The Eclipse Awards – horse racing’s version of the Academy Awards – take center stage January 17 in Miami, and its most coveted “Oscar,” the Horse of the Year (HOY) award, is a race too close to call. Much like their penultimate match-up in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Blame and Zenyatta are again poised to dual it out to the wire, although this time it may be Blame that has too much ground to make up.
Though there are no specific criteria for the HOY award, it has typically been awarded by the voting bloc of turf writers and racing officials to the horse that completed the most outstanding year. By those metrics, Blame and Zenyatta each posted incredible 2010 campaigns, with both horses winning multiple Grade I’s and only losing once each (both second place finishes) the entire year. However, Zenyatta’s lone loss was a fast-closing second place to Blame in the Classic.
Under those criteria, perhaps Blame has the edge. Or not. Racing is both blessed and cursed by a myriad of gray areas, and in this case, not having specific criteria can make the HOY award a handicapping nightmare.
Does Blame’s head-to-head triumph trump Zenyatta’s 19 consecutive wins up until Breeders’ Cup, when, perhaps an earlier prompting by the latter’s jockey would have removed all doubt? Does Zenyatta’s snub for HOY the year prior to Rachel Alexandra, coupled with her 2010 campaign and overall 19 wins in 20 starts, put Blame to shame? Does Zenyatta’s immense popularity – from those spontaneous ovations at every oval she visited (prior to her retirement) to her inclusion in Oprah’s list of most influential women of 2010 – override that lone defeat?
You can tune into TVG on Monday night to watch the Eclipse Awards broadcast and Zenyatta’s final photo finish.
One possible hint of how the voting will go is the record participation of 238 out of 251 eligible voters (94.8 percent) representing the NTRA, the NTWAB (thoroughbred writers group) and Daily Racing Form. The Zenyatta legend – and the Zenyatta-Blame HOY debate – galvanized the industry, and one wonders whether so many would come out and cast votes for the horse figuratively playing the “spoiler” in this story.
The sponsors of the Eclipse Awards, possibly sensing the downside of having a “loser” in this competition, proactively bestowed lifetime achievement Eclipse awards to the Zenyatta camp and Claiborne Farm (Blame’s breeders).
Monday, though, one great horse will be crowned Horse of the Year and one deserving horse won’t (really two, as Goldikova, the third finalist, is the only horse to win three consecutive Breeders’ Cup races). And that will spark more debate until the Kentucky Derby prep races turn the industry’s attention elsewhere.
And that debate – and the reasonable, yet vastly different opinions on either side – is good for racing. In fact, as NTRA CEO Alex Waldrop put it very eloquently in his blog, it’s what makes the sport possible.
Wrote Waldrop: “In today’s highly competitive sports entertainment environment, it takes heated rivalries like the one between Blame and Zenyatta to break through the clutter in the mainstream media. It is undeniable that conflict and competition are at the heart of what makes Thoroughbred racing so exhilarating. Think about it this way – if there are no differences of opinion, we have no business.”
Wise words from the guy who is going to open the “winner is” envelope – and some more controversy – on January 17.
Comments
When decisions on awards are made without objective criteria, the results are always going to be unfair and full of bias. When decisions are viewed as “unfair”, the result is usually a lot of angry people. I do not feel that this type of conflict is good for the sport of horse racing. The focus needs to be on creating a positive image of the sport. In the “Horse of the Year” debate this year, there are good arguments for both horses, and both sides present good information to support their choices. Without criteria, both sides are right, and the final decision will be unfair to both horses. I know that there will always be some subjectivity in voting on these awards, even when objective criteria exist. However, there is a big difference between voting based on a set of agreed upon criteria versus voting based on each voter’s personal criteria for determining these awards.
I agree that rivalries and debate can be good for any sport, but a lot of the “debate” around the Eclipse “Horse of the Year” Award for the last two years has been vicious, unprofessional, and degrading to the individuals and horses involved. Is this what the officials want for the sport? If not, maybe they could consider making some changes before next year’s awards.
Rookytoo, thanks for the thoughtful comments. I agree that unfair decisions can be unpopular and, in the short term, turn people off from a sport.
That said, not all decisions without objective criteria are unfair (see previous choices for HOY, for example). And decisions with objective criteria can often be unfair.
Most of the voters for the Eclipse Awards were chosen because of their knowledge of and involvement in the sport. Consequently, there is a very good chance that they share, in their heads at least, some sort of informal criteria (number of wins, competition, earnings, etc.) for picking a winner.
I agree that from the public's perspective, it would be nice to have that criteria front and center. But from a voting perspective, there is no guarantee it would make an impact. Try some criteria for this year's controversy: Zenyatta has more wins (5 vs. 4) and more Grade I wins (5 vs. 3), while Blame has more earnings ($3.7MM vs. $1.8MM) and a head-to-head victory in the Classic. While technically some might use that head-to-head win as the tiebreaker, I would wager that most fans who saw the race and Zenyatta's close felt even after the result that Zenyatta was the better horse. So, you might easily have a decision where criteria selects a horse different from what the public thinks, and the same controversy you believe occurs without criteria.
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