Commentary: It might be time to stop watching
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Track personnel try to hold down Eight Belles after the filly broke both front ankles Saturday. (BRIAN BOHANNON/The Associated Press) |
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Sunday, May 04, 2008
By Greg JayneColumbian Sports editor Isn’t it time we stop the carnage? Isn’t it time we weigh the death of horses against the voyeuristic pleasures of watching them race?
No, we don’t need government intervention. We don’t need a ban on the sport. Demanding that somebody outlaw a lucrative industry that has tentacles reaching into dozens of states is like spitting into the wind. It won’t do any good, and you’ll just get all messy.
But we can do something. We can stop watching these death marches. We can stop going to races and betting on races and patronizing television coverage in the wake of yet another death.
And when people stop paying attention, well, then finally this masochistic industry will collapse.
On Saturday, moments after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby, Eight Belles broke down and was euthanized, which is the kinder, gentler way of saying she broke both ankles and was put to death.
This follows the breakdown of a horse Friday in a race at Churchill Downs. That horse, Chelokee, had won the Barbaro Stakes last year at Pimlico, a fact that scores a 9.8 on the irony scale.
Because Barbaro is the poster boy for the dangers of horse racing. He won the Kentucky Derby in 2006, then broke down two weeks later in the Preakness. All of that triggered a cycle of surgery and recovery that elicited a disturbing level of devotion from the disciples in the Church of Barbaro.
And while I have difficulty understanding the Friends of Barbaro, who demonstrate a level of concern they would never afford a fellow human, I also have difficulty understanding the pleasure derived from a sport that so often ends in tragedy.
The attraction of horse racing is obvious. There are beautiful animals. There are thrilling races. There is gambling. There is pageantry.
The Kentucky Derby alone is one of the most colorful events on the sports calendar, a two-minute affair that can be stunningly beautiful. Saturday, it turned stunningly dark.
And at some point, you have to wonder when the cost becomes too great.
Last year, at a track in Virginia, four horses died in the span of five days. In 2001, at Emerald Downs near Seattle, seven horses died in a three-week span.
So yes, these things do happen, typically flying under a radar that will buzzing with pontification in the wake of the death of Eight Belles.
So while we ponder our place in the coming debate, let’s imagine being at Churchill Downs on Saturday and being near where Eight Belles broke down. What would that be like?
You have a horse that finishes second in the country’s most prestigious race suddenly collapse with two broken ankles? Does she try to stand up? Can you tell the ankles are broken, simply from looking, like a Joe Theismann injury on steroids?
Are her ankles flopping around? Is she making noise? What is the look on the faces of the jockey and the trainer and the doctors? Is there a hush over the crowd, or are people oblivious to the wreckage?
It must be an awful scene, the kind of thing you can’t bear to watch, lest it blacken your soul.
And then somebody comes over and gives her a shot and she’s dead.
Less than 10 minutes after the conclusion of Saturday’s race, The Associated Press moved a bulletin saying Eight Belles had been euthanized. That includes the time it took for word to reach reporters, who then wrote the bulletin and sent it to their editors in New York before it was relayed around the country.
Less than 10 minutes for triumph then tragedy then finality.
She’s second! She’s down! She’s dead!
Just another casualty in a sport that is becoming more and more indefensible.
Greg Jayne is Sports editor of The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4531, or online at greg.jayne@columbian.com. To read his blog, go to columbian.com/Sports/GregJayneBlog | 
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