AP nominates two horses for “Female Athlete of the Year”

It’s the end of the year, aka the merry season of top ten lists. The Associated Press recently published the vote tallies for its Female Athlete of the Year, in which 158 sports editors around the country weigh in on which of these ten female athletes deserves the title.

Serena Williams 66
Zenyatta 18
Kim Clijsters 16
Lindsey Vonn 15
Diana Taurasi 14
Maya Moore 13
Rachel Alexandra 10
Bridget Sloan 3
Jiyai Shin 2
Erin Hamlin 1

We love Serena, too! One minor problem withe the award, though: Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra are horses. Was it really so hard to find ten athletes who are women? Writes Mark Goldberg,

That’s right. We live in a world in which animals are eligable to win “Female Athlete of the Year” from one of the most important global news agencies. That’s some shameful stuff. And for the record, none of the male atheltes of the year were anything but human.

Sports fans: Which other (human) female athletes should have been on the AP’s list?
On a related note, check out Anna Clark’s series on the Bitch Blog about being a feminist sports fan.