🤠🐴🔥 2026 HOTY HAS ENDED! 🔥🐴🤠

HOTY is officially over, and I am still taking in what this community did for our horses.

Together, you cast 694 votes and raised $3,500 for Cheyne Ranch’s horses.

People chose teams, recruited friends and family, followed the leaderboard, made surprise comebacks, and kept voting right up until 6:00 tonight.

And now it is official:

🏆💛 TEAM EMOJI is our 2026 Horse of the Year! 💛🏆

Emoji finished with 149 votes, followed by Lujen with 128 and Arrow with 112.

I was also curious about which teams had the most different online voters, not just the most total votes. Each person was counted once per team, even if they voted for that horse several times.

Most unique online voters

Twilight: 10
Emoji: 9
Arrow: 9
Lujen: 8
Honey: 7
Misty: 7
Edward: 5
Klare: 4
Mini Squad: 4
Nelson: 4

I love this part of the results because it shows how many different people showed up for these horses. Some teams had larger gifts, while others moved forward through lots of $5, $10, and $25 votes.

I also want to recognize our top five HOTY contributors:

💛 Vicki McGrath, Team Emoji
❤️ Leigh Tepper, Team Arrow
💚 Heather Mitchell, Team Lujen
🐴 Rebecca Ning, Teams Lujen, Misty, and Nelson
🩵 Kelly Mawhinney, Team Twilight

Together, these five supporters contributed more than half of the funds raised, while dozens of other donors carried HOTY forward through gifts of every size.

Thank you to every person who voted, shared a post, encouraged someone else to join in, or simply followed along with the fun.

This was our first HOTY, and it brought so much affection and enthusiasm to the horses who make Cheyne Ranch what it is.

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