On Barbaro and Eight Belles

Posted: 04 May 2008 09:36 AM CDT

This is Eight Belles, a filly who fractured both of her front ankles, moments before she was killed on the track at yesterday's Kentucky Derby. My first Animal Person post, on May 22, 2006, was called "Barbaro Made Me Do It." Six months later I wrote "Barbaro, The Final Chapter," which garnered the obligatory "horses love to run" comment.

As I mentioned yesterday, I didn't care if the race went swimmingly. I don't care if the horses live at the Taj Mahal. Horses shouldn't be made (as in both bred and forced) to race for humans--for profit or otherwise. The New York Times' "Filly's Death Casts Shadow Over Big Brown's Derby Victory," by Joe Drape, is remarkable in its lack of emotion (but second to "Triumph, Tragedy at Derby," by Mark Blaudschun, who mentions Eight Belles exactly once, saying she "broke down after finishing second, breaking both front ankles, which necessitated her being euthanized."). Drape writes:

"Big Brown hit the wire nearly five lengths ahead of Eight Belles, but moments later, there was heartbreak. While Kent Desormeaux was galloping out Big Brown, Eight Belles fell.

She had fractured both of her front ankles, said the Derby’s on-call veterinarian, Dr. Larry Bramlage, and was euthanized on the racetrack. "

Later he writes:

"It was a sorrowful end note to what had been 2 minutes 1.82 seconds of scintillating horse racing, punctuated by the bravura performance of Big Brown."

And here's what Big Brown's jockey had to say about Big Brown:

"He’s intelligent. That’s the difference. He’ll stand like a statue if I ask him to."

Oh, you do what I want you to do = you're intelligent. That's a new definition for me.

As expected, Drape presents questions about track surfaces, racing fillies against colts, and breeding. As if all of that will solve the problem. As if any of that is the problem.

Eight Belles was driven to her death--literally--in 2.182 seconds. Drape writes:

"For Jones [her trainer] and the grooms and exercise riders who had cared for Eight Belles, it was a devastating end to what had been a wonderful weekend. . . . “She went out in glory,” he said, his voice breaking. “She went out a champion to us.”

She didn't go out in glory. She went out in vain.

A better article in the NYT is "Race Illustrates Brutal Side of Sport," by William C. Rhoden, who writes:

"Why do we keep giving thoroughbred horse racing a pass? Is it the tradition? The millions upon millions invested in the betting?

Why isn’t there more pressure to put the sport of kings under the umbrella of animal cruelty?

The sport is at least as inhumane as greyhound racing and only a couple of steps removed from animal fighting. . . .

But this isn’t about one death. This is about the nature of a sport that routinely grinds up young horses."

Rhoden gives us a different lens to watch trainer Larry Jones through:

"But even through the grief, Jones instinctively toed the industry line about racing. . . . He also refused to concede the point that horse racing is an extremely dangerous sport, saying that these types of injuries occur in any sport."

Rhoden is no animal rights advocate, but what I do like about him is that he appears to believe that horse racing should end because it is as brutal as, well, let him tell you:

"Why do we refuse to put the brutal game of racing in the realm of mistreatment of animals? At what point do we at least raise the question about the efficacy of thousand-pound horses racing at full throttle on spindly legs?

This is bullfighting.

Eight Belles was another victim of a brutal sport that is carried, literally, on the backs of horses. Horsemen like to talk about their thoroughbreds and how they were born to run and live to run. The reality is that they are made to run, forced to run for profits they never see."

Finally, "Is Horse Racing Breeding Itself to Death?" by Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post, makes me want to scream, "No, horse racing is racing horses to death!" Jenkins begins with:

"The camera cut away from her, but it should have stayed on her. Eight Belles had run herself half to death yesterday, and now the vets were finishing the job as she lay on her side, her beautiful figure a black hump on the track."

What Jenkins wants I agree with: Everyone should have been required to watch as Eight Belles was killed (NBC cut away from her after she fell). If Jenkins were calling for an end to horse racing, she would have said so. But she's concerned with the "moral crisis" that thoroughbred racing is in and how to remedy it. The surfaces need to be changed and the way the horses are bred and trained must be changed ("A Kentucky Derby horse has to run a mile and a quarter on a dirt track around two turns by the age of 3. It is the horse equivalent of asking a college kid to play in the Super Bowl.")

She writes, "They need to be given the bodies to accommodate their hearts." After all, we "give" them bodies; we create them for our use. And that, Ms. Jenkins, is the real problem.

I'm sure that every publication will be flooded with letters. Remember to keep it short (under 150 words), include your full name, address and phone number, and don't rant. You can send letters regarding the referenced articles to: letters@nytimes.com, opinions@washingtonpost.com and the Boston Globe has a form for your e-mail message at the end of the article http://www.boston.com/sports/other_sports/horse_racing/articles/2008/05/04/triumph_tragedy_at_derby/.

Here's the NBC footage, on the Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/03/kentucky-derby-horse-eigh_n_99987.html which already has eight pages of comments. Watching the owners of the winner in ecstasy over "their" win, is, I warn you, not a pretty sight.