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Derby Tragedy Leaves Blood On The Tracks

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By MARTIN FENNELLY

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 6, 2008

TAMPA - She ran the race of her life - and death.

NBC didn't let that stand in the way last Saturday. You could almost hear the champagne glasses clinking at Churchill Downs as the TV cameras swung away from the poor black heap in the dirt to the Kentucky Derby champion, Big Brown.

The horse that placed second, a filly named Eight Belles, died about where she fell, a quarter mile past the finish line, her front ankles having exploded. All that power, heart and courage atop those tiny porcelain legs. They drove some big vans into place to block the view, and she was euthanized, then and there.

But there's no hiding anything in horse racing. Not anymore.

Triumph and tragedy.

Roses and lilacs.

Those are the real exactas.

Screaming For Change

Racing people will tell you a thoroughbred is born to run, and it's hard to argue with them if you've ever watched horses play in a pasture. On the other hand, only the stupid will say Eight Belles died the way she would have wanted, because I guarantee you that if a horse could talk, and you asked how it wanted to die, it would answer 1) eating; 2) sleeping; 3) eating; and 4) making little horses.

If only it was funny. Superstars are dying, and no sport can stand much of that. It screams for change in a game that's stacked against those without a voice. Horse racing's life is on the line.

It was only two years ago that Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro broke down at the Preakness, beginning the long, futile attempt to save him. He's just a famous case. The statistics are easy to find. Strain out the percentages and it works out to about two career- or life-ending injuries per day on American horse tracks.

At least the jockeys have a choice, as do the thousands of boxers who get their brains reduced to bean curd or the car drivers who constantly try to beat the reaper.

Remember, it took the death of Dale Earnhardt for NASCAR to make head-and-neck restraints mandatory, or for "safe walls" to truly take hold. All it took was blood. Well, there's blood on horse tracks, too.

America only tunes in the sport a few days a year - Triple Crown races and maybe the Breeders' Cup. This carnage can't go on in full view.

A Need For More Safety

Horse racing isn't dog fighting. The object isn't to kill these great creatures. But what does that matter if they're dying anyway?

The people who care about the sport and its greatest athletes need to make this game safer.

They need to rethink how they breed horses. Is durability being sacrificed in the name of pure speed?

Is the Triple Crown, three grueling races in five weeks, too much? Are synthetic tracks over dirt tracks the answer? Synthetic tracks apparently lowered mortality rates when made mandatory in California.

Saturday's juxtapose haunts me. Eight Belles raced to extinction in front of a typically gluttonous Derby Day crowd at Churchill Downs. She died for the rich and poor, for the overdressed and under sober.

One day, Big Brown might go down as one of the greats. Eight Belles won't. She was dead even as people began downing their first post-Derby mint juleps. Go ahead, turn the cameras away, or off. It won't matter.

Horse racing can run, but it can't hide.

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