Veteran New York photographer Skip Dickstein was there on August 31 for the start of the 2025 Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course where he captured a chain reaction that caused jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. was removed from his seat Mind frame . Dickstein’s remarkable image of Ortiz suspended between the necks of Mindframe and White Abarrio – while grabbing their manes and dangling his feet about a foot off the ground and several inches from their front legs – was honored with the 2025 Eclipse Award for Outstanding Photography. The photo appeared on BloodHorse platforms.
The award is Dickstein’s second Eclipse Award, having won the first in 1996 for a head-on shot of Alphabet Soup, Louis Quatorze and Cigar competing at the finish of the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) on Woodbine which appeared on the cover of the November 2, 1996 issue of BloodHorse magazine.
“I photograph every start because there are two places in a race where things are most likely to happen: at the start and at the finish,” Dickstein said. “Immediately after the start you could clearly see that there was going to be action that wasn’t just racing.”
About 30 meters beyond the wire along the outer rail, Dickstein looked through a Nikon Z9 180mm-600mm Nikon zoom lens while Phileas Fogg who broke from the seventh post position in a field of eight horses, moved sharply to the left and forced Opposite thinking against White Abarrio, who in turn bumped into Mindframe.
Read more about the other winners of the Media Eclipse Award 2025
“I stayed with the shot expecting something unusual was probably going to happen and the jockeys started reacting to it,” Dickstein said. Ortiz eventually fell to the ground and was taken to Albany Medical Center for evaluation. He fortunately escaped serious injury.
Dickstein added that if Ortiz had been seriously injured, he probably would not have published this photo.
“I know we are here to document the event, but that has to be done with some discretion,” he said. “The fact that Ortiz was able to get through this without being seriously injured is more important than the picture.
Dickstein, who lives in Malta, NY, has been photographing for the Times-Union for 45 years and for BloodHorse since 1978.
Born and raised in Albany, NY, Dickstein attended Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and credits Bill Clough as his top photojournalism mentor at the Beaumont Enterprise and Journal Newspaper. Dickstein has covered every Kentucky Derby and all 42 Breeders’ Cup World Championships since 1986, as well as many other national sporting events, including the National Track and Field Championships, the Olympic Trials for track and field, bobsled and luge, as well as the 1980 and 1996 Olympic Games.
Dickstein said winning an Eclipse Award is especially satisfying because the competition is so high.
“It’s been 29 years since the last time I won and I compete every year. That’s how competitive it is,” he said.
BloodHorse also saw senior correspondent Lenny Shulman earn an Honorable Mention from Media Eclipse in the Feature/Commentary category for his magazine story “Racing Royalty,” a profile of the late Patrice Wolfson, which was published in the July 1, 2025 issue.
Winners in the other 2025 Media Eclipse categories include:
Live television programming—FOX Sports, “The Belmont Stakes,” Michael Mulvihill, president-insight & analytics, June 7, 2025
Feature television–FOX Sports, ‘The Healing Ride’, Michael Mulvihill, president – insight and analysis, June 7, 2025
Writing – News/Enterprise–Natalie Voss, Paulick Report – “Doom Scroll: Thoroughbreds, Locking Pins, and Horse Traders,” December 2024
Writing – Feature/commentary—Jay Privman, DRF.com and Daily Racing Form, “Lukas Morphed from Caustic to Avuncular,” June 29, 2025
Multimedia—Augusta Chapman and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics Radio “The Horse is Us: Inside the Horse-Industrial Complex,” October 31, 2025