If Zenyatta wins the Classic

[Slewbopper]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

To me, it's hypocrital to say that it's not about one day or one race after they've awarded many championships to horses simply because of one race.

I see no problem giving a divisional award to a horse that has run only once in NA....i.e. Arazi. The big prize, Horse of the Year, is a different tune though. It should be based on a body of work for the year, not one race

At this point, my ratings would be...

1....Rachel
2....Gio Ponti
3....Summer Bird

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Slewbopper

I see no problem giving a divisional award to a horse that has run only once in NA....i.e. Arazi. The big prize, Horse of the Year, is a different tune though. It should be based on a body of work for the year, not one race

At this point, my ratings would be...

1....Rachel
2....Gio Ponti
3....Summer Bird

generally, it is based on the body of work. much as i don't like seeing a horse swoop in from europe, win one race, and walk away with an eclipse, the argument can be made that they had an outstanding year-high chapparal for instance. they just may not have had an outstanding year here. so, much as i thought with anticipation should have gotten the nod for top turfer, i can certainly understand why he did not. BUT, i think the vote for high chapparal proves the point that the bc has too much weight given to it by voters. hence my argument that a win in the bcc, over what is presumably the best field assembled in the year, isn't necessarily an indication of who the best horse is all year. case in point for that is volponi.

i don't think the award should be given for who someone feels is the best, but for the horse who has competed at the highest level all year, and with the most consistency. the horse who best showed ability, regardless of surface, track, competition, length of race, etc.

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Slewbopper

I see no problem giving a divisional award to a horse that has run only once in NA....i.e. Arazi. The big prize, Horse of the Year, is a different tune though. It should be based on a body of work for the year, not one race

At this point, my ratings would be...

1....Rachel
2....Gio Ponti
3....Summer Bird

You do know that the year Arazi won he divisional championship, he was also one of the three finalist for HOY too right? That means that he was considered over many horses that had a body of work for the year. You say the big prize IS a different tune but how can you logically say that when Arazi was a finalist off of one race? As I've said so many times, I'd have no problem with changing the qualifying criteria to saying that a horse has to be based in this country and run the majority of their races here or maybe a four race minimum here. But as long as it only says that a horse needs to have raced once, I don't see how everyone can say that it's based on the whole year when that's contrary to what it says. If an individual voter wants to only consider American based horses, that's fine. But the person that considers the best horse among all qualified horses is equally right.

I'm not old enough to know what happened in 1954.