- Kudos to Patrick over at Pulling Hair for his excellent idea of naming Barbaro as Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year.
Like Barbaro they've named figures with similar facial features, athletes on drugs, and athletes prone to break their leg.(If Jackie Stewart is reading, Patrick wrote that, not me.) (Though it's so funny, I wish I had.) Patrick points out that Steve Cauthen was the last racing person to win the award, in 1977. And the thing that seems amazing about that is not that it was so long ago, but that a jockey actually won the SI Sportsman of the Year! These days, a jock would have to not only win the Triple Crown, but win the triple crown too!
In fact, I'd go further and propose that Barbaro should get consideration for Time Magazine's Man of the Year award for bringing out the humanity in the human race, no mean feat. But I think that President Bush has that award locked up - anyone who's enough of a fuck-up to actually get the Democrats elected these days truly deserves that award.
It's unfortunate that Barbaro will not be winning an Eclipse Award, but that's just the way things have worked out. He simply was not the best three-year old on the track this year. Perhaps he could get a Special Achievement award like they do at the Oscars or Grammys. And it would be nice if Discreet Cat could get one too, though not the Sprint award; a goofy idea, in my opinion, by Mike Watchmaker. (And someone at the Form must have thought so too, since the headline of his column has been changed from 'Discreet Cat Deserves Sprint Eclipse' to 'Discreet Cat Deserves Consideration.' [sub. only] Did they think they were going to sneak that by us blogging types?)
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Stil no mention of Deep Impact's last-to-first win in the Japan Cup? Tsk Tsk. Ouija Board ran third, btw. As for Deep Impact, i got an email from my friend in Japan yesterday (who had a large future bet on Deep Impact to win the Arc @ 7/1), and he expressed great frustration at the fact that Deep Impact returned to his late-running style in the Japan Cup, and won easily yet again. He wanted to know why Deep Impact's connections chose to change the his running style for the biggest race of his life. A very legitimate question. Obviously there was concern over the perceived lack of pace in the Arc, and of course Yutaka Take had been skewered for waiting too long abord El Condor Pasa in that one's 2nd-place Arc run several years ago. But there's still a lot to be said for taking perhaps greatest turf horse in the world out of his comfort zone, and putting him up on a pace battle vs. the highest level of competition he's ever faced. In a foreign country, no less. I'd have to agree, in retrospect they probably should've just let him do his thing.
Patience my friend. So many races, so little time, and just one little blogger here...
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