Apply an animation to an object at runtime

Im making a trivia game with a spinner that has 5 categories. When the spinner is done spinning, the chosen category should pulse (where the pulse is a simple color-changing animation).

If, for instance, I had an empty Image called imageToPulse that the animation clip would animate, how can I say something like:

imageToPulse = categoryImage1; //categoryImage1 being the chosen category anim.SetTrigger(Pulse);

I want to avoid creating the same type of animation for all of the categories. Thanks!