Introducing the EN HOTY and ROTY awards

I’m a math guy.  Some might even call me a nerd except I don’t come with the high salary and ability to fix useful gadgets such as TV remotes and radios that the word “nerd” implies.  But I do believe in numbers and in their ability to help us look at things in different and sometimes more meaningful ways.  EN reader Mike was kind enough to help us take a look at the year end rankings from a slightly different perspective by looking at performance per start.  Let me make a special note that this way of looking at things is in no way meant to take away from the performance of horses and riders who placed higher in other renderings of the rankings, it’s just another perspective.  Mike does a great job of explaining things below, so I’ll let him take it away.  I want to give a huge thanks to Mike for putting this together and hopefully you will find it interesting.  And if writing the article wasn’t enough, Mike included two videos that are instant EN classics.  Thanks for writing this Mike and thank you for reading.
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From Mike:

There are many ways to determine the best teams and athletes of any sport, but typically statistics will play a large part of any debate in determining the best. 

There are a lot of great riders in this country and we celebrate their accomplishments and achievements as often and in as many ways as we can here at EN.  One area we would like to expand focus is the acknowledgment and recognition of some great horse and/or riders who statistically have had great years but fail to make a top 10 list because their lack of total horse entries not their lack of total performance.

Statistically the two most popular ranking systems are the FEI HSBC Rider Of The Year and the USEA Horse and Rider ff the Year awards.  The HSBC will award points for each CIC and CCI completed event but they will total only your top 6  highest points awarded to determine their best rider, while on the other hand the USEA will award “USEA” points at every level for competitors finishing in the top of their division.  The system is simple, a certain amount of points are awarded for each division, the higher the level and the higher the placing, the more points awarded. 

For example: Place 1^st in a Preliminary division with 6 or more starters and you will receive 10 points, Place 1^st in an Intermediate division and you receive 12 points.  In other words, in order to win the USEA rider of the year award you will have to have a lot of success but also a lot of rides.  

Which got us to thinking, in baseball the most recognized statistic is your batting percentage, it is not how many hits you get but rather what your hitting percentage is that will determine your ranking.   So in an effort to create another method to statistically look at our riding season, and simply have some fun we thought we would look at what rider, statistically, has the best “hitting” riding percentage?

Eventing Nation’s version of both “Rider of the Year” and “Horse of the Year” and the rankings will be determined as follows: 

Have 20 starts, and if your total USEA points awarded equals 200 then your average is 10 pts per start.

Total points divided by total starts.  We will not use Withdrawals as some riders do use many events for schooling purposes with no intention of completing the event.  We do factor in all TE, E, RF, DQ, MR, and R.

EN’s RIDER OF THE YEAR will be awarded to the rider with the highest per start point average.

EN’s HORSE OF THE YEAR will be awarded to the horse with the highest per start point average.

15 starts is the minimum number of starts for a Rider to be eligible and 5 starts is the minimum for a Horse to be eligible.

Our goal is not to declare the best rider and horse in America as much as it is to have some fun, take a different look statistically, and to share a different perspective with our readers as to how some of our best are performing.  

RIDER      Per Ride Points    Position 

James Alliston   10.83  1

Becky Holder   9.89  2 

Lisa Marie Fergusson  9.25  3

Clark Montgomery  9.09  4

Katie Ruppel   7.59  5

Nina Ligon   6.42  6

Sinead Halpin   6.31  7

Shannon Lilley   6.15  8

Jolie Wentworth  6.12  9

Bruce Davidson JR  6.11  10

Will Faudree   5.97  11

Marilyn Little-Meredith  5.95  12

Leslie Law   5.79  13

Barbara Crabo   5.76  14

Phillip Dutton   5.66  15

Michael Pollard   5.57  16

Hannah Sue Burnett  5.50  17

Angela Grzywinski  5.26  18

Sarah Cousins   5.21  19

Kim Severson   5.19  20

Emily Beshear   5.15  21

Kylie Lyman   5.14  22

Kadi Eykamp   5.13  23

Allison Springer  4.90  24

Boyd Martin   4.83  25

Rebecca Howard  4.78  26

Heather Morris   4.57  27

Lynn Symansky   4.54  28

Jan Byyny         4.51  29

William Coleman  4.39  30

Andrea Letherman  4.37  31

Jennifer Brannigan     4.35  32

Doug Payne   4.34  33

Hawley Bennett-Awad  4.16  34

Holly Payne   4.14  35

Jonathan Hollling  4.03  36

Sara Kozumplik   4.02  37

Mara DuPuy   3.76  38

Lisa Barry      3.75  39

Alexandra Slusher  3.70  40

Karen O’Conner   3.22  41

Tamra Smith   3.10  42

Sharon White   2.95  43

Caroline Martin   2.86  44

Colleen Rutledge  2.54  45

Robin Walker   2.53  46

Arden Wildasin   2.48  47

Special mention should be made for both Tianna Coudray who technically had the highest per start average (10.28) but managed only 14 starts, sorry Tianna had to set the start point somewhere.   Jessica Phoenix had a great year and would have easily made the list but most of her rides were with non registered USEA horses and therefore did not have enough rides.  Both are exceptional riders who had exceptional years, so congratulations on a great 2011.

Special mention should be made for Neville Bardos whose competition year was cut short and managed only 4 starts.  Neville would have easily cracked the top 10 but finished with 4 starts and an average of 28.75 points per start.  Congratulations on a great 2011.