A Sad Day For Racing
 

Voters should be ashamed of themselves.

Sad, really? I think of Eight Bells and Barbaro, that was sad. I'm not sure what this was, but I don't think sad is the right word.

Words that do come to mind are lame, injustice and irrelevant.

really, is it that bad?

blame will still hopefully produce great, sound horses for lots of money and the mare will be makin sweet love soon.

for me it's a win-win. the cheesy fans are happy and everyone not named hancock is also feeling OK.

lets move on. they are retired.

You can "Blame" Haynesfield.

Try and keep perspective.

i agree. if he wins that race, hard to deny him the prize.

Those not so important awards sure did become important real fast when the wrong horse wins..

Her case was actually better last year than this...It is not a Lifetime achievement award. There should be no awards going forward. None. Everyone should get a plastic trophy like Little League baseball

:tro:

:tro:

One would have hoped that voters had the wherewithal to conclude that Blame was 2-1 against Haynesfield and defeated him soundly in both the Whitney and Classic. I really don't think this was about the JCGC. It was a crusade by a legion of fans/writers/connections who not only overrated their horse, they overrated her accomplishments, and they overrated her impact on the game.

As Chuck said, I'm eagerly anticipating the tremendous growth in handle and attendance that will stem from all of these new fans being involved in the game.

Not exactly. It's not about a "right" or "wrong" horse. When facebook pages mean more than what happens on track, it's a black eye for the sport.

But, since Zenyatta did so much for the sport and brought so many fans to the game, I'm sure we will begin to see the impact. Handle should begin to go up across the board and I'm sure horse racing won't play second fiddle to Little league Baseball now on TV.

After those two things happen I'll be selling bridges to anyone interested.

This is a happy day because this silliness is at last over and it's time to move on.

as it turns out the 2010 breeders classic has turned into a "key" race!

if you won the cup that day, you lost on jan. 17th 2011.

Sighty that was poetry !!

Not really. Showing them as a farce has the opposite result.

One out of three isn't bad. The 2010 goals of Zenyatta's connections were to retire undefeated, win the BC Classic, and be named HOY.

What a joke.
The eclipse awards should be decided on the track, not on TVG.
Blame won the top two races in terms of field quality all year..(Whitney & the BC Classic)
Zenyatta spent all year racing against restricted company in Cali.
(except for her win at Oaklawn against restricted company.)
Everyone that voted for her should really re-think what this great sport is all about!!!

The Zenyatta PR machine was what won it. They received their talking points and hit the internet, ready to savage any writer who stated he or she was voting for Blame.

I think the award itself just changed... that people who vote will now feel comfortable voting for a career and not just for a year.

I know, I know, don't need a lecture about what it's supposed to be for but I do think it just kinda evolved before our eyes.

It's putting the sport first, in the eyes of the voters. My opinion anyway and I'm good with the outcome as I would have been with Blame winning.

A couple of you though... you surprise the hell out of me.

What a bunch of whiny little drama queens.

Brilliant post, Sightseek and yeah I agree with MaTH this is not sad no matter how you look at it.

This is the new reality... fan-friendly voting... and there's a reason.

The powers that be... I see it as their chance to continue the Zenyatta thing... to cash in on it for lack of better wording.

People who wouldn't normally give a crap might because they know her name.

I think that was the motivation anyway and it was a collective individual thing if that makes sense.

LIke "for the good of the sport" kinda mentality.

Of course I could have my head up my ass...

It's an absolute joke..........but this doesn't come as a surprise if you've read Joe Drape, John Pricci, etc...........

I wasn't even a fan of Blame, but I feel badly for him and his connections; the Mosses emotionally blackmailed these mediots. I just got lectured by some dope on Thoroughbred Champions.......I probably should not go into that thread again as I'll be flamed by the emotionally overcome.

Blame compiled an exemplary record in 2010 which consists of four Grade 1 victories, including yesterday's Classic win over Zenyatta. To many people who vote for Horse of the Year it will be enough. His record would clinch the award most of the time. This time it's not enough. Zenyatta ran the best race in the Classic, finishing one foot short of overcoming an almost insurmountable obstacle.

http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2...ewmode=default



That's another view that some voters may have taken regarding the head to head Classic.

So Blame gets penalized because Zenyatta failed to overcome her own flaw, which is that she has to come from miles out of it?

