Where have you gone, Albert Pujols, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Albert Pujols has left, and gone away. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey hey.
I agree with your choice of Havre de Grace for Horse of the Year and I have been reading your blogs for a year or so and do not believe you have shown an East Coast bias, but as someone who lives on the West Coast I do believe some California horses have sometimes been denied awards they deserved because they did not race in the east. A big part of the problem is that some people have not accepted that racing has changed from the 1970's. In those days the championship races were run in New York in the fall, a horse did need to win in New York to be a champion in those days. But today we are in the Breeders Cup era of racing and unfortunately many of the big championship races in New York have been diminished in importance as a result. Today I don't believe winning the Woodward or Jockey Club Gold Cup necessarily means they are a better horse than the winner of the Goodwood or Pacific Classic, but too often the eastern horse gets extra credit for winning one of the older historic races, even though the fields in New York are not noticeably better than the ones in California.
we all have views that tend to be slanted one way or the other, but we all love the sport in the end, or we wouldn't bother to be here.
I have often been accused of this, even though I have like several west coast horses. The time when this is brought up the most is when there is a rivalry and the other side honestly runs out of facts. Of course it doesn't always happen, just look at Sunday Silence vs Easy Goer and Affirmed and Alydar. However, during the RA vs Zen, Blame vs Zen, Curlin vs Zen, all you heard after a while was anybody that was for RA, Curlin, or Blame was called ECB. Didn't matter if a person lived there, if they liked other west coast horses, they were just biased. It is amazing how bitter somebody can get when their favorite does not win a race or an award, it's sad, but that is a side of racing and every other sport, you just have to try and turn your head the other way.
IMO Andrew Beyer is West Coast Biased.
IF there were more tracks west of the Mississippi, there would be more trackmen, more DRF writers and more voters and as a result there would be a west coast bias. There are just more votes, more racing and more breeding in the East.
I always chose Blind Luck over Havre de Grace, not because I don't like HDG (which we all know that I do), but because I knew Blind Luck would win the match up more often than not. With that being said, I can see how it would be easy to become biased towards horses one is more familiar with. I will admit to having never heard of several really good horses until they ran on the East Coast, but I have since fixed that issue. It is what is.
So do the people that accuse other of have East Coast Bias secretly have West Coast Bias? Just sayin....its funny that we've never heard of that sickness. I guess everyone in the Western time zone at totally impartial on all topics.
Hey, Zipse clearly does not have ECB. That is spoken by somebody who has lived in NJ his entire ;ife.