by Andrew Cohen

Englewood, CO — Last week, the voters in an Associated Press poll for Female Athlete of the Year selected the disgraced tennis player Serena Williams, she of the throat-slitting gestures to an official at the U.S. Open, ahead of either the great Thoroughbred mare Zenyatta or the great Thoroughbred filly Rachel Alexandra, two of the most amazing “female athletes” of this or any other generation.

That outrage got me thinking about the athletes in harness racing who deserve more credit than they are likely to get in 2009. And that brought me to the incomparable David Carr.

Yes, yes, I know all about Muscle Hill and Well Said and Lucky Jim and Poof She’s Gone. Their connections are going to get all the glory to which their horses are entitled. The glossy front pages of our few magazines already have memorialized their feats. But thanks to Carr, the United States Trotting Association’s master researcher, we are able to identify and congratulate the connections of harness horses who have achieved the sort of dubious achievement usually reserved for big-time sports in America.

So here’s a hat tip to John Nelson Perrin, listed by the USTA as the owner for an All I Ask filly named JJS Request. She raced 45 times in 2009 and failed to win even once. She placed second five times and finished third eight times.

Honorable mention here goes to a Cam’s Card Shark gelding named Money Paige, who went 0-43 in 2009 and only hit the board seven times in all. Money Paige is owned by Perry D’Ortone out of Pennsylvania.

These folks could easily have gotten rid of these horses. But for one reason or another they didn’t. They stuck with them. We should all receive such loyalty from the bosses in our own lives.

But there is more than one way to describe futility. The horses listed above were sometimes in the money in 2009. Many, many horses were not so lucky. The “leader” of these was a mare named DBLE N Laurie Beth, who went 26 races this year without so much as a show to show for it. She earned $2,231 for her owner, Nancy Newport, up in Ontario.

And poor Dandy Jo, J N Away, R E Tornado and Mattango. Those mares and geldings literally couldn’t win for losing — each of them went at least 24 races in 2009 without hitting the board.

Finally, from the incomparable Carr, there is the bottom of the bottom, a category for horses who made the most starts in 2009 without winning a single race or picking up a single purse check. The leader of this ignoble pack is a trotting mare named M G Exceptionnel, who went 18 races without anything to show for her owner, Donald F. Bailey, Jr. At least this mare won a qualifier. The same cannot be said for the even less successful Hereslookinatlou (0-17), Ragin Watts (0-13) and Bodage (0-13) who followed her in this category.

Perhaps the USTA or the Hambletonian Society could create an award for horses and owners like the ones identified here. After all, it looks like it was a lot easier this year being Jerry Silva than it was being Donald F. Bailey. And it looks like it was a lot easier being Greg Peck than it was being the trainers and drivers who steered the rest of these notables around racetracks all over the country; often in places far removed from the relative luxury and pomp of the Grand Circuit.

How about an award that honors perseverance in the face of failure; a love of horses that transcends their abilities on the racetrack? More simply; how about a small prize each year to help Nancy Newport and Perry D’Ortone pay for their hay?

Greg Peck and Jerry Silva don’t need any more money from the harness industry this year — they’ve earned plenty. But I would be willing to bet a bag of kettle corn from The Red Mile in Lexington that some folks connected to the horses above do need our help as a community. Let the last be first, in the world of harness racing, if only for a day.

Editor’s Note: The views contained in this column are that of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of the United States Trotting Association.