JC / Railbird

Eclipse Awards

Odd Voter Out

A rumor was swirling before the awards ceremony that at least one Eclipse voter had cast a ballot in protest, primarily against synthetic surfaces, for a mare other than Zenyatta as champion older female and that the Breeders’ Cup Classic winner would be denied a unanimous victory in her division. The gossip proved partially true: When the totals were released, Personal Ensign winner Icon Project was revealed the recipient of one vote to Zenyatta’s 231.

Reaction online was incredulous and outraged:

How in %$#* was Zenyatta not a unanimous selection as top older female? There’s always a wise guy in the crowd … Icon Project? Well, nothing in this industry should surprise me. (Art Wilson)

I see you, East Coast bias, raising your ugly head. Who the fuck gave ICON PROJECT a vote for Older Female? (@shirozora)

Icon Project voter probably same moron who voted Court Vision top male turf horse, I Want Revenge top 3yo male. (@filliesfirst)

The eejit who voted Icon Project as champion older female should out himself & not hide behind anonymity of DRF. She wasn’t even a finalist. (@francesjkaron)

Strong words.

Unfortunately for the curious and annoyed everywhere, the voter is part of the DRF bloc, which grants anonymity to its members. What the voter was thinking, what point they may have wanted to make, or what errors they regret — the rumor now circulating is that the voter made a mistake — will have to remain in the realm of conjecture, unless he or she comes forward to explain.

Update: The voter erred. “I’m so sorry. There is no way I meant to do anything but put Zenyatta on top,” said Duke Dosik. Vote totals were retabulated in light of his blunder; Zenyatta is now a unanimous champion.

Posted in Racing on January 21, 2010 / Tagged Distaffers, Eclipse Awards, Icon Project, Older Female Division, Zenyatta

Live Blogging, Etc.

Although I’ve done a few, I’m not much a fan of live blogs. The form seems too of-the-moment, prone to near-instant staleness, and it’s tricky, keeping up with the flow of whatever happening and doing so quickly and pithily and with some depth. But, I’d been curious for some time about Cover It Live, the live blogging service I used on Monday, and the Eclipse Awards seemed a good spot to experiment. The results were mixed …

On the positive side: Cover It Live has a decent mobile interface, which made it possible to update from the backstage or ballroom, it’s easy to add feeds from services such as Twitter (as well as live video streaming), and photos posted via other services pop up in the stream. The best feature was its handling of comments, which appeared throughout the blog, chat-like. (My thanks to everyone who participated!)

On the negative side: This probably says more about how I prefer to work, but I found Cover It Live made me feel somewhat pressured to be on the blog at all times — updating it, approving comments — and that I was fiddling with the service (and Twitter) on my phone far more than I would have liked. Instead of following connections or observing a scene from the corner, making notes and taking photos all the while that I would later turn into posts, I felt I was doing a lot of tapping without adding a lot of substance. Not good.

Would I use Cover It Live again? As much as I liked the appearance of the comments in the stream and the interactions among visitors, probably not. For a blogger dedicated to being online for the duration of a live blog, I can see it being a nifty tool for fostering chat around an event, but for a blogger who expects to move around at an event and update occasionally, the usual means of posting, augmented by Twitter and a camera, seems more than adequate.

Posted in Media on January 20, 2010 / Tagged Blogging, Chat, Coveritlive, Eclipse Awards, Social Media, Twitter

Racing’s Big Night

It’s a bit of whirlwind trip, but I made it to Beverly Hills for tonight’s Eclipse Awards ceremony. After following Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta this year, and having had the good fortune to be at both of their emphatic final 2009 races, it seemed foolish not to head to California — especially when a non-stop plane ticket could be had for a small price — to hear which super distaffer would win Horse of the Year.

I’ll be doing the live blog thing below (and occasionally tweeting) beginning around 4:00 PM PT/7:00 PM ET. Since TVG is airing the awards show, and online sources for updates on who-won-what abound, breaking news won’t be my focus. Instead, it’ll be glimpses of what’s happening backstage, literally and otherwise.

Posted in Racing on January 18, 2010 / Tagged Beverly Hills, Beverly Wilshire, Eclipse Awards, HOTY, Rachel Alexandra, Zenyatta