Eight Belles

When I was a teenager, and younger, my sister and I never missed the Kentucky Derby. We loved horses. And a televised horse race was just another opportunity to see that most magnificent of horses, the Thoroughbred, perform as God intended, not as the fleetest of foot, for that honor belonged to the Arabian, but as the horse with the most heart, the horse who could run the fastest and the longest. We were steeped in horse lore, we knew all about the great triple crown winners of a past golden era, War Admiral, Citation, and the legendary Man O War. We read every horse book ever published, The Black Stallion series,Smokey the Cow Horse, Misty of Chincoteague. All the great classics of horse literature had passed through our hands by the grace of the public library. A cigar company whose name escapes me held a contest every year, and the grand prize was a Thoroughbred horse. Every year we entered, half expecting to win and half wondering what we would do if we DID win. I wonder now if any suburban child ever won that large hungry temperamental equine, and kept it in a garage or a fenced quarter acre of backyard, alongside the swing set and the barbeque grill. We grew up in the sixties, that era of Secretariat and Northern Dancer, and we lived only a couple of hours from Ocala, where sweeping white fenced green fields still were home to champion race horses. Horse racing seemed to be a charming and charmed sport, and Derby winners retired to lives of ease after a few years of a glamorous life in the Sport of Kings. So I thought at the time.

As I grew older, I lost interest in horse racing. I still loved horses, but the reality of feeding and caring for a creature much larger than a collie held no appeal for me. My sister, however, never got over her infatuation with the undeniably beautiful creatures, and to this day has many more horses than can be reasonably expected to be "necessary." But they are not Thoroughbreds. Thoroughbreds cannot be pets. They have been bred for one reason only, to race. They are not saddle horses. The Thoroughbred is, sadly, a racing machine, a commodity to be bought and sold, a moneymaking enterprise on four powerful yet delicate legs.

As an adult, I rarely remember the date of the Derby.When I was still in Florida, my mother or my sister would call to remind me, and I would, for just a few minutes, get caught up in the excitement again. The year that Barbaro was expected to take the Triple Crown, I was as shocked and saddened as everyone by the "freak accident" that ended his chance for the ultimate horse racing prize, that ended his career, and eventually ended his life. To the great credit of his owner, extraordinary attempts were made to rehabilitate this huge hearted horse. Months went by while he gamely fought the painful onslaught of laminitis, and the veterinarians charged with the impossible task of saving the life of a horse with a shattered leg learned much and tried everything. But Barbaro died anyway.

Yesterday, at 6 pm, I flicked on the TV to catch the evening news. Dennis had run over to Carter Brothers to pickup two Saturday night special spaghetti dinners. I saw that I had not missed the Derby and spent a few minutes learning what horse was the favorite, who was the long shot, and who was the tall black filly with an actual chance to win. That was Eight Belles. Dennis returned with our dinner, I set up the
trays, and the jockeys mounted up and eased their engineered racing machines into the gates. And they were off! I was rooting for a horse named Adriano, only because he was ridden by Barbaro's jockey. But the favorite, an unbeaten colt named Big Brown, in only his fourth race, took the lead in the stretch and never looked back. He won the race by several lengths and I did not know who came in second. I was looking for Adriano, who had done poorly. But I was shocked by the behavior of the winning horse, who, in his trek to the winner's circle, seemed spooked. He even threw his jockey to the pavement. And then the cameras focused on a bizarre scene, a horse down and a horse ambulance hiding the horror. The television announcers hemmed and hawed, said that Eight Belles had gone down after finishing second, and that the jockey had been seen walking away. They tried to put a positive spin on the event, saying that quite often a horse will go down and it does not mean it is anything serious.Hmm, I thought, that's not true, especially after running second in the Kentucky Derby. And the jockey walking away, well that could only happen for one reason...his mount is severely injured, it is his fault, he was the "driver.' Sure enough, the track vet made the tragedy clear to millions. The horse had compound fractures of both forelegs and had been euthanized immediately. No months of whirlpool therapy for this lady. She had broken BOTH legs, AFTER the race. How could this happen? Was her genetic engineering flawed? Why did it happen? That one is easy. These animals are money makers. They don't have "heart." They have one purpose, and they are not in the driver's seat of their "purpose driven life." The horse who runs the fastest, the longest, without getting injured, will make the person in the driver's seat very wealthy. Thousands of these elegant, shy creatures do not have the right stuff. Only a few do. The multitude of injuries occurring every day in this "sport" are the result of bad genetic engineering. And it is all for profit. Sure,Barbaro's "family" loved and admired him: he was already a hero. And he had three good legs for awhile. Most horses injured at the track are euthanized and forgotten. But not this time. Millions of viewers saw this beautiful black filly die at the Kentucky Derby after racing beyond her endurance. I could not swallow my food.I could not speak. Finally, I started to sob. I don't know why. I could only think how SHE must have felt, almost catching that big brown colt, running fast and hard as always, and then suddenly, unspeakable pain, falling on the hard dirt track, heaving with exhaustion from the race and overwhelmed by fear when she could not stand. Confusion, then nothingness. Obliteration. No more. On the greatest day of her life. In our perspective.

The other perspective is from an unknown vantage point.This was not the greatest day of her life. The greatest day would occur in the future, when she could fulfill her purpose as a horse, an intelligent, emotional creature. This is not good stewardship of the earth. I know it seems trivial compared to war, famine, the evils done by man to man. I know I rarely sob when I see abandoned children in the Sudan, frightened women in Baghdad,victims of disease, starvation, and crime. But this was the Derby, a happy occasion, with American women in hats, of all things, and magnificent horses parading colors down the track. I did not want to see that ugly underbelly, that cruel sneer from the god of this religion, paramutuel betting. How ironic when they announced what the trifecta paid.
The dead horse paid off. The dead horse. Just a dead horse. I don't plan on ever watching the Derby or any Thoroughbred horse race again. I don't imagine the boycotting of tv viewing of racing by a single middle aged woman will make much of a statement to the world. I don't imagine I am being particularly altruistic.I just don't want to feel the shock and pain of a dying horse again.