Reading into Rankings
I’ll leave it to others to debate whether it’s sexist or even right that Zenyatta finished second to tennis star Serena Williams in the Associated Press’ Female Athlete of the Year poll and instead merely note that the mare has been running second in quite a few rankings of late, such as the decade-in-review pieces compiled by Tim Layden for Sports Illustrated and Joe Drape for the New York Times, or first, as in the annual Thoroughbred Times readers’ poll. Is this the recency effect, as Ed DeRosa suggests, or are these considered placings, all lengths ahead of Rachel Alexandra, harbingers of how the Horse of the Year vote will tally?
