This is embarrassing: Zenyatta sits atop the NTRA poll. She received nine of the 19 first-place votes. Rachel Alexandra received five, Well Armed four and Einstein one.
I find it embarrassing because I participate in the poll, share some responsibility for it. When it came out Monday afternoon I felt as I sometimes do when my newspaper has printed an especially weak or poorly written story or when an American tourist has flashed the Queen or when a swarm of rude journalists has entered a locker room: guilty by association.
Rachel Alexandra, as you’ve probably guessed, occupied the top spot on my ballot. I had Zenyatta at, I believe, No. 8, which I thought a kindness. So far, she really hasn’t done anything to be considered for Horse of the Year, and that’s how I approach the poll: If the voting were today, based on accomplishments to this point, how would you rank the candidates for Horse of the Year.
I recently put Rachel Alexandra’s odds of being Horse of the Year at 4-1. And I would have put her at 5-2 if the Breeders’ Cup “championship” races were going to be run on real rather than faux dirt. The line, of course, is a projection; it looks ahead to the end of the year. And so somebody who believes that, say, Martians will kidnap Rachel Alexandra and that she won’t race again on this planet, that person may want to dispute her favoritism and make somebody else the HOY front-runner. Fine. But clearly, at this point, on June 16, she’s the most accomplished horse in the country and should be No. 1 in the poll.
As for Zenyatta, I love her. Even if she didn’t remind me of Julie Newmar, I’d love her. Nevertheless, I’m embarrassed Zenyatta sits at No. 1 because she hasn’t done much more than Julie Newmar to earn the ranking. Zenyatta certainly hasn’t put together the sort of campaign that deserves consideration for the sport’s top honor; she didn’t last year and she probably won’t this year. But she sits atop the poll and she’ll receive HOY votes simply because of her popularity.
That’s why I found it very amusing that somebody responded to my making Rachel Alexandra the HOY favorite by warning me against confusing popularity and accomplishment. Does that imply that Zenyatta, or any other horse in North America, has accomplished more than Rachel Alexandra this year?
Well, let’s look at Zenyatta’s accomplishments, or rather her accomplishment: By less than two lengths, she won the Milady Handicap in a six-horse field, where the only real threat was her stablemate, Life Is Sweet. That’s it so far. But Zenyatta sits atop the poll. If her connections follow their plan to stay in California and to continue running against the same hapless bunch, Zenyatta will win the Vanity, the Clement Hirsch, the Lady’s Secret and then the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, or Ladies’ Classic, as it’s now called. That’s not a campaign for Horse of the Year; that’s a campaign for Miss California.
That campaign wouldn’t even compare to what Rachel Alexandra already has accomplished this year – five stakes victories (at four tracks, by the way), including a 20-length romp in the country’s most prestigious race for 3-year-old fillies and a tenacious decision over the Kentucky Derby winner in an American classic.
And yet Zenyatta sits atop the NTRA poll? Based on what exactly? Well, based on her popularity with 19 voters, among whom nine are apparently eager to demonstrate that they possess wild imaginations.
Because of the small sample, the NTRA poll can slip -- on a banana peel no doubt -- to the level of opera bouffe from time to time, and this is one of those times. Based on her single accomplishment this year, you have to stretch just to include Zenyatta in the top 10, and placing her atop the poll is just, well, silly.
Some voters, I know, will justify such a vote by saying Zenyatta would win in a race. Really? Are you sure about that? A match race? I rather doubt it. But some folks regard voting for Horse of the Year as a surreal handicapping challenge and ask themselves (I’ve actually heard somebody put this question to himself): If all the horses who have run in North America were to line up in the starting gate together for a race, who would win?
Yes, of course, this is absurd. How far are they racing -- six furlongs, a mile, 1 1/4 miles? On what surface – turf, dirt, faux dirt? At what track, around how large an oval? And where, I can’t help but wonder, are we ever going to come up with all the jockeys? Aren’t we going to draw post positions before we have to choose because, well, the horse coming out of the 25,346-hole might be just a wee bit compromised? And isn’t this the subject of a play by Samuel Beckett? Yes, it’s absurdity squared.
But aside from imaginary races involving thousands of horses, if the level of performance is going to be an important factor in the voting, then how are you going to determine it? Do you rely on those popular numbers that attempt to quantify performances, numbers handed down by specious mathematicians who may know very little about horses and may not have even seen the races, or perhaps on numbers that represent a computer’s refined and objective distillation of stark data? Well, all such numbers are flawed. A reality that’s as complex as a horse race cannot be reduced to a number, or even a few numbers. According to my numbers -- I make my own, and they're also flawed, and hardly comprehensive, but I trust them, or rather I trust them more than the others -- the best performances (in two-turn races) of the year have been turned in by Quality Road, I Want Revenge and Rachel Alexandra. Zenyatta's performance is a few lengths back. But that hardly matters. Somebody else’s numbers might suggest something else, and another person’s numbers something else entirely, but shouldn’t we talk about horses and about what they win and whom they beat, about, in other words, accomplishments? Not about numbers. (I'm often reminded of a particularly offensive self-styled pundit who once proclaimed Ten Most Wanted's greatest accomplishment to be his 110. No, you fool, his greatest accomplishment was winning the Travers.)
In other words, shouldn’t the NTRA poll and ultimately the golden Eclipse Award be determined by horses’ accomplishments, not their popularity and certainly not their numbers? Well, in terms of accomplishments in 2009, neither Zenyatta nor Julie Newmar can compare with Rachel Alexandra.
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