It's hard to take HOY seriously anymore.

Not sure what others thought of it, but I'm pretty certain Mark DeDominico's acceptance speech for Blind Luck was a thinly-veiled ten minute non-stop assault on Team Zenyatta's lack of creativity in campaigning her, followed by the overwhelming platitudes that come with these things...

If Zenyatta had run the better race in the Classic, she would have won. I'm so sick of this argument.

Yep

So now when we judge horses in line for Eclipses, we get to count near misses? Fly Down was close in the Belmont, Travers and BC Classic, but he wasn't even a finalist (I'm not saying he should be, but now they've opened up a can of worms). I could probably come up with more examples in recent years. I don't see what Zenyatta did for horse racing. I can promise you that when I get to my office tomorrow everyone who is not a racing fan (meaning probably 100% of the office) will be talking about almost everything under the sun and Zenyatta will NOT be one of the topics. Even if she did something for racing, how fair is it to other horses that they didn't emotionally captivate the public? Well she didn't captivate me - she never did. I never disliked her, I just never cared about her.

Blame beat Zenyatta fair and square - period. He was carrying more than his listed weight in the Classic because he actually had the weight of having to win by open lengths in order to win HOY. We had this discussion of losing performances a month or so ago. Slew's race in the Gold Cup was one losing performance where he deserved better; Zenyatta ran very well, but what was so special about her losing performance? Personal Ensign retired undefeated, running down a KY Derby winner on a track she despised - now those were insurmountable obstacles.

How many Zenyatta voters do we think could beat the take-out over the course of a year?

Toss the person who voted for No Such Word over Blind Luck for 3yo filly into this as well. :confused:

Not much. If she was as great as her supporters made her out to be, she should have run down the not-so-great Blame.

I almost posted that you were exempt from my drama queen line but I figured you'd know that you were.

Really, I was talking about the original post.

Sorry but a sad day for racing struck me as a bit over the top, Hossy.

I did not mean any disrespect to you.

Okay gotta go try to rescus my head...:p

It probably is a bit over the top. But I just don't see how this result was a good thing. If it happened in another sport it would be laughed at, as it should be.

It's not that I think it's a good thing or a bad thing (I hate that damned phrase it is what it is, but...) more like the voters might have rationalized it that it would be good for the sport.

Is it?

I have no idea.

I wouldn't think so but then it could be argued name regognition is at least a step in the right direction (bringing in new revenue / fans / more attention).

The spitefulness, the hostility some people display toward a champion.... that is what I'll never understand.

No one is hostile towards her. I'm not sure why this seems to get brought up over and over. No one hates or even dislikes her.

People wanted to see her campaigned more aggressively this year. If that's spiteful or hostile...so be it. They thought more highly of her than her fans and even connections. People are (understandably) confused about how the entire thing went down. IMO we took two steps back as a sport.

People wanted to see her campaigned more aggressively this year.


As they did for Rachel Alexandra. Her connections were thought to have ducked the Zenyatta match up this year. For whatever their possibly good reasons.


This country has an electoral college for final validation of Presidential elections.



Blame was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Why do we even have restricted and open G1 races if there's no difference in weight? If a horse can win HOTY by winning all restricted G1s...wouldn't it be more fair if all graded stakes were open?

Blame paid about a nearly full $10 in his Stephen Foster win this year.

Pretty sure Secretariat, Seattle Slew.....or Zenyatta rarely returned same.


Then Blame won a race at Aqueduct, and another race in New York.


Then lost a race in New York.

Then, barely triumphed over the undefeated Zenyatta in The Classic.


This voting really isn't that complicated, folks.

Just think,everybody.Next year,Todd Shrupp and the rest of the cast of idiots from TVG and HRTV will get to cast votes as well.Oh Boy!!

What does it say about Zenyatta if a lowly horse such as Blame beat her?

Last year, when Zenyatta did win the BC Classic, a lot of you East Coast-biased fans kept repeating, "the HOY is NOT decided at the Classic."

Ironically, this appears to be the only solid case for why Blame was "robbed."

By the way, had Blame won, he would have been just about the weakest, most quickly-forgotten HOY ever. So what if the 2010 HOY was Zenyatta's "The Departed"?

All that's missing is a hiccup.