Marketing opportunity

The Horse of the Year debate has been raging for going on five days now, and part of that debate is not who should win but if both should win.

I'm against a split award but am enjoying the debate on the merits of both as well as the mainstream treatment that debate is getting. In this age of the Internet, it's easy to point a reader to replays of their races and maybe novice fans will want to try the excitement for themselves next time they have an opportunity to go to the track or watch a race live.

The Horse of the Year winner is announced at the Eclipse Awards dinner in January--an event that sorely lacks for drama, humor, or entertainment. This year can be different, however, as there will be keen interest on who wins the statue.

One thing in the Eclipse Awards' favor is its date. Monday, January 18 is a relative dead zone in sports. Sure, the NFL playoffs are in full swing with AFC and NFC championship pairings having been decided the previous weekend, but college football is over, baseball players are still on vacation, and the NBA and NHL still have months to go in their marathon season.

The Eclipse Awards are far too pedestrian an event to expect the whole telecast to be live on any TV besides a horse racing channel, but a live announcement of Horse of the Year on ESPN followed by highlights of the winner could give the sport a morsel of exposure where there usually is none.

To make it work, results of the vote would absolutely have to be kept super secret known only to as few people as possible. Normally, the media knows the winners before the dinner, and while that's not a big deal for divisional honors, it would be too easy to leak in terms of Horse of the Year.

So it's not exactly the Triple Crown winner everyone thinks will save the sport, but it is a chance to get the debate in front of more sports fans.