ASSOCIATED PRESS: LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Eight Belles was euthanized after breaking both front ankles following a second-place finish in the Kentucky Derby.
WASHINGTON POST: The camera cut away from her, but it should have stayed on her. Eight Belles had run herself half to death yesterday, and now the vets were finishing the job as she lay on her side, her beautiful figure a black hump on the track. Horses don’t just fall down like that, you thought, as NBC flitted away, cowardlike, from the sickening picture to the more appealing image of the Kentucky Derby victor, Big Brown. There is no turning away from this fact: Eight Belles killed herself finishing second. She ran with the heart of a locomotive, on champagne-glass ankles, trying to please her jockey, trainer, owners and all the people in the crowd, the sheiks, oilmen, entrepreneurs, old money from the thousand-acre farms, the handicappers, men in bad sport coats with crumpled sheets full of betting hieroglyphics, the julep-swillers and the ladies in hats the size of boats, and the rest of the people who make up
thoroughbred racing. There was no mistaking this fact, too, as she made her stretch run, and the apologists will use it to defend the sport in the coming days: She ran to please herself. MORE
PREVIOUSLY: Here at Citizen Mom, we like the ponies. And in Saturday’s 134th Kentucky Derby, our money’s on Eight Belles, who will start against a field of 19 boys. Don’t get me started on how there are always too many horses in the Derby, it’s an annual annoyance. Early in the week Eight Belles was a real longshot, but with even Hillary Clinton betting on her (across the board), the morning line could go way down. And if you have no idea what any of that means, just bet the 5 horse, with the red-and-white silks. [via CITIZEN MOM]