With the end of year harness racing awards coming in to focus, we made our feelings on the present voting system pretty clear the other day.
We don't like the present system and feel that some of the people getting a vote know less than some punters holding up a bar on a Friday night
Most journalists we speak to see this years horse of the year award as cut and dried.
Christen Me is deemed by most to be a shoe in for the award which raises real issues for us.
A major contender yes – A shoe in, no
In our view Stent has had one of the best seasons ever by a trotter in Australasia yet his name is only mentioned in passing by most journalists as an after thought.
We think that the old bias against trotters is still alive and well because there is no other reason or circumstances we can think of where Stent wouldn't be the favourite for the title.
Stent won more Group1 races than Christen Me and more races overall yet is hardly mentioned as a legitimate contender.
In a lot of ways the seasons of these two champions have a remarkable similarity.
Both missed their big targets during Cup week, both won the major race for their gait at Auckland and both had wonderful seasons in Australia.
Earlier this week we proposed a points system as the fairest method of determining the winner of all the annual awards at season's end.
The system we proposed was the one outlined below here.
Group 1 Points 1st – 15 2nd – 8 3rd – 6 4th – 4 5th – 2
Group 2 Points 1st – 10 2nd – 6 3rd – 4 4th – 2 5th – 1
Group 3 Points 1st – 7 2nd – 4 3rd – 3 4th – 2 5th – 1
As an exercise we have applied the points system to what we think were the three best horses going around in Australasia this season who are eligible for this years award and the points ended up looking like this.
Stent – 170 Christen Me – 121 Adore Me – 104
During the season Stent won seven Group 1 races while Christen Me won five and Adore Me three.
Will Stent win the Horse Of The Year title – Absolutely not.
Does Stent deserve to win the Horse Of The Year title – Without doubt in our view
The only reason we can find as to why Stent won't win the title is a well ingrained bias favouring pacers coupled with some of the voting panel having little or no knowledge of harness racing.
JC