Awards take the prize for stupidity
For all their overall predictability each season the Champion Awards still seem to miss the target in one regard or another.
When the dust clears and awards are handed out most interest will have been in the Horse Of The Year tussle between Silent Witness and Vengeance Of Rain, but there will also be the usual quota of extraordinary exclusions and accompanying disbelief from the casual observer.
For example, the omission of Cape Of Good Hope defies belief. He is just the second Hong Kong winner of a Group One race overseas, and the only one this season as well as being the likely winner of the Global Sprint Challenge
Yes, we all know Silent Witness gave him the runaround every time they met, but how does that differ from other categories and other years?
Surely Cape Of Good Hope earned recognition as one of the achievers of the year even if Silent Witness will be Champion Sprinter.
Of course, his absence from the nomination list also precludes anyone voting for him as their favourite horse, too, but they can vote for Ocean Tranquil or Lucky Stravinsky.
Then there's the Champion Griffin award, a farcical honour in its form and scope.
Two years ago the two nominations for Champion Griffin were Silent Witness and Super Brose - southern hemisphere three-year-olds ineligible for the Juvenile Sprint Trophy of that year - who were preferred to the 'actual' griffin race runners.
This year the list comprised virtually the whole field in the Juvenile Sprint and we can only presume that southern hemisphere three-year-old griffins were ineligible for the award or we might have seen Very Fit, Tchaikovsky or Firm Offer getting a mention.
The nominations for Most Popular Horse and Most Popular Jockey also strike a discordant note. Why have nominations at all? It's a public vote.
If your favourite jockey this year was Leith Innes because you got all the money when Made In Hongkong won last weekend, why can't you vote for him?
Likewise, you might have wanted to vote for Made In Hongkong for the same reason, or for the colour of his mane or some other obscure motivation, but, no, you're restricted to the horses nominated by someone else.
These are not life-changing issues by any means but for something so simple to get right it is extraordinary how the Champion Awards never quite do so.
