HORSE RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Not Much Clear When Making These Choices

The year was 1979, when Affirmed and Spectacular Bid were the leading candidates for horse-of-the-year honors.

Talk about a tough vote. Affirmed, a 4-year-old, was beaten twice at Santa Anita before finishing the year with seven consecutive victories. The younger Spectacular Bid won the Florida Derby, the Flamingo, the Blue Grass, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness before leaving his own division to win the Marlboro Cup in the fall. His record for the year was 10 victories in 12 starts. In their only head-on duel, Affirmed spotted Spectacular Bid five pounds and beat him by three-quarters of a length in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

There was no Breeders’ Cup then to provide the stage for a rematch, and Affirmed was voted national champion. A little later, I discussed the outcome with Steve Cady of the New York Times.

“I wonder which idiot split his vote?” I said. “At least he should have had the guts to vote for one horse or the other.”

“That was me,” Cady said.

Fortunately, Cady never seemed to take my ill-timed remarks personally, and I thought about him when the Eclipse Awards ballots came out recently. Cady is no longer in the turf-writing dodge, and that’s too bad, because this is really his kind of election: You can make a case for splitting votes in several divisions.

Defending champions Flawlessly (female on grass) and Paseana (older distaffer on dirt) appear to be safe winners, as do Bertrando (older male on dirt) and Phone Chatter (2-year-old filly). But as for the rest, the balloting blurs. Here’s one man’s version of the not-so-obvious divisions:

SPRINTER

The right vote--Cardmania lost 10 in a row and won only two races all year, but those victories came during three weeks in the fall and the last one was in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. In a weak division, Cardmania’s back-to-back victories are the equivalent of consistency.

The probable winner--Cardmania, by default.

3-YEAR-OLD COLT

The right vote--In another weak division, a reluctant vote goes to Sea Hero, who won the Kentucky Derby and the Travers, but many voters will be bothered by the fact that he didn’t win anything else. Peteski mopped up in Canada, and even beat Sea Hero at Woodbine, but he couldn’t win south of the border. Prairie Bayou won four in a row early in the year, and after running second in the Derby and winning the Preakness, be broke down in the Belmont and was destroyed.

The probable winner--Prairie Bayou.

3-YEAR-OLD FILLY

The right vote--After Hollywood Wildcat won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, beating Paseana and Sky Beauty, you would think that this result would be clear cut. But Sky Beauty’s supporters are willing to forgive her fifth-place performance at Santa Anita, preferring to remember her five-race winning streak in New York. Hollywood Wildcat finished the season with five in a row, all in California.

The probable winner--Hollywood Wildcat, but not by the big margin that she deserves.

2-YEAR-OLD COLT

The right vote--If Brocco had quit after his victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, he would have won, but six weeks later his undefeated record was shattered by Valiant Nature in the Hollywood Futurity. Valiant Nature had to run 1 1/16 miles in 1:40 3/5 to win by less than a length, but voters will ignore the theory that Brocco clocked a winning time in a losing race. The holdouts for Dehere, telling themselves that it was pulmonary bleeding that beat their horse in the Breeders’ Cup, had Dehere’s door opened farther by Brocco’s Futurity.

The probable winner--Dehere.

TURF MALE

The right vote--There is no right vote. Cady would split this one three ways. Kotashaan was the superior grass runner at a distance, won the Breeders’ Cup Turf, and with a better ride from Kent Desormeaux might have won the Japan Cup three weeks later. The Japan Cup could have been the clincher, because it would have dashed the quibble about Kotashaan only winning in California. Lure also won a Breeders’ Cup race, the Mile, and while he might have been overmatched going long against Kotashaan, the voters will never know. Star Of Cozzene was the right horse for the wrong year and might have made up for bypassing the Breeders’ Cup had he won in Japan. He was the only horse to beat Lure, doing it twice, and he also beat Kotashaan twice. Throw out Star Of Cozzene because he didn’t run in the Breeders’ Cup. Then I made an analogy between sprinters and routers on dirt. Given a tough voting choice, I’ll take the router every time. This vote is for performances on grass, so I took Kotashaan, the horse that did better running farther.

The probable winner--Lure, who won six races at six tracks from New York to California, gathering a cross-section of supporters every step of the way.

HORSE OF THE YEAR

The right vote--There were no dirt horses as good as the grass horses in 1993.

The probable winner--Lure, perhaps on merit, but more so because there’s a ballot-box tilt toward Eastern voters. Of the 163 voting turf writers, fewer than 15% are based in the West. The imbalance among track racing secretaries is not as much, but still exists. The third voting bloc, the Daily Racing Form, doesn’t reveal the identity of its voters, but its voters’ geographical makeup is probably similar to the turf writers.

Horse of the year will be announced as the climax of the Eclipse Awards dinner in New Orleans on Feb. 4. The $250-a-plate affair, a victim of sagging attendance in recent years, would normally benefit from the close vote between Lure and Kotashaan, but this will not be the case. When the division winners are announced this month, the male turf champion and horse of the year will be one and the same.