She wasn't a likely or worthy winner of award... Basically she was Satished

No one suggested she was going to be the winner of the award. She was simply the clear 2nd best Older Filly & Mare of 2013 and deserved to be recognized as such as an Eclipse finalist behind division winner Royal Delta. The mechanism involved in 'assisting' voters was slapdash and poorly executed. There wasn't anyone at the 3 organizations that acutely omitted Authenticity, but it doesn't diminish what a farce the resultant outcome is due to laziness of voters.

Ah ok then that's just stupid. They effectively create a short list for nomination when they send this out. If they can do points systems for the Derby and Win and You're In for the Breeders' Cup, surely there could be some reasonable threshold where they can say 'if you do X, Y, or Z your PPs end up in the booklet.' That takes out any opportunity for this level of facepalmery.

you would have to think, tho, that if you're asking racing people to vote, that you wouldn't have to send out info. if they follow so little of it as to require assistance in knowing who did what, why do they have a vote?

Absolutely.

they should have to answer questions about racing and horses to get the vote. have doug put together a trivia question package, revedere to send photos for them to identify (with saddles cloths appropriately edited of course)....that's a good start to make sure they have the credentials to help decide awards.
i mean, what is this, the people's choice awards?

Lost all in interest in process after Blame was denied.

Regards,

A. Stall

Ria Antonia wins a Breeders Cup race on a DQ, becomes a finalist. Did nothing prior to her "win"

Why should there be a category just for the sake of giving out an award? A certain standard has to be established.
Otherwise you can have Ria Antonia win it and be in the same eclipse category as some of the greats in the past. Sad.

I don't agree. As with any yearly award, there are going to be "better" winners than others. What kind of a standard would you like to establish?

Should they not give out Best Picture Oscars if the films of a certain year don't compare to the Godfather?

Standard of number of races run in graded stakes and placing in these races should be considered. You can win one or two races and still be a finalist is dumb. If the connections want an eclipse, they shall work for it rather than cherry picking races as they see fit. Winning a BC race is almost a lock to be a finalist. Putting that much weight on one race is absurd. Horses like Authenticity who ran 9 times and finished in the money all 9 times with 7 being graded races. Tiz Miz Sue ran only four and won twice is a finalist in the same category.

I agree that too much emphasis on the Breeders Cup isn't a good thing. But in the case of the 2 year olds they, like older horses are running less than they used to. Ria Antonia won as many grade 1 races as any other 2 year old filly here last year and while she wouldn't be my pick to win the award, I see no problem with her as a finalist. Should Shared Belief not be a finalist for last year? He made only 3 starts.

I also agree that Authenticity should have been a finalist but I think the outrage shown over her omission has been blown way out of proportion. Royal Delta is going to be a deserving runaway winner of that award.

I'd like to see people this passionate over some of the real things plaguing horse racing. Like the on the turf, off the turf fiasco at Fair Grounds this week that I didn't see anyone mention. Authenticity not being a finalist for an award she wasn't going to come close to winning anyway ranks about 9,999th in things people should be mad about right now in horse racing.

I agree with you that in the big picture the Authenticity "snub" is hardly a big issue on its own. However unlike the other issue that you elude to, putting together a list of pp's for top contenders is a clear cut, simple thing to do and racing can't even get that right.

Bigger Eclipse voting issue is that there are far too many unqualified or just plain clueless people voting.

http://www.derbytrail.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52864

the other 9998 things in racing (or thereabouts) also get discussed on this board. and having people without much clue regarding racing having a say in racing related things is a problem. especially if one has an agenda, joe drape is one that comes to mind.
people discussing voting doesn't necessarily equate to 'outrage'. it's just one of myriad topics discussed on here.

My mistake, one person mentioned it. I wonder how many people even realize why it is an issue. But there are a dozen posts about Authenticity not being a finalist for an award she isn't winning anyway.

Sorry, but one seems like an important issue to me and one doesn't. Just my opinion of course and I enjoy all of the discussions here. But one actually impacted people and one didn't.

Sure and this is a problem baseball is facing right now as well. Seems like an easy fix though, less voters.

The reason it's important is because it's a bad message that is a direct disincentive to the way in which Authenticity was campaigned. She ran 9x from Jan-Nov as opposed to horses who ran wholly incomplete seasons. Authenticity also deserved to be recognized because rather than give up on the mare after a series of setbacks and simply breed her, the connections waited out her physical issues and gave her a chance to fulfill her potential. That's also a positive message that deserved acknowledgement. And as Chuck points out, her being overlooked is an indictment of the way things are run and of those that are supposed to be taking the sport seriously.

a dozen? and of course horses included or left out will be discussed in a thread about eclipse awards.

Sorry, but I don't agree Steve about its' importance.

I'm glad they waited out her issues and actually raced her, because that is what racehorses do, but are we in such bad shape that we need to send positive messages to connections for doing that?

It was 10, not 12. Got me.

My point remains the same. I wonder if there would have been this kind of outrage had Steve not said anything. I follow the sport very closely and until Steve said something I didn't even realize she was omitted, because I never even considered her a winner of the award.

Maybe that is what happened to the voters. I don't know. Just so there is no confusion, I understand why this is an issue, I just wish issues that actually impact people were discussed with this much passion.

This happens every year, obviously this is more personal for Steve in this case, his comments should be viewed as such.

There are a lot of people voting that do not take it seriously or do it fairly, hard to hold these awards with any value given that light.