Eight Belles' Death Brings Controversy

By Amy Mikel in News on May 5, 2008 7:16PM

The Kentucky Derby is marketed as a glamorous event, but those who have been there know otherwise – it’s really just a rip-rollicking, drunkified good time. And the “most exciting two minutes in sports,” as a recent documentary would have us know, would not be so without years of dirt, sweat, and hard work. Now, the Kentucky Derby is associated with a different kind of dirty business, after the highly publicized death of one of the race’s thoroughbreds.

Last Saturday at the Derby, a filly named Eight Belles ran to place, but collapsed during her cooldown when both her front legs fractured. She was immediately euthanized before being carried off the track.

PETA is howling for the heads of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority, whom they say are racing horses before their bones have fully developed, and on tracks that are too hard for the horses’ delicate frames. Others are criticizing Churchill Downs management for citing “tradition” as the preventative reason for not yet replacing their dirt track with a synthetic track, shown to reduce injuries and fatalities among jockeys and horses.

We were watching the event when Eight Belles went down, and are grateful to NBC for not showing footage of the horse’s last minutes. Estrogen + a horsey dying = bad combination.

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