American Pharoah dominated Sports Illustrated's online reader vote for Sportsman of the Year, but SI opted to overlook the overwhelming result of the vote, giving the honor to Serena Williams instead. Sports Illustrated had been up front with the fact that the reader vote would not affect who they actually gave the award to, but racing fans were still upset. But the real news came Monday morning, when dozens of upset horses took to Twitter to express their displeasure with Sports Illustrated.
Why have people voting who they want as sports figure of the year? Ya know what SI? Shove your people vote where the sun don't shine
— Virginia DeRiggi (@VDeriggi) December 14, 2015
Horses were previously believed to be incapable of tweeting, due to their lack of understanding of human language and their big, climp-clompy hooves being too big to type on either smartphones or computers.
.@SInow @serenawilliams Kind of defeats the purpose of a popular vote. Why bother? #TripleCrownHistory #horses
— pchorsedoc (@pchorsedoc) December 14, 2015
Hey @SInow all those people who could have been potential new readers & subscibers-those 47% who voted for American Pharoah? You lost them.
— Casadaly (@casadaly) December 14, 2015
Early hypotheses suggest the horses are using some type of speech-to-text function, or perhaps a very big, very durable keyboard. This is the biggest breakthrough in horse-human communication since the 1950s documentary Mr. Ed.
@SInow @jazz3162 no guts!! No disrespect but you made the wrong choice. Cancelling my subscription.
— Tonya Moore (@onemoore) December 14, 2015
#AmericanPharaoh wins popular vote but not given #SportsmanOfTheYear2015 STILL #thechamp! We love you AP! https://t.co/vjQ0T6k4j5
— FGM (@fgmky1) December 14, 2015
@SInow @richarddeitsch @serenawilliams a women's tennis player? It's the most non competitive pro sport in the world. One good player.
— Christian (@cwhi2125) December 14, 2015
@SInow REALLY tennis over a TRIPLE CROWN WINNER? No wonder why people ignore horse racing when YOU discount how amazing the SPORT OF KINGS i
— Becca F (@eforrest40) December 14, 2015
@SInow @serenawilliams American Pharaoh OVERWHELMING won online poll and yet you pick someone else? WHAT A JOKE.
— Linda Walker (@LindaVA3) December 14, 2015
@SInow Why hold a fan poll when you aren't going to take the voice of the reader into account for your decision.
— Shane (@TizShawn15) December 14, 2015
I love how you give it to someone who "almost" won a grand slam when you could've given it up to an athlete who actually did. @SInow
— Juanita Webb (@NitaMarie65) December 14, 2015
I have the utmost respect for Serena Williams but as far as the year 2015 is concerned AP was by far and away the best @jazz3162 @SInow
— Julie Witt (@juliawitte9) December 14, 2015
American Pharoah just got totally robbed with that Sportsman of the Year award.. Why even have a poll?
— Leah Vasquez (@im_just_leah) December 14, 2015
American Pharoah has not yet tweeted his opinion on the award.
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SB Nation presents: American Pharoah shouldn't be Sportsman of the Year