Losing Libby

The following is a note from Facebook my daughter and I wrote together.

Losing Libby

by Sydney Charlton on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 9:58pm

My dad came out of a meeting with texts, phone calls and voice mails from our trainer. Never a good sign when your trainer is trying to reach you that hard. Seldom good news, the first thing that goes through your mind is what has happened? Did our star horse suffer a problem or injury?

The first words I heard was our horse had died while being loaded in the trailer, she had flipped over and broken her back. She had to be put down immediately, at the age of three. She was always the horse that was just too small, and would not let you touch her, too afraid. It took years before she learned to love the human hand.

We had just found her a new home earlier today. She was off to her new home when the accident occurred, she was going to a young girl to be ridden, cared for, and loved. And it all ended so quickly. Even though it was not our star horse, she will always remain in our hearts.

Horse of the Decade

The last two years have really been something else as respects Horse of the Year.  Last year it was a hotly contested contest between Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta and this year with Blame and Zenyatta.   I was never a fan of the compromise position last year of having co-winners, as someone should win the award based on an old fashioned vote of the most deserving.

However, what if there was a way to make this year a true win-win by voting for the horse that really had the best year as Horse of the Year (in my opinion Blame due to the head-to-head win over Zenyatta in the Classic) while voting for Zenyatta for what she is - Horse of the Decade!

Some will argue this is just creating a new category to solve a potentially thorny issue of not voting for Zenyatta - one of the most popular horses of all time.  However, it is a natural time to create the category with it being the 2010 voting year and it truly provides the opportunity to recognize a career at the highest levels versus just one year. 

My vote - Blame for Horse of the Year and Zenyatta for Horse of the Decade!