It’s time to use one of our favorite things here – the Internet – to see who wins the Rachel and Zenyatta horse of the year vote. No, we’re not talking polls, we’re talking web interest. Who is more popular, what races mean what, is there an east and west coast bias? Let us find out.
Search Volume and News Mentions via Google. Rachel (red), Z (blue)
What we see here is what we already tended to believe – early in the year Rachel blew away her west coast foe, but by the end it was all Z all the time. For the Preakness there was not a more popular horse in racing, and that spike is huge, even when we look at Barbaro’s fateful day. That carried on throughout the summer until, of course, the Breeders Cup. That stirring race spurred a furious amount of Zenyatta searches.
It is pretty apparent that our branded races win out when looking to the general public. Besides the Preakness, the Rachel bumps for her other wins are tiny. Point “c” represents her Monmouth win. I would think that people searching for Wally’s best friend for a Leave it to Beaver reunion show could have beaten the news mentions and searches for that. Ditto for the Woodward. For Zenyatta this is equally apparent. Her win at Del Mar (Point “d”) registered but a ripple. No matter what Jess Jackson says, the Breeders Cup Classic is a huge race. But of course, props to Mr. Jackson for realizing that serving up Rachel for the Preakness helped out the sport, too.
Here are the top three cities who searched for Rachel the most throughout the year (as compared to Zenyatta; this is standardized data, not gross searches):
New York
Atlanta
Washington
For the darling of the Breeders Cup:
San Diego
Irvine
Los Angeles
Who said the left and east coast biases are a myth?
It is also important to know that searches for horse racing are primarily east coast dominant to begin with. It seems to be firmly entrenched in the culture.
As for the rest of the world, if you live in Japan, or Italy, you love to search for news on the Moss mare.
If you live in the UK or Australia, you like Jess Jackson’s vintage filly.
Who will win? We have no idea. But for pure interest in terms of searches, Rachel looks to have a firm grasp on the year end award.
2 Responses
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My vote goes to Zenyatta. But it will all boil down to the East – West bias.
Zenyatta beats Rachel Alexandra for fans on Facebook and Twitter (cannot even find the ‘real’ RA on Twitter) . Once the connection was made to Sea The Stars in the BC Classic, the UK started swinging behind Z. Then again most of us fans of both fillies don’t vote.