One of my horses has a trophy icon in the upper left corner of their image. What is this and where might it have come from? I noticed it (with StartIt) after the horse finished 3rd in a the Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream.

I wondered about this but only seen it on horses that won big races and didn't give it a second thought. Mine only happened in vanilla games and don't think I ever got it for placing.

I think it means that the horse is currently the leading horse in that category in the end of season awards.

In what category?

Kinda shocking that we don't fully know the answer to this readily.

Makes sense, thanks. Although I see top horses at the end of the year who are not the top horse, might be in a particular game mode such as jumps mode, not sure will have to check but means I will have to play those game modes and I'm currently concentrating/playing a combined game where top 3yo are decided before the classics have even begun.

Yes the end of season award winners rarely make sense. You can check mid season by pressing the category leaders button on the HORSES page. When one of mine had the trophy it was on showing on that page so that's where I came up with the theory. The end of season awards may be based on cash won by the horse that season.