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A horse's body is the size of a car, but its ankles aren't much bigger than yours or mine. A veterinarian friend of mine tells me that the trigger for the kind of catastrophic injury that leads to the death of a horse like Eight Belles or Barbaro isn't as horrendous as you'd expect. In fact, the trigger can be cruelly insignificant. Put it this way: A torque that would sprain your ankle is enough to snap a horse's skinny little leg. And once a leg is broken ...
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Horse racing people know all this. Presumably they know it better than any of us. Yet it was horse racing people who were cheering as Eight Belles was living out her final moments. On the telecast of the show, veterinarian Larry Bramlage broke the news that Eight Belles had just been killed even as the crowd was clapping and shouting for Big Brown. "They immediately euthanized her," Bramlage said over the happy sound that thousands of cheering people make.
More sickening was the next shot, of Big Brown's trainer, as he hugged various people. "They cannot beat this horse." Rick Dutrow boasted while standing on the same track where Eight Belles had just been killed.
I'm confused, but maybe the answer is as simple this: Horse racing people are becoming immune to a death at the race track. One day earlier, another horse had broken down at Churchill Downs. His name is Chelokee, and for now, is applies. He hasn't been killed, not yet, although he is said to have suffered the same ankle injury that ultimately killed Barbaro.
Ironic, considering Chelokee won the inaugural Barbaro Stakes.
That was May 19, 2007. In the late afternoon. At Pimlico. Where 45 minutes later, a horse named Mending Fences tried to win a race called the Dixie Stakes but broke down before the finish line. With more than 100,000 people watching, track officials dragged a giant green screen onto the track and used it to hide the killing of Mending Fences.
You didn't hide squat.
We know what your nasty little sport is all about.
