Horse Of The Year

Here is part of the reason horse racing continues to stay out of the mainstream. Ghostzapper won the Horse of the Year. Why do I view this as a problem? Well, the distant second place finisher was a horse named Smarty Jones. I have little doubt that none of you have heard of Ghostzapper. I am equally confident that quite of few of you heard about Smarty Jones. There lies the problem.

Horse racing has four big events. The Kentucky Derby, The Preakness Stakes, The Belmont Stakes and the Breeders Cup. Amongst casual fans, those are the folks the NTRA and other in the industry are trying to lure in, there is one race-The Kentucky Derby. There is one other racing event that even merits their attention-The Triple Crown.

Smarty Jones won The Derby. He won The Preakness. Smarty came within a length and a half of winning The Triple Crown. Along the way, Smarty became a national phenomenon. Yet, when the racing industry picked it's Horse of the Year, Smarty got left in the dust. How do you explain that a horse that won only one of racing's big four events, the Breeders Cup, beat the horse that won The Derby, Preakness and finished second in The Belmont?

I can't. Now, if Smarty had only won The Derby and fell into the mix in the remaining two Triple Crown races, I could see giving the Horse of the Year title to Ghostzapper. A strong year capped with a Breeders Cup Classic victory would be Horse of the Year material, if you don't have a horse win multiple Triple Crown races. However, we had just that.

A three year old nearly captured the increasing elusive Triple Crown and, for reasons beyond me, captured the attention of casual sports fans. Two wins and a place in The Triple Crown chase isn't chopped liver. In fact, isn't pursuing The Triple Crown what almost every trainer, jockey, owner and diehard fan dreams about?

Horse racing needs to clarify what events are important. If you can win two-thirds of The Triple Crown and not be Horse of the Year, just how big are The Derby and Preakness? When you name a four year old, even an undefeated one, Horse of the Year over a near Triple Crown winner you've basically diminished the sport's three biggest races.

Does anyone in the industry think that the Tom Fool, Iselin Handicap and the Woodward are on par with the Derby, Preakness and Belmont? How on Earth are you going to explain to casual sports fans that the races they didn't see on television matter just as much as the races they did see?

This isn't just another tirade from some Smarty Jones bandwagon jumpin' fan, either. No, I dispelled any notion of being a Smarty fan back in this August post. As I pointed out then, I don't think Smarty is a great horse. I think the hype over him is ridiculous. I also think that winning the first two legs of The Triple Crown and finishing a close second in the last race does make you Horse of the Year.

Regrettably, the Eclipse Award voters disagreed. In the process, they further diminished the allure of their sport by minimizing the significance of their three biggest events.