Future HOTY suggestion

[Snowflake]

I can't seem to get my noms done this year because of the time factor and in this moment I don't have enough internet, lol. Using my mobile phone data purchased 2 days ago and most of it is already gone

What i want to suggest is a new way to decide Horses of The Year. I think we should have a point system instead of posting long nominations and voting. Points can be earned in HOTY Selection races* as sprint points (5-8) or classic points (8-12), turf points or dirt points. They can only be earned by the winner of the race. They would have to be kept track of by owners like race results.

To tie in with this I think we should also use *, ** and *** to differentiate between what is a very important HOTY selection race and give points to the winner accordingly. for example a Breeder's Cup race would be *** for sure, as would any Triple series. the road to Triple series races could be **, other races such as the Spring/Summer/Autumn Cup could be just * as well as HOF memorial races. Unicorn Horn Series would be **.

* points - 1
** points - 2
*** points - 3

or we could make it 3, 6, 9 or 5, 10, 15 or something.

[S u N f r O s t ~]

Hmm. I say that we give this a try, but that at the end of the year if we feel that a horse who does not have as many points deserves just as good a shot at the title as the horse who does we should bring it to a vote.

[*Ripley*]

I like the idea of the points system, however, I feel like I am not so clear on the * system. That would take a lot of effort on everyone's part to determine, especially at The Wire, which races are worth *, **, ***. Particularly as we have several new series going into effect. Not many horses win big races so I feel the single * does the trick. If each * is worth a point we won't have wickedly inflated numbers and it's easier to calculate.

I would suggest just keeping an asterisk (*) next to important races and adding a single point. Horses that don't win, don't get a point. Simple as that.

I agree with Frosty, especially with the HOTY award in particular. I feel like the biggest award should be decided by a mix of high points and popular vote.

[Kirsten Jade]

I agree with both Ripley and Frosty, i'd keep it to one star except maybe add an extra star or something if a horse wins a whole series like the triple crown (like a bonus point or whatever). Also, it wouldn't hurt to have a vote anyways you just put the amount of points, highlight the races won but skip the annoying paragraph on why the horse should win and then let people still vote...

[Snowflake]

The point of the extra *'s is to differentiate between what is a big, important race compared to a normal HOTY* race. Horses that take the road to the Triple Crown rather than normal HOTY* or undercard races deserve that recognition for not taking the easy road. It goes without saying, but Breeder's Cup and Triple Crown and Youth Challenge are tough races. Only the best horses race and only the very best win, and they should be rewarded for that.

I agree on the vote thing though. we can probably do noms like we used to, in just one thread like race entries and if points are tied or very close we could vote. Honestly it annoys me slightly when horses win awards over others when half their wins were in undercard races where there was no challenge. That's also part of the reason I think we need to change the way we do it.

[S u N f r O s t ~]

You bring up a good point. Maybe a good idea would be to edit how we nominate? Maybe just include a result list of everything, cut out the paragraph and sum the number of points earned just as an additional consideration to take into account when voting?

[*Ripley*]

I feel like it's pretty simple to know which races are important and which are not. I always considered the Memorial Stakes a cut below because there are too many of them now to be so important. It's a big deal to win them, but not that big a deal as when there were very few of them.

Kirsty and I really only come over for major races, though I am splitting my horses up a little bit more between GHF/TW in order to avoid clashing. TW has its own sprinting series, older turf mare series, older dirt mare series, a summer season series for three year olds on the dirt and a newly revamped two year old system. Our races are still relatively new except for the older turf mare series which has proven to be very important in deciding the last couple of seasons for turf mares. We'd have a lot of work in deciding which races deserve multiple stars and I do not want to see the series I created be demoted to fit this new voting procedure. Hence, my unwillingness for multiple stars because somehow I feel like TW would come out below GHF in many cases. I'd have to discuss with Cav/Frosty/&Kirsty as to how we split this thing up on TW. We don't have a lot of time to get this done because it will mess with people's current results and then some people won't exactly work to fix what has been newly changed.

I really don't want to mess up my records with all those stars. I think 1 star is good enough. I propose that when we put our horses up we just cut out all of the unstarred races, like we did when we considered The Wire/GHF to be separate entities.

And the starred races should mainly be win/place/show record, none of the out of the money garbage. I understand its important to get the full detail, but most people only look at win/place/show unless a horse has a rather large amount of out of the money record. I think it's more obvious to people what the big races are especially when they've been around to see the schedules change and whatnot. And if people haven't been around very long, I feel like they go with the majority vote.
----------------------
***A problem I foresee is a horse winning more races at the end of the season that are * which shows extreme improvement. While they were running in unstarred races before, I don't believe this necessary proves they are less than. They were just trying to move their way up rapidly through the ranks (and shouldn't that merit some award because that means the horse was dominant at every level).

And in that case I believe special considerations have to come into effect. A horse is not going to automatically be a champion in January, particular this year with our juvenile horses.

[S u N f r O s t ~]

Ripleykins, we're staff at both sites. It's not just Sarah's decision which races are bigger than others, it's everybody's. We wouldn't let TW's races be underscored.

I don't think a multi-star system would work, though I do see the logic for it. I stand by my original suggestion of denoting major races with a star and major major races in caps on race entry things, while when recording our results we could record them however the heck we want.

Points could end up being a lot of work, so we have to be cautious about that.I think that the time to implement would be now while records are small...but I think we should just stand by our current system and focus on the way we nominate.

Like you mentioned Sarah, nominating is a big pain in the butt. I propose we simplify the process by cutting out the paragraph entirely and just posting a list of major victories in the season with a link to the horse's page. That would definitely expedite things, leaving only the decisions as to who to nominate where up to you to decide.

Ripleykinsy, can you clarify what you mean by saying starred races should only be win/place/show record?

[*Ripley*]

Meaning when it comes up for nomination you only include first/second/third. Races would be starred beyond third of course, but in nominations you'd only put starred races down that were in the top three finishes.

Usually whoever you're in a poll with is a horse whose finished second or third behind you many times throughout the season.

Nominations:
link to page
starred races only
only 1st/2nd/3rd place finishes put up
no paragraphs

[Snowflake]

I think we should do noms like we do race entries. The way we used to. All in one thread with just a link, and I still think points would be a good idea. 1 point per * win. So noms = name link and points. And then we put two or three horses with the highest points in the polls. I just want to take the time out of doing noms, and literally we would be able to do all our noms in 5 mins or less this way and then have HOTY done before we even begin each new year.

[*Ripley*]

That's a very good idea. I forgot we used to do it like entries. It would make noms easier as well.

I'm glad we came to an agreement . Hope everyone else likes the idea because that would definitely work compared to the system we've been using.

[Kirsten Jade]

okay so starting now 1 pt per * race on both TW and GHF. I'm going to add that to my horses pages.

[Snowflake]

Great! :)Starting from the start of this year. Won't be tough to catch up for those that keep accurate race records. And all horses nominated but don't go into the poll/don't win awards can have encouragement awards

[S u N f r O s t ~]

This is good! No nothing, just a link to page and a tally of points. I think I'll tally mine at the end of the season though...I'll bold all starred races until then. Excellent!