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Kentucky Derby - Eight Belles Dies on the Track - What can be done?
Does anyone have have any answers to some of these questions??
By Jessie Halladay and Reid Cherner, USA TODAY
LOUISVILLE — Just hours before the Kentucky Derby, trainer Larry Jones got up early with his filly Eight Belles and took her to the track for a ride before the big race.
This was supposed to be a day of tempting history for Jones and Eight Belles.
They were taking on 19 colts and trying to make Eight Belles the fourth filly, and the first since Winning Colors in 1988, to win the "Run for the Roses."
This was to be a day of celebration for owner Rick Porter and his entourage no matter where she finished. She was the first filly to enter the Derby since 1999.
Now there will be a necropsy and then cremation.
It was a day that held such promise.
And a day on which the racing industry should have been celebrating a legitimate Triple Crown contender in Big Brown.
Not an afternoon to explain how, for the second time in two years, tragedy befell their sport.
The day was not supposed to end in death of another great racehorse.
Perhaps if the wounds of losing Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro were not so fresh there would not be this feeling of "Here we go again." Perhaps the shock would not have been so severe.
Eerily, Barbaro's trainer, Michael Matz, saw another one of his horses, Chelokee, injured Friday at Churchill Downs with the same injury as Barbaro, a broken lower leg.
Just when the industry needed good news, officials will have to explain why this happened again.
There will be questions with few answers.
•Should horses run this young?
•Is a 20-horse field too filled with danger?
•Should fillies be running against males?
•Does medication play any role in this?
•Are dirt surfaces, such as those at each Triple Crown track, more dangerous than grass or the new synthetic surfaces?
•Has breeding caused a weakening of the talent pool?
Are any Barnmice members involved with Thoroughbreds? Are any of the above questions being addressed in the racing industry?
By Jessie Halladay and Reid Cherner, USA TODAY
LOUISVILLE — Just hours before the Kentucky Derby, trainer Larry Jones got up early with his filly Eight Belles and took her to the track for a ride before the big race.
This was supposed to be a day of tempting history for Jones and Eight Belles.
They were taking on 19 colts and trying to make Eight Belles the fourth filly, and the first since Winning Colors in 1988, to win the "Run for the Roses."
This was to be a day of celebration for owner Rick Porter and his entourage no matter where she finished. She was the first filly to enter the Derby since 1999.
Now there will be a necropsy and then cremation.
It was a day that held such promise.
And a day on which the racing industry should have been celebrating a legitimate Triple Crown contender in Big Brown.
Not an afternoon to explain how, for the second time in two years, tragedy befell their sport.
The day was not supposed to end in death of another great racehorse.
Perhaps if the wounds of losing Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro were not so fresh there would not be this feeling of "Here we go again." Perhaps the shock would not have been so severe.
Eerily, Barbaro's trainer, Michael Matz, saw another one of his horses, Chelokee, injured Friday at Churchill Downs with the same injury as Barbaro, a broken lower leg.
Just when the industry needed good news, officials will have to explain why this happened again.
There will be questions with few answers.
•Should horses run this young?
•Is a 20-horse field too filled with danger?
•Should fillies be running against males?
•Does medication play any role in this?
•Are dirt surfaces, such as those at each Triple Crown track, more dangerous than grass or the new synthetic surfaces?
•Has breeding caused a weakening of the talent pool?
Are any Barnmice members involved with Thoroughbreds? Are any of the above questions being addressed in the racing industry?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by SkyHilaryLove on
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I think it was amazing that a little filly can beat almost all of those colts. She was truly amazing in my books. Talented, Powerful, Spirited and Strong are just a few of the word I would use to discribe her. Its heart breaking what happened, and all horse lovers know she will not be forgotten. WE STILL LOVE YOU Eight Bells! You ARE A WINNER!
