Any interest in HOTM contest?

[sledge4]

For those of you who haven't been around here long enough, we used to run a weekly/monthly contest for Horse of the Month contest.

Each week a certain number of horses would be nominated and voted on, then at the end of each month, the winners of each week in that month face off to see who was horse of the month.

We stopped running this contest in Feb '09 due to low voter turnout and also that it was getting costly to give out a prize horse each month, considering it was low turnout.

We have a mix of new and old since then, what is the consensus now?

Specific details about eligibility can be figured out if interest is there.

Will

[kush618]

Im in! This sounds fun!

If lack of voters is an issue again, do you think it would work well with a points system, like the TOTM and divisional challange?

[Hobby]

I remember it from my first stint way back when and thought it was a fun weekly addition. It seems with our weekly updates, there are a solid group who are interested in how their fellow trainers are doing and which horses are performing well.

As I recall, one of the cool things was that it wasn't necessarily just the horse that won the biggest race during a particular week. Sometimes it was, but sometimes it was rewarding a former claimer, who started winning allowance races impressively or picked up a listed stakes win.

Anyway, I'd be up for participating if this contest starts back up.

[fabman]

I'm all for anything that can reap glory and praise on my stables. LOL Even though they aren't doing very well these days.

[sledge4]

Hey Fab, glad to see you popping in.

[Kobras]

I love the HOTM. I definitely would to see that come back.

[sledge4]

I wish there was a "formula" we could come up with that determines horses eligible for Horse of the week/month.

The easiest, would be Stakes winner each week, but then are we just rewarding the rich? Does it matter if we are rewarding the rich? If the argument is that we are catering to the rich, can't the same argument be made with TOTM? Look, i'm arguing with myself. haha!!

I don't think it should be a nomination process, but what "formula" should we consider when looking for a horse of the week?

Stakes winner?
Allowance winner posting 110 SP?
Recent claimer that wins Allowance/Stake?
Horse fields of X size?

[gocashbaby]

Good idea

[Hobby]

I'm not sure what the best process would be, though I will say that I think it is more interesting if it's not just stakes winners. I think rewarding someone's great claiming find that becomes an allowance winner or stakes placed makes it interesting.....or at least having some such horses voted on (not saying they should always or even often be the winners).

Not sure I see the problem with it being by nomination, as I don't really see the point of putting some automatic process in place which could leave us voting on horses of trainers who are completely inactive or don't care to contribute.

Like I said, I don't really have solutions, though if it were up to me (not knowing what the downside is), I'd probably say trainers nominate a horse if they think they're worthy for HOTW honors by a certain day of the week and then we vote.

[fabman]

Hey Fab, glad to see you popping in.

Thanks. Trying to get back in the swing of things. Been racing right along but not doing much else contest wise anywhere.