A Chance to Revolutionize Horse Racing, Instead of Going Around in Circles

Was the death of Eight Belles good for something, or nothing? How you reply to that question depends on whether you think thoroughbred racing is a meaningful pursuit worthy of reform, or just a fancied-up vice and form of abuse. On one end of the spectrum are the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who would like to saddle up Eight Belles's handlers and whip them around a track to see how they like it. On the other are the apologists, who contend that the loss of a horse is just one more unavoidable accident of life. Stuck in the middle are the confused rest of us.

There is an impulse to assign blame for the breakdown of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby, to punish someone for her unbearable-to-watch collapse on two shattered ankles. Did 20-year-old jockey Gabriel Saez lash her to the finish line, ignoring a telltale sign that she was injured? Did trainer Larry Jones overuse her, or administer steroids to make her too large? Did owner Rick Porter act selfishly in entering the 3-year-old filly in the Derby, a race that perhaps was too much for her?

But individual fault-finding doesn't address the larger question of just what kind of "sport" horse racing is or intends to be going forward. The death of Eight Belles was good for this much: It has forced acknowledgment of several critical problems in American racing. The Triple Crown schedule is too arduous. Three-year-olds are too young for such intense racing. Trainers are using certain drugs that can mask injuries. Owners' buying habits have led to modern thoroughbreds being bred too frequently and too finely. And there is evidence that dirt tracks are more dangerous than synthetic surfaces.

Eight Belles's handlers are only fractionally responsible for these persistent problems. The New York Times reported that on the same day Eight Belles died, 15 other horses were injured at 39 North American tracks, nine of them so seriously they had to be carried from tracks in ambulances. According to the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, there are two fatalities for every 1,000 starts on American dirt tracks. No wonder that the handlers of only one of the horses who ran in the Derby are even considering entry into the Preakness.

The standard responses from racing people won't wash anymore. We've all heard them: It was just bad luck; she just took a wrong step; no one loves horses more than the handlers. NBC's postrace performance was reflective of this sort of denial. The network flashed on Eight Belles, lying on the track, and yet for the next several minutes concentrated on the victory celebration. The spectacle of various "dignitaries" and the Big Brown contingent exulting in a "great" Kentucky Derby was offensive to the core. It surely wasn't too much to ask that they recognize that while one horse was winning, another was dying -- right over there.

The real lovers of horse racing tell the truth about it. One of the clearer voices in the last couple of days has been that of Churchill Downs track veterinarian Larry Bramlage, who treated Eight Belles and called the sudden severity of her collapse almost unprecedented in his experience. Bramlage has noted that owners want big, fast, early-maturing Derby horses at the expense of strength and longevity. Eight Belles is descended from a bloodline that produces good prodigies but may also be susceptible to foot and leg injuries.

"We are at a crisis state," Bramlage told the Wall Street Journal. "The soundness of the horses has completely gone out the window because we don't reward it anymore. Pretty soon we won't have animals that can go in more than one race."

He suggested one possible remedy: financial incentives for horses who display longevity, rather than just the ability to get to a Derby.

Death is sometimes part of horse racing. No amount of reform or legislation likely will alter this central fact about thoroughbreds: They are 1,200 pounds of weight dancing on ankles no bigger than your daughter's. Ethically, this makes it an endlessly problematic exercise. But that doesn't mean that the sport is inherently abusive, or barbaric. There is no question that thoroughbred racing has many decent people who feel a deep, rewarding partnership with their horses, and often the moral component is exactly what draws them to the sport.

Donald G. Jones, the author of "Sports Ethics in America: A Bibliography, 1970-1990" and a professor of social ethics at Drew University, contends that all sports starkly confront players with their own characters. He cites American philosopher Michael Novak: "A game tests, somehow, one's entire life. It tests one's standing with the gods."

Horse racing, like all great sport, is about seeking greater self-awareness. But it may test in a particularly unique way: Every owner, trainer and jockey in the sport is intensely aware right now of him or herself and their moral content in dealing with horses. In other games, we're only responsible for ourselves or for our teammates. Horses are not autonomous creatures; their handlers bear especially intense responsibilities. As Jones says, "The Socratic dictum 'know thyself' is more fully possible in the sphere of sports than most other spheres of life."

Eight Belles is causing the people in horse racing to know themselves better. Just how much do they love their prodigy horses? As one reader suggested, Britney Spears's parents love her, too.

The death of a Derby runner-up has shone a light on issues that racing authorities should have addressed before now. If they don't use this moment to rectify these ills -- to raise the age for Triple Crown horses to 4, create incentives for strengthening the breeding lