Flatter: Confessions of a not-so-rogue Eclipse Award voter

Palm Beach, Fla.

I have a confession to make. I did not take my vote seriously. Seeing the reaction to such acts on social media, I am prepared to admit my shame and accept my punishment.

No, no, no. Not the Eclipse Awards. This was something far more serious.

A little more than 14 months ago, I saw there were no nominees for the job of surveyor in Jefferson County, Ky. There were plenty for everything from U.S. senator to local judges, but nothing for surveyor, a job which has a salary that is negotiable based on experience.

I took it upon myself to write in the name of one Marty McGee. Yes, the now-retired Daily Racing Form scribe who has begun spending his golden years as the agent for his nephew-in-law, jockey Joe Talamo. Think of how much money the county would have saved on a guy who has zero experience with a theodolite. Yes, I looked that up.

Now I see the error of my ways. Even though I did not have to reveal my irresponsible action from that November morning inside the voting kiosk at Waggener High School, the pressure from social media made me come clean.

On behalf of some or all of the 16,622 people who cast write-in votes for no fewer than 146 and perhaps thousands of other unlisted candidates for Jefferson County surveyor, minus the 115 folks or 0.07 percent who backed the winner Fannie Killebrew, I offer my heartfelt apology.

I am waiting now for social media to declare I should be stripped of my right to vote. Maybe the punishment should be even worse. I could be banned from a racetrack for an undetermined period of time, and if I do not learn my lesson, that sentence may be extended forever. There is precedent for that this week in the very county where I live.

For now, while I am on this road trip, I will tell my wife to wait for the natives bearing pitchforks and torches to arrive at our front door to kick us into purgatory. Or maybe into a tony estate in Oldham County. That will show us.

I see my time is up. The producers of Thursday night’s Eclipse Awards, who eschewed the violinist of last year in favor of a canned-music hook, told me I had only a minute to speak my mind.

Even before the show started at The Breakers, two talking heads in Hollywood already were declaring that anyone who did not make certain new champions unanimous winners should be stripped of their Eclipse votes.

Wouldn’t you know? There was no winner who got 100 percent of the 219 possible votes in any category. Idiomatic came the closest with her 211 to win older dirt female.

Cody’s Wish got 134, including mine, to win horse of the year. White Abarrio and Idiomatic and Up to the Mark collectively got half as many first-place votes. The others were sprinkled among Arcangelo, Auguste Rodin and Elite Power.

And there was one for the late Practical Move.

What? Seriously? Who dared to cast this recalcitrant ballot? This ne’er-do-well should be brought to the town square and bullied for all he, she or they may be worth.

That process already started via the modern-day broadside known as X. What better place to have a convivial exchange of opinions?

“Whoever voted for Practical Move deserves to lose their ballot,” said one Xweet.

“Can we all please mock the person that voted for Practical Move?” said another.

“Definitely these goofy individuals need too have their vote taken n given too someone who respects the sport,” read a third written by someone who respects the language even less than the vote.

Then there was this.

“Is there any way to find out who voted for Practical Move so they aren’t allowed to vote again?”

Sadly, the odds are 3-2 that we will not. About 60 percent of the voters are members of the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters. That is how I was given the privilege of my vote. Usually in the spring, the NTWAB makes all our ballots public.

That is not the case for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, whose voters come from the administrative offices of the sport. The others are from Daily Racing Form, whose ballots may or may not be in the hands of its writers. We simply do not know who actually casts the NTRA or DRF votes, and there remains no burden to tell all.

Everyone who votes in this thing should be open. Transparent. That, however, is a word that represents a mirage in this sport and so many others. Frankly, immediate and detailed clarity on racehorse deaths, computer wagering and stewards rulings are bigger fish waiting for the skillet.

This is not to say the voter who said yes to Practical Move or the six who said no to Idiomatic should not be criticized. If that is the prevailing opinion, so be it. Let ’em have it. But take away their votes? If we are to cast the illusion of a democracy here, then even the most abstract and irrational dissent should be welcomed.

I have heard Eclipse voters say they want nothing more than to blend into the woodwork with their ballots. I personally do not look forward to the day I cast a vote in a category that is decided by a margin of one. But that is tantamount to fear, which should not be any motivation for expressing an opinion.

There is only one rule that truly binds Eclipse voters. Any given horse or human in any of the 17 given categories must have competed in at least one race in the U.S. or Canada.

If it is to be believed that something must be done about rogue voters from the NTWAB or NTRA or DRF, then it should be done beforehand. Trying to change the rules and punish contrary expressions of self after the fact is a form of red-boarding at best and bullying at its frequent worst.

This is not even about that one-race minimum. The three prongs of the Eclipse Awards hierarchy should do a better job vetting their voting members. I do not know about the other two, but I can attest the NTWAB is inconsistently slipshod with who it allows to vote.

Working for a racing organization or for a stable that could create the appearance of a conflict of interest has been a sound reason to deny some NTWAB members the right to vote. Surveyor also-ran Marty McGee voluntarily recused himself when he went to work for a jockey. Yet some ranking members of the organization, including two senior officers, are paid by racetracks to do publicity. Responsible as they may be in keeping that influence off their ballots, that is a bad look.

At least it is not just racing. The 28 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America who did not vote Adrián Beltré into the Hall of Fame have been called on the social-media carpet this week. Maybe they can join the castigated Eclipse voters and form a Philip Nolan society.

Two years ago Jeremy Balan cast what he called “sort of a semi-protest” vote for little-known horses who, instead of winning big races, had far more starts than the acclaimed finalists, because he could not be sure which horses might have been on illegal medication. As he put it, “I don’t really like the guessing game.”

While I appreciated his sentiment and defended his right to protest, Balan was cast by some as a pariah. The NTWAB was braced to take action against him before he mooted the point by getting out of the business of covering horse racing.

One former turf writer said, “He made it all about himself.”

I disputed that, and we agreed to disagree. And that is fine. At the risk of swaying our country into a retreat from its widening division, not all debate has to end with the sanctioning of opinions that are less popular. Here is a concept. We do not even make that endlessly idle threat to move to Canada if we do not have our way.

But if social-media sniping is the order of the day, let’s line up and scour the 219 voters. Let’s look under every rock and in every crevasse for that Practical Move ballot.

While we are at it, we might as well make sure to take the horse-of-the-year trophy from Godolphin and inscribe on the bottom of it that one vote was cast for Practical Move. Get an etching tool to put a permanent note on Idiomatic’s trophy so Juddmonte will remember it was not unanimous. And that Beltré plaque in Cooperstown can get some work, too.

There is at least one redeeming value in calling for tiny minorities of voters to be banned for life. It makes for a hell of a drinking game.

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.