Questions Fill Hole Left by Filly's Death

May 5, 2008 -- 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 the 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?

"When you operate on a higher level, the risks are higher. That filly ran her guts out," said Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito, who has won two Derbys and had two colts entered Saturday. "Look at real life. These things happen. If they said, 'We have a device where horses run on pillows and they will never get hurt,' where do I sign?' "

Said Big Brown's trainer, Richard Dutrow Jr., to the Associated Press: "To make it safer, don't race the horses, don't train them; then they'll live good lives out on the farm."

Fleeting Celebration

But that doesn't mean there won't be demands and expectations from those who watch the sport.

"It is time this barbaric 'sport' be exposed," wrote Gloria Gordon, a 58-year-old registered nurse from Houston. "I stopped watching those races when Ruffian suffered the same fate years ago [in a 1975 match race]. Being from Philly, I know firsthand how much poor Barbaro suffered. Cruelty is just that, whether animal or human."

As Eight Belles ran down the stretch Saturday, it was obvious Big Brown was the best horse on the track. But there also was no question the filly was better than the other 18.

She ran the race of her 3-year-old life, and that was cause for celebration.

But only briefly.

Sometime after crossing the finish line, she broke both of her front ankles and had to be euthanized.

"She ran a whale of a race. She ran the race of her life," Jones said, fighting back tears. "She ran great."

The day ended in sorrow but not in second-guessing for Jones.

Not about skipping the Kentucky Oaks, where Eight Belles would have been favored to win her fifth consecutive start and would have faced a smaller field made up entirely of fillies.

Not about putting her in the most prestigious horse race in the world.

Not even about her being put down before he could reach her.

"She went out in glory," Jones said. "She went out a champion to us."

Jones said he struggled to get on the track after the race, anxious to check on his horse's condition and begin celebrating their second-place finish.

In a cruel twist, the television audience and some of the more than 150,000 fans at the track knew what Jones did not as he tried to shove his way through a crowd of people onto the track.

But as he came around the track, he saw jockey Gabriel Saez riding back on the pony of NBC Sports' Donna Brothers. Jones said he asked his jockey what was happening and was told, "Mr. Larry, they put her down."

That's when Jones said he ran for the ambulance on the track and caught a ride back to his barn, where he was able to see his horse.

"It had to be done," Jones said. "She had no way to be saved."

As Eight Belles, a daughter of Unbridled's Song and Away, rounded the three-quarter pole, slowing her pace after the race, she collapsed with condylar fractures in both legs, said Larry Bramlage, the on-call veterinarian at Churchill Downs.

"It's something that I wouldn't even have considered," Bramlage said. "I haven't seen this before."

Because she didn't have a front leg to stand on and be splinted, she was immediately euthanized, Bramlage said.

There was "absolutely nothing you could do," Bramlage said. "This was tough enough had it been one [leg]." Both Jones and Bramlage said they did not think running on the dirt surface at Churchill Downs had anything to do with causing the injury.

"We have the faith of knowing that things happen for a reason. She ran the race of her life," Jones said. "All we had to do was pull up and come back and be happy. And it just didn't happen."

Said NTRA President and CEO Alex Waldrop: "It took a truly breathtaking performance by Big Brown to deny her victory in the world's most prestigious race. She ran superbly and galloped out uneventfully before suffering a tragic accident."

Blunt Reactions

On the Internet, the reaction was blunt and brutal. Tom Weir of USA TODAY wrote an item in his Game On! blog that began:

"For horse racing aficionados, the 4 ¾-length victory by Big Brown at the Kentucky Derby fueled hopes that Thoroughbred racing will see its first Triple Crown winner in three decades. But for the millions of casual followers of the Sport of Kings, the wish was likely simpler:

"Can we have a big-time race day without seeing a valiant four-legged competitor crippled and condemned to death?"

The reaction was swift and in agreement:

"I grew up with horses but will never ride again," wrote one Miles West. "Horse culture is full of delusion. Breaking its spirit, enslaving it, mutilating its body, and running it to death before a grotesque display of drunk gamblers. Sad. Some reward for their legendary spirit and loyalty to man."

Activists Protest

The animal-rights group PETA sent a letter to Sen. Hillary Clinton asking her to condemn horse racing and chiding her for placing a bet on Eight Belles. PETA wants Saez suspended for what it says was excessive whipping.

"I regret to say that your public support of horse racing — and specifically betting on Eight Belles — makes you culpable in her destruction," PETA wrote in its letter to Clinton. "We cannot call ourselves a civilized nation if we allow any living being to endure such abuse."

On a competitive note, fans are left to wonder, as they were with Barbaro, what kind of racehorse Eight Belles would have been.

With almost everyone in the Derby electing, for now, to skip the Preakness, Big Brown will enter a projected nine-horse field.

The question is whether this filly would have been the one to mount the best challenge. And if she had elected to skip running against males, whether she could have so dominated her sex as to stamp her a great champion.

For now there is just sadness tinged with pride.

"These things are our family," Jones said. "We put everything into them that we have. They've given us everything they have. They put their life on the damn line, and she was glad to do it."

Jessie Halladay writes for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Contributing: Tom Pedulla in Louisville.