Zenyatta Has Earned Horse of the Year
 

http://thesaturdaypost.org/blog/

If Zenyatta isn't awarded the title she rightfully deserves, it will be because a majority of voters have little understanding of what's in the best interest of racing. In my 40+ years as a racing fan, no single horse has done more for racing in a single year than Zenyatta. Rewarding her for this singular accomplishment transcends all other reasons for casting a HOTY ballot.

Your post is so urgent and apocalyptic that it sounds like Zenyatta should be awarded the Noble Peace Prize, never mind HOTY.

Can you please spell out, distinctly, what Zenyatta "has done for racing"?

If your answer involves Oprah and "60 Minutes" (I'm guessing some variation "new fans" is a necessity), please feel free to disregard my request.

The best argument I can make for Zenyatta winning HOY this year isn't for her great record, it's not for her dancing ability and it's not for her miraculous making up of 72 lengths in the last 1/16th of a mile in the BCC.

No, it's none of those.

What she should win it for is her uncanny ability to make otherwise seemingly normal people expose themselves for the idiots that they actually are.

FTFY

Yeah, that's probably true.

However, in all fairness to Mr. Smoothie, I thankfully had no idea he existed before Zenyatta came along and exposed him. It is within the realm of possibility that he wasn't always this way.

Chances are though that he was an obvious idiot at birth.

Oh, and Smooth Operators idiocy is CLEARLY not self evident. He sees himself as a Porsche driving Wall Street and real estate mogul. He honestly has no idea why people are calling him stupid.

Aside from reminding us what a true champion is like, she garnered the "positive" attention of millions of people throughout the year and was responsible for BC attendance, handle and ratings records.

You mean a "true champion" who leaves her comfort zone once a year? She is the poster child for how to let cowardice get in the way of testing a talented horse.

Adding to the post two above mine, she also is an excellent writer of fiction.

I feel dumber for reading that blog post - but at least we have a 'rank'em' post

1,8 beers, 12 beers

Would you really need to have 8 or 12 beers in you to drill a girl wearing an outfit like that?

I would do it just to say I did. Kind of like banging a deaf chick or a midget. They sure wouldn't have to be a hot deaf chick or hot midget to get my salami.

The BC attendance, handle and ratings would have been exactly the same had she finished 7th beaten 16 lenghths.

imagine the argument is - if she wasn't there, it would be less

I thought she would run no better than 3rd...

yeah, and if Mr. Ed was there....it would of brought in 100 more people so , mr. ed should be horse of the year. i kind of thought you should win to get the most votes. zenyatta came east twice, not once like someone here posted. she left her comfort zone twice ...its not her fault the "other" horse chicken sh!tted out for 5 mil. but still blame beat all comers in all the right races.........i'm guessing he wins by at least 30%.

I say again, do people realize the horses that have been running in the last 40 years? Does anybody really think folks are more jazzed up in 2010 about horse racing than they were in 1973, 1975, 1977, 1978, or 1979? The Washington Post, a generally solid newspaper in terms of racing coverage, had a tiny blurb about Zenyatta on page C7 or so in last week's sports section. I'm guessing the author of that blog post/Silent Screen think that Secretariat's Marlboro Cup or Spectactular Bid's walkover Woodward would have received similar coverage? I need my way-back machine because I'm pretty certain those races probably received front-freaking-page stories in their day. That horses like Affirmed, Ruffian, Alydar, and Seattle Slew - Seattle Slew!!!! - were somehow less important to horse racing than the manufactured career of an awesome, albeit flawed, mare who couldn't get past Blame in the biggest race of her life?

Come on, people who post things like that just can't be taken seriously.

And another thing, anytime I see someone who's like 42 says they have "40+ years of racing experience," they're probably lying.

P.S. - having now actually read the blog post, I've reached the sad, but true conclusion that smartbid actually makes a much more salient argument for Zenyatta as HOTY than the person who wrote that blog. Just awful, awful dreck.

OP has 18 posts and has probably only been watching racing for 18 days.

Can't believe we let people start a thread on here without at least 100 posts to their credit. We need rules around here or we'll keep getting useless threads.

so, zenyatta has 'earned' hoy and apparently the need for another thread about the same tired subject.

she has done no such thing. and exactly what has she done for racing? i keep seeing this phrase bandied about, as tho this horse is some four-legged mother theresa. please, i want details as to what has changed in the last year, or last three, since this horse has hit the scene? what is better, what has changed, how has the sport been affected?

Oh my Gawd

If Zenyatta had done "so much" for racing, then why was attendance at CD down from the last several Breeders Cups held in Louisville? Did Invasor, Round Pond, Bernadini, Thor's Echo, Red Rocks, and Street Sense do more for horse racing than Zenyatta, because more people saw those guys run live in 2006 than were at the Downs last Saturday?

^^^ would require they leave the crown and ears on -- finds it stimulating.

This is one of the flaws in the justification of Zenyatta's greatness. There is no tangible evidence, thus one has to resort to reducing Zenyatta's peers. What is a "true" champion? Does this mean all the other recent champions in the racing world have not really been worthy? Not very "horsey" like of you. This has been going on all year on these boards. Up to August, Rachel Alexandra was the bulls-eye. Anyone notice the smooth transition of the cross-hairs to Goldikova, especially since she won a 3rd BC Mile?

Laughable.

By the way, where do we find these "millions of people" she attracted?

Certainly not at Hollywood Park.

Zenyatta's impact on racing is the equivalent of sending foreign aid to Beverly Hills.

Only 1 of them is even DECENT.

There were no records in attendance, handle, or ratings.

you hater, you!! ;)

eat salmon the other pink meat

I'd love to give this garbage the FJM treatment.

Wrong.If Breeders Cup attendance and handle was up this year it was because it finally left California and came to a real,DIRT racetrack.Period.The 2 dollar bettors Zenyatta brought out did nothing for handle and most won't come to a racetrack again.

Well said!

I doubt the ratings next year will be the same, we can judge attendance after next year as well.

My guess is they both suffer without her racing.

You could be right, because they are back to back at the same site it will provide real tangible evidence.

since this year was in line with other churchill years attendance-wise, i doubt next year will be any different.

If Maureen Down/NYT has anything to say about it -

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/op...rssnyt&emc=rss

It's amazing really. How do these writers keep coming up with ways to make themselves look more stupid than the last writer to express their opinion about Zenyatta?

Among the many priceless gems in this latest attempt to get me to stick ice picks into my eyeballs...

"She came so close to beating the colt Blame that Ann Moss, crushed, said the mare could have won if she’d just stuck her tongue out."

Not happy with Maureen Dowd. For someone as clever as her to write the kind of sh it that would appall her if written by another about something she understood is especially discouraging.

I told you man, the most amazing thing about Zenyatta is her ability to make people that otherwise seem normal, show themselves to be retarded.

I disagree

Maureen Dowd is not clever
unless you count omitting words when quoting someone in order to change change intent or meaning. only one word comes to mind when I think of ...Dowd, dishonest.

Let me guess....you're a staunch right winger.

Am I close?