Baze will receive the award, named in honor of the nineteenth century jockey who won 44 percent of his career mounts, later this year.
Northern California-based jockey Russell Baze won the National Turf Writers Association's Issac Murphy Award for the sixth straight year, remaining the only recipient of the award. The Issac Murphy Award was inaugurated in 1995 and goes to the jockey with the highest winning percentage on the year from a minimum of 500 mounts.In 2000, Baze won 412 races from 1,513 mounts for a winning percentage of 27.2, narrowly defeating Jerry Bailey (27.1 percent). Bailey finished second for the third consecutive year.Baze has won 400 or more mounts in a year on eight occasions, and saw his seven-year streak of 400 or more winning mounts ended in 1999, when he missed five weeks due to injury.