Privman: Let the Horse of the Year Debate Begin

[classhandicapper]

I hate the idea of these soft, selective, extra well spaced campaigns as much as the next guy, but I think we are going to have to get used to it.

Many trainers believe that spacing maximizes the chances of keeping a horse fresh for a full year and that really fast and tough races wear a horse down. Since the BC is now such a huge target, that gives them ample motivation to look for easy spots, to skip races, and to avoid tough ones. They also have opportunity to do so because there are many stakes around the country to look for those easier spots.

I'm not sure which of the two is the better horse based on the Classic. I'm still looking at the replay of the start of the race and other things. But I'm a huge Zenyatta fan and think being this good on two surfaces is rather mind boggling, but I'd still vote for Blame. The precedent is to vote the best older male unless the division wasn't sorted out or was very weak and someone else was a monster. It's also not typical to make a lot of subjective judgments about pace, trip, bias etc... and evaluate horses that way. Usually whoever wins on the track gets the edge.