The Horse of the Year winner will be announced Monday night. Watch DRF.com for full coverage. Profiles of Eclipse finalists >>
Going into the Breeders' Cup Classic, it was a widely held belief that if one of four horses won the race -- Blame, Lookin at Lucky, Quality Road, or Zenyatta -- he or she would clinch Horse of the Year. There was no caveat for margin of victory or defeat.
Another year of Zenyatta, another debate over Horse of the Year. What else is new? I get that there isn’t a set criteria that a voter has to abide by. I also get that with our horses making fewer and fewer starts throughout the year that some amount of thinking may have to occur "outside the box." I guess that accounts for the extra credit I keep hearing about, which can be earned for getting spots on mainstream TV channels. Yet I still don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Didn’t get it last year; don’t get it this year.
I’m voting for Blame.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fervent admirer of Zenyatta and I’ve never rooted so hard for a horse to get up in the stretch as I did for her in the Classic, even though I had no financial stake since Dakota Phone had long since turned my pick-four tickets to confetti.
But Zenyatta didn’t get there despite a relatively clean trip with no loss of ground or momentum. She had dead aim, but Blame held her off fair and square.
It was March in New Orleans, and Al Stall spent part of every morning tinkering with Blame. A jog here, a gallop there; nothing too serious. Stall would look out across the Fair Grounds racetrack, not entirely pleased with the condition of the dirt surface. Here was an exercise in patience.
Blame is my vote for Horse of the Year.
Obviously Zenyatta has had an amazing career and has brought much-needed publicity and public attention to our sport. But this award is not a lifetime achievement honor. It is based on accomplishments this year and this year only, and with that in mind, Blame is the more deserving of the pair.
HORSE OF THE YEAR DEBATE: Vote on Facebook for a chance to win free PPs for a year
A strong case could be made for both Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta for 2009 Horse of the Year honors. Rachel had the more complete campaign, but Zenyatta won the biggest race, the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic, while polishing off a stellar field. They never met, and I voted for Zenyatta, because I thought she was the better horse.
HORSE OF THE YEAR DEBATE: Vote on Facebook for a chance to win free PPs for a year
I’ve been in a state of total depression since they put up the photo showing Blame as the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
It doesn’t matter how many times I go out to the theatre to watch “Secretariat,” or stay at home to watch my tapes of “Seabiscuit” and “The Black Stallion.”
What on earth was jockey Garrett Gomez thinking of?
Didn’t he know how much Zenyatta has done for horse racing, and that she was supposed to win the Classic to provide a storybook ending to her perfect career?
When in doubt, go to the track.
As impressive as Zenyatta’s career has been, and as exhilarating as her stretch runs have been to her legion of devoted fans, the 6-year-old mare’s first career loss in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Classic gives a voter little choice but to assign the Horse of the Year title to the Classic winner, Blame.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Zenyatta has stirred passions and arguments this year that evoke memories of 1989, when Easy Goer and Sunday Silence polarized the racing community. The two colts' partisans hotly debated their respective merits throughout the year until their final showdown in the Breeders' Cup Classic.
When Sunday Silence held off Easy Goer's late charge and beat his archrival by a neck, the debate ended. Despite the closeness of the finish, almost nobody questioned the fact that Sunday Silence had earned the Horse of the Year title and secured his place in history.
