Simmy Voting

[Danny Derby]

Holy finalists overload Batman! Tons of divisions with 10+ finalists, NA Turf Male has sixteen! I appreciate the need to automate things, but this feels like waaaaay too many finalists.

[Cleo Patra]

The listing of the number of graded stakes they won in that particular zone is handy for shortlisting them though.

[Danny Derby]

The listing of the number of graded stakes they won in that particular zone is handy for shortlisting them though.

I’ll still prefer to look at PPs. It’s good for a glance, but wouldn't differentiate between say the Desert World Cup and a sponsored G1 for 5yo and up.

[Lily Wilkins]

I like that they marked Steward's Cup wins with a *
That's handy.

[Danny Derby]

I like that they marked Steward's Cup wins with a *
That's handy.

Definitely is. Would love to see some kind of notation like that for all $1M+ races in the future.

Not trying to come across as negative on this post, it really has some improvements. Just think it could be streamlined more.

[Art K Stables]

its not complicated, skip sections you have no interest in, problem solved.

[Carole Hanson]

It definitely looks much better now and is a lot easier to look at and decide. At a quick glance, I did notice a couple of “huh, that’s weird” categories.

1. Ivor was not at all nominated for European Older Male though he won the Arc there which earned him 100 points
2. This one I noticed because he’s mine, Fortrail was nominated for NA Champion Turf Horse with a Grade 1 win and 149 points, but was not nominated for NA champion 2yo despite the fact there are horses in that category with no G1 win and with less points.

Like Danny said, definitely not bashing this new change but there does seem to be some kinks maybe that need to be worked out. Or maybe there’s a good way to explain this but in that case it would be good to put up an explanation at the top of the voting page of how the nominations work now (and also what the * means, initially I thought it meant sponsored Grade 1 before I started seeing familiar SC winner names).

[Tammy Stawicki]

I think the finalist number thing is a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Every year there are complaints about horses being left out (even this year) so where do you make those cutoffs? I really like the look of the new voting, and while I'll still look at PPs I think having the graded races listed serves as a nice way to quickly cull some potentially in the larger categories. Also hopefully more nominees means that if a 2yo has more lifetime points than all but one of the older horses in their category and more wins, stakes wins and graded stakes wins then any of them they'll at least be put on the HOY ballot, not that I'm still bitter about that snub.

And of course the biggest advantage is the huge boat load of tedious work it saves the powers that be each year

[Robert MicJee]

Without actually doing any research, curious if this is still a thing with the new system?

"the computer either picks the obvious winner (most grade 1's, most points, most grade 2's, etc), or if it's too close to call, it's up to the rest of the SIM community to vote them to a win. Because people get to vote, the "right" horse or person doesn't always win."

[Laura Ferguson]

Without actually doing any research, curious if this is still a thing with the new system?

"the computer either picks the obvious winner (most grade 1's, most points, most grade 2's, etc), or if it's too close to call, it's up to the rest of the SIM community to vote them to a win. Because people get to vote, the "right" horse or person doesn't always win."

It isn't a thing with the new system. Every horse category is on that ballot, which makes it overwhelming, since normally you have the mixers and the TBs on separate ballots, and there were fewer categories, since the obvious ones were removed. Throw in the fact that some categories have way more than 10 horses, and it's too much for this voter. This may have simplified the creation of the ballot, but as a voter, two ballots and fewer categories was a help. I'm also not sure when the deadline is to vote. I suspect I'm going to be voting on fewer, not more, categories as the ballot currently stands, as I simply don't have the time (my initial reaction on looking at the length of the ballot was, "No"). Listing the grade of major wins and points helps some, but not enough to offset the sheer volume of this.

[The Admin]

Throw in the fact that some categories have way more than 10 horses, and it's too much for this voter.

Can you tell me which categories have way more than 10 horses? It is supposed to be limited to 10, usually fewer, and very rarely a few more. But I don't see them.

Thanks.

[Laura Ferguson]

Throw in the fact that some categories have way more than 10 horses, and it's too much for this voter.

Can you tell me which categories have way more than 10 horses? It is supposed to be limited to 10, usually fewer, and very rarely a few more. But I don't see them.

Thanks.

I guess there aren't any more than 10, but gosh, it seems like there are. Honestly, 10 is overwhelming in itself.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of making things easier from an implementation perspective, but right now, I really just want to toss my hands up when I look at a single ballot with all the categories and up to 10 horses in each. I'd rather just cap the list at five or six nominees, and if there's a way to reduce the number of categories (and that may just be too hard to automate) or at least break it up into multiple, smaller ballots, that would be helpful. The system should be encouraging voting, not discouraging it, because that's how you are more likely to get to distorted results and more complaints, and right now, I'm likely to scan the list, vote on a handful of categories, skip the rest, and call it a day.

[The Steward]

Just fyi, I would be super keen on having it split between TBs/Mixers again in the future, but we're about to run Week 1 races, and we still have this round of voting and another round after this. We were running out of time.

[Clarehaven Stables]

Just fyi, I would be super keen on having it split between TBs/Mixers again in the future, but we're about to run Week 1 races, and we still have this round of voting and another round after this. We were running out of time.

Any possibility for next season there is a button to Save and Return to later, whether split between breeds or not?

[Danny Derby]

Throw in the fact that some categories have way more than 10 horses, and it's too much for this voter.

Can you tell me which categories have way more than 10 horses? It is supposed to be limited to 10, usually fewer, and very rarely a few more. But I don't see them.

Thanks.

Here's the divisions I see with more than 10:

North American Turf Male
North Ameircan Turf Female
Asian Champion Sprinter
North American Turf Sprinter
Older Male Steeplechase
QH Older Male

An idea for future years. Perhaps any horse that doesn't have a G1 win in their respective division automatically gets removed from the nomination list? I see lots of instances where horses without a G1 win are still nominated, I think that's a fair cut off for a bare minimum criteria.