National Claiming Horse of the Year: Surprsinglyperfect

Making his 13th start of the year and 100th of his career, the 11-year-old gelding Surprsinglyperfect has been named the National HBPA’s 2025 National Claiming Horse of the Year.

Based at trainer-co-owner Justin Evans’ main bases of Turf Paradise in Phoenix and Emerald Downs in Auburn, Wash., Surprsinglyperfect finished 2025 with seven wins out of those 13 starts, along with three seconds and a third for career-high season earnings of $94,230. The Kentucky-bred son of Perfect Soul has a lifetime record of 28-17-15 in those 100 races for earnings of $417,351. Three races back Surprsinglyperfect won an open $20,000 claiming race at Emerald Downs.

“This is like winning the Eclipse Award for a blue-collar horse,” Evans, who owns Surprsinglyperfect with Jeff Rakoczy’s Rakoczy Racing, said by phone, adding of his notification call from National HBPA CEO Eric Hamelback, “When I got off the phone, I literally had goose bumps. I was like, ‘Who do I call first?’ My partner Jeff, I didn’t want to ruin the surprise for him. So I just texted him, ‘Hey, you’re going to be getting a call from Eric with the National HBPA. Make sure you get back in touch with him.’ I wanted to call my wife, my sister, the groom — so many people tied to this horse. I really didn’t know who to call first to share the info with.”

Said Rakoczy: “I’m really speechless, but I’m honored to be associated with Surprsinglyperfect and Justin and his team. I had heard of the award before, but I had no idea that Surprsinglyperfect would be considered for that type of recognition. I’m not sure how to put everything into words. He’s a fabulous horse. He’s such a classy horse. He tries hard every race. I wish I felt as good as he looks physically for how many years he’s been doing what he’s doing. People just fall in love with this guy.”

The National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association presents the National Claiming Horse of the Year annually to shine the spotlight on horses that are exceptional at their level of competition, with claiming horses comprising the largest segment of racing across America. Surprsinglyperfect and his connections will be honored Wednesday March 4 at the National HBPA awards luncheon at the organization’s annual conference in Hot Springs, Ark., at Oaklawn Park.

“Surprsinglyperfect is the persona of the claiming horse,” said Todd Mostoller, executive director of the Pennsylvania HBPA and chair of the National HBPA’s awards committee. “He might have been bought cheaply on numerous occasions, but that only means he’s an inexpensive horse, not a ‘cheap’ horse. He’s a great horse at his level, running 100 times and always looking forward to his next start. Clearly he’s had excellent caretakers throughout his career. We applaud Justin, his team, Jeff and especially Surprsinglyperfect, who may not be perfect but who sure is awfully darn good. We’re thrilled to honor him and his team with the National HBPA National Claiming Horse of the Year.

“The National Claiming Horse of the Year is determined by the National HBPA’s awards committee members. “This year the competition was particularly fierce, with a number of deserving horses,” Mostoller said. “Ultimately we gave the nod to Surprsinglyperfect as a shout-out to his durability for so many years, not just being outstanding in 2025 but throughout his career.”

Evans and Rakoczy claimed the then-10-year-old Surprsinglyperfect for $10,000 on March 21, 2024 at Turf Paradise. They’ve been rewarded with 11 victories in 24 starts, with another five seconds. (Evans won another five races with the gelding in early 2022. More on that below.) He has raced every year since he was 2 at Woodbine Race Course, running only three times as a juvenile and at 3 but never less than 12 times during any of the past five seasons. He has been claimed five times, four times for $6,250.

Evans has been intertwined with Surprsinglyperfect through much of his career. In fact, he purchased him for $9,000 at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky’s 2017 Mixed February Sale for a trainer friend in New Mexico, who ultimately lost the gelding via the claim box. Five years later, Evans claimed Surprsinglyperfect for $6,250, winning five races in five starts before selling him privately. After the horse changed hands twice more and resurfaced at Turf Paradise in a $15,000-$10,000 claiming race, Evans gave Rakoczy a call.

“I said, ‘You might think I’m crazy. I know $10,000 is a lot for a 10-year-old, but I love this horse. We just crushed it when I had him before,’” Evans said. “He said, ‘Yeah! Get him.’

“… He’s nothing flashy but he’s an almost larger-than-life presence, just a big beautiful bay with a really pretty head and always holds his weight. He makes me want to be a racehorse trainer, and he loves being a racehorse. Around the barn, the stall, my 8-year-old daughter Addison feeds him cookies. She’s brushing his belly, what she can reach. She’s underneath the webbing with him doing stuff; (he) never turns a hair. I said he’s like Superman in a phone booth. As soon as you throw the tack on him to go to the track in the morning, he’s a different horse. He loves training, pulls the (rider’s) guts out, comes home, gets his bath and turns right back into a kid’s pony.

“My (13-year-old) son Austin plays a deal with him all the time. If you play the Call to the Post on your phone, he could be in the back of the stall eating his hay, and he’ll run up to the front of the stall — just points his ears and stares off looking for it.”

With Surprsinlyperfect officially 12 years old on New Year’s Day, Evans plans to run the gelding one more time in Turf Paradise’s fifth race Tuesday with a retirement celebration immediately thereafter — hopefully in the winner’s circle.

“We want to get him at a level where he can win in his next race and have the track announce it will be his last race,” said the 42-year-old Evans, a leading trainer in Arizona, New Mexico and Washington who has won more than 2,700 races since his start in 1999. “We’ve had a blanket made for him with his name, career starts, his earnings. We kind of want to make it a big deal for him, hopefully throw that blanket on him in the winner’s circle and walk him out of there.

“He owes me nothing, and I owe him a lot. My respect for the horse is to put him in a spot where nobody will claim him but it’s not over his head. I want to give him a chance to go out a winner, because he deserves it.”

“He’s got a forever home. He’s going to be my kids’ new barn pony,” continued Evans, whose second son with wife (and barn manager) Vanessa is Addison’s twin, Anderson. “That’s his next career. He’ll live in the same stall every track we go to – he’s always been in the first stall. His role will just change. I don’t think he’s the type of horse who would like the life where you just turn him out. I think he’s going to transition really well. He is a tough horse to gallop in the mornings. He’s strong; he likes to do his job, he pulls on you and stuff. I think cutting back on his feed, leveling him out a little bit, I think he’ll make the switch really well. Our guy at the barn who always gallops him, he said, ‘I want to be the first one to ride him in a stock saddle.’”