RIP Eight Belles

I always wanted a horse and never had one. Owning one is yet another item on the "Someday..." list. So until I have one, I indulge my equine imagination by watching the horse sale at the livestock barn or by watching horse racing. Naturally, I was watching yesterday when Eight Belles tried to become only the fourth filly to beat the boys in the Kentucky Derby.

I have been watching the Triple Crown, and primarily the Kentucky Derby, since I was a kid. I got interested by reading the Walter Farley series of Black Stallion books. On top of this, the Derby manages to combine three of my loves: sports, horses and chapeaux. And this year there was a little something extra, that being the fact that a girl was taking on the men and stood a chance to win it. I think the odds they posted at the track put Eight Belles at 12-1 just before the race, which was very respectable given that most of the field was going off at no better than 20-1 and some down in bottom-scraping 48-1 area. In the end, she placed, beating 18 of the boys and losing only to the horse that is this year's real Triple Crown threat. Good girl!

Sadly, of course, everyone now knows she broke both front legs shortly after the race was done, and was put down right there on the track. So now the questions come. Just two years after Barbaro broke a rear leg at the Preakness (and was euthanized 9 months later), people are going to start asking if horse racing is cruel. They are going to say the horse doesn't have a choice. They are going to question whether a breed of horse, with those slender and elegant legs, should be pushed to a 35 mph run carrying that much weight.

I will not fake the funk in this matter. I enjoy watching the races just like I enjoy watching football, but that doesn't mean I really know anything about it. I'll leave those questions to the experts, although I do suspect that if a half-ton animal doesn't want to race you ain't gonna make her.

The three girls who won the Derby in years past were Regret (1915), Genuine Risk (1980) and Winning Colors (1988). I expect the name Eight Belles will be just as famous in terms of fillies who ran the Derby, and famous among them all, colt or filly alike. In 134 years, she's the only horse the Derby ever lost.