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Permalink Reply by Hillary Kennedy on
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I believe that the horses should not be allowed to run at such a young age I think they should be held off all tracks until they are 4 or 5 years old. They are still babies at 3, waiting longer will strengthen their bones and allow the horse to mature. The number of horses on a track and whether they are male or female doesn't matter they are equally matched in that aspect. But I don't aggree with pumping the horses up on drugs like steriods that everyone else swears by. It isn't fair to the horse in any way, the horse can get hurt and not realize it at all because they don't feel the pain or know that they have to work through the pain anyway. Footing depends on the horse some horses can run on anything and others run better on other surfaces. Tracks, races, and training needs to be thought about from the horses perspective. What do they like? What do they run the best on? Horses are bred to be fast not to have endurance which is sad. You may have a fast horse but it needs the endurance to back it up so the horse will have fewer injuries and longer racing careers. Horses today only have racing careers for a year or two compared to the 5 or more years of racing, many horses had well over 100 starts in their racing career before they retired, most were still sound. Now they barely average 30 starts, most of the time usually the horse gets hurt and gets euthanized or retired and put up for breeding if it's possible. Breeders need to slow down and choose wisely not pick a horse solely on the fact that it is fast. I don't agree with keeping the mare constantly pregnant is right either there should be a limit on how many babies each mare may have because the complications and death rate of mares while giving birth continues to rise with each breeding season.
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Permalink Reply by Gary Stuart on
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These are excellent points and I think the breeding issues you bring up are extremely valid.
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Thank you, I really appreciate your reply. I'm glad you agree and find my point of view interesting.
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Hillary: Have you seen the following article?
Eight Belles was one of us
Frank Deford, National Post Published: Thursday, May 15, 2008
One of my favourite old sports-page words was "crafty." It meant, of course, some player, usually what we also always called a "veteran," who got by on his wits. Well, I can't remember the last time I heard anybody in sports described as "crafty."
More and more, sport --especially in the United States -- is reduced to speed and power. Always, of course, the very nature of sport, its elemental base, has been: who's the fastest, or who's the strongest? But guile and gumption used to play a larger part in our games.
No one knows what killed the filly Eight Belles after the Kentucky Derby recently. She looked just fine to the very moment she keeled over. It was like those sad little two-sentence notices you read in the newspaper every once in a while (and then forget) ... about some apparently healthy high school or college athlete who just suddenly, mysteriously collapses and dies at practice.
The difference with Eight Belles, though, is that she did it in the glare of her sport's largest audience. Had she died after the fifth race one Thursday afternoon at Suffolk Downs, no one would have paid much attention. But, of course, horse racing has been cursed that, all too often, the everyday tragedy has struck at its premier events. It is sufficient only to cite two names: Ruffian. Barbaro.
So the search is on for immediate villains. Was it the hard dirt track? Did her trainer use gross misjudgment in pitting a brave girl against 19 boys? PETA -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- wants to suspend the jockey, presumably for not being clairvoyant about his horse's collapse.
But the fact is, we probably will never really know. Thoroughbreds are just such incredibly fragile creatures, half-ton beasts, born with a burning desire to run, doing so on candlestick legs. There is an old Bedouin legend that best describes how wispy they really are:
"And God took a handful of southerly wind, blew his breath over it and created the horse."
But our mania for speed has made these great, delicate beasts all the more brittle. All 20 horses in the Derby were descended from one great sire -- the magnificent gray, Native Dancer, who lived but a half-century ago. Add to this proliferate in-breeding the fact that drugs are allowed today in the United States that are banned most elsewhere, so that horses who have no business racing do, and then they go to stud and pass on their weaknesses. Speed, speed. European horses run more tactical races. Americans just go flat out. Sterling Moss, an old star of another race sport, Formula One, once explained it best this way: "You see, we have an entirely different concept of speed in Europe. It's relative. You arrive at a 60-miles-per-hour corner, for example, and try going around it at 61. Then you'll know what speed is."
Maybe the closest thing in sport to a thoroughbred's legs is a baseball pitcher's arm. The scouts yearn only for the arms that can throw the hardest, and kid pitchers break down all the time. Young female athletes, thrown into the fray, are suffering a plague of ACL ligament injuries. Likewise, tennis players of both sexes are walking wounded on the hard courts they pound on, their arms torn by the torque of hitting so hard with synthetic rackets. Football ballcarriers who routinely weigh more than what linemen used to run faster than ever. Too many of their bodies give out too, too soon. Speed. Power. Faster. Stronger.
Eight Belles was a horse. But also, really: she was one of us. -
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My take? I disagree with Mr. Deford. Eight Belles was not "one of us". She had no choice as to whether she ran past her breaking point or not. That choice was made for her, by "one of us", with catastrophic results.
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I have to agree with you. She loved her job but didn't know when enough was enough do to the training and the fact that her and other horses in the racing industry are forced to run through their pain, because to them pain is normal. I feel that alot of race horses are just pushed way to hard for their young ages. It's one thing to work a 5 or 6 year old everyday for 30 to 60 min. at a time but to do that to a 2 or 3 year old is just uncalled for. They're still babies that are growing and developing. It's to hard on them at that age, they should get worked no more than 3 or 4 days a week not 6 or 7. People in the horse industry need to think more about the horse then themselves and money. Way too many horses break down everyday just so their owners and trainers make money. Owners and trainers need to think about what they are doing and get their heads out of the money tree.
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Permalink Reply by lesley bruce on
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In time gone past they didn't "race" horses until they were grown up, how can anyone know just how good and strong a mature racehorse can be now? they don't get the chance.
Does Joe public know that horses racing now still chew with their milk teeth?. -
Eclipse started racing at the age of 5 on May 3, 1769 in Epsom.
Eclipse (by George Stubbs)
Sire Marske
Grandsire Squirt
Dam Spilletta
Damsire Regulus
Sex Stallion
Foaled 1764
Country Great Britain Flag of the United Kingdom
Colour Dark Chestnut
Breeder Duke of Cumberland
Owner William Wildman
Dennis O'Kelly
Trainer Sullivan
Record 18:18-0-0
Earnings 2,149 guineas
Major Racing Wins, Awards and Honours
Honours
Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park (GB)
Prix Eclipse at Maisons-Laffitte (France)
The Eclipse Awards (USA)
Infobox last updated on: June 20, 2007.
Eclipse (April 1, 1764 - February 26, 1789) was an 18th century British Thoroughbred racehorse, descendant of the Darley Arabian, and grandson of Regulus, by the Godolphin Arabian. Eclipse was undefeated during its entire career. Eclipse was born during and named after the solar eclipse of April 1, 1764. The exact place of birth is unknown, but probably at the Cranborne Lodge Stud of his breeder, Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland in Windsor Park, Berkshire. His sire was Marske (bred 1750) and his dam was Spiletta (bred 1749). After the death of Prince William in 1765, Eclipse was sold for 75 guineas to a sheep dealer from Smithfield, William Wildman.
Eclipse started racing at the age of 5 on May 3, 1769 in Epsom. Supposedly, at this time Captain Denis O'Kelly used the famous phrase "Eclipse first and the rest nowhere," before making his bets for this race. At that time, a horse that was more than 240 yards behind the lead was said to be nowhere. Eclipse won the race, with all other horses being far behind (nowhere), and Captain Denis O'Kelly won half of Eclipse (other sources said he bought half for 650 guineas.) His jockey was John Oakley, supposedly the only jockey who could handle Eclipse's temperamentful style. Eclipse also had a running style with his nose very close to the ground.
Eclipse won all of his 18 races,was supposedly without ever being whipped or spurred, and was far superior to all competition. In 1771, Eclipse retired due to lack of competition as nobody was betting on competing horses, and became a stud.
Now google "racehorse eclipse" his story is fascinating.
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