Another Horse-Racing Horror

There is no reason why a race of one-and-a-quarter miles should be a death sentence for a horse, as it was on Saturday for the 3-year-old filly, Eight Belles. She was euthanized after breaking both front ankles immediately after coming in second in the Kentucky Derby.

The racing industry has claimed, as it always does after such a horrifying incident, that racing young thoroughbreds isn’t all that dangerous to their well-being. But the nature of racing and breeding has changed over the years. Good horses, whose careers often begin and end before their bones are fully mature, are racing less often than they used to, which means they only need enough endurance to last a few races. That makes it all the easier to breed for the lightness of build — and the fragility — that Eight Belles showed.

There are, of course, owners and trainers who love thoroughbreds for themselves and for their ability to perform on the racetrack, which is a reasonable test of sound breeding. But the real race increasingly seems to be to capitalize on a horse’s success — to move a horse through its career as quickly as possible. The sums involved are immense, so much so that the horses seem more like financial vehicles than animals with an existence of their own. The life of the money comes to seem just as important as the life of the horse.

How beautiful a galloping thoroughbred can be — everyone who watched the Derby can attest. But we also got to witness just how narrow the margin is between beauty and tragedy. It is exactly as narrow — and only as sure — as the bones in a horse’s legs. The first rule of racing must be the welfare of these horses. Nothing else is acceptable.