrong step. I remember going to a horse farm a few years ago, admiring horses in their own paddocks. We asked the man showing us around if they ever put two of them in a field to see who would win. He said, ‘Are you crazy? They’d kill each other.’ That made an impression on me, just how deep their competitive instincts run.”

Kornacki is already compiling a list of 3-year-olds to watch as the 2024 Kentucky Derby trail unfolds. He tuned Saturday’s San Vicente Stakes at Santa Anita Park with interest – and on that same day, the finalists for the Eclipse Award categories were announced.

“Every conversation I have with people seems to start with, ‘Well, obviously Cody’s Wish is going to win Horse of the Year,’“ Kornacki said. “Then a lot of those conversations end up with the person telling me they’re voting for someone else. So I’m wondering – if everybody is expecting everybody else to do something they don’t actually do, what happens then? There have been a lot of election night surprises.”