Horse of the year vote between Zenyatta, Blame

Associated Press

MIAMI BEACH, Fla.

A race along the beach would be one way to decide the debate, with Zenyatta and Blame side by side as they kick up sand like a couple of half-ton bullies.

Instead, the question will be settled by a vote with the result announced tonight.

Who’s the Horse of the Year? Beloved Zenyatta, the sport’s leading lady? Or Blame, the only horse to beat her?

As a popularity contest, it’s no contest. Zenyatta is perhaps the sport’s biggest ambassador since Secretariat — a charismatic, genial ham from California with a fondness for Guinness stout and a flair for come-from-behind finishes.

Meanwhile, Blame is, well, the colt who beat her.

“If Blame is announced Horse of the Year,” said his trainer, Al Stall Jr., “on the Internet ... there will be a lot of rage.”

In Web debates, fans of each horse bad-mouth the other side, sensing there’s no love lost between the two camps. Both have found the exchanges a little distasteful.

“There’s so much ‘my horse is better than your horse’ stuff,” said Jerry Moss, who co-owns Zenyatta with his wife, Ann. “I love the horse business, frankly, because it’s all about what he or she does on the race track. That’s the way it has been, and that’s what decides everything. And then you get into one of these where it becomes very subjective, and it’s sort of an uncomfortable way to go.”

Goldikova, who won the Breeders’ Cup Mile for the third consecutive year, is the other finalist for Horse of the Year and likely will finish third.

“She could be the greatest filly of all time,” Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito said of Zenyatta.