Finley: Voting With My Heart; Cody’s Wish Is Horse Of The Year by Paulick Report Staff|11.07.202311.07.2023|11:50am11:44pm Godolphin homebred Cody’s Wish wins the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. The trophy is held by Kelly Dorman, father of Cody, for whom the horse is named. From the moment the last Breeders' Cup race finishes, voters and fans alike speculate on which horses and humans should win Eclipse Awards for the just-concluded racing season. On Monday, Bill Finley made a case for Idiomatic for Horse of the Year in the Thoroughbred Daily News. In the wake of Cody Dorman's death, Finley writes that he's reconsidering. There are few formal requirements given to Eclipse Award voters, as we've detailed in the Paulick Report before. This means voters are free to make their choices based on their own criteria of who is most deserving in each category. Finley writes that he stands by his assessment that Idiomatic had a fantastic year as a racehorse, winning eight of nine races including the Grade 1 Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff. Cody's Wish also put in a strong campaign, faltering only when his connections tried him over a longer distance in the G1 Whitney. Finley says that in the end, his heart is with Cody's Wish — and that's where his vote is going, too. “Horse racing has been beaten down by so many negative stories of late, mainly ones that involve horses dying on the track, and it needed something to pick its collective head up,” Finley wrote. “So, should that matter when it comes to voting for Horse of the Year? Absolutely. There's no reason why we shouldn't look beyond the x's and o's of what happened on the racetrack and look at the bigger picture, take into account what made us smile, what moved us, what made for a good story.” Read his full commentary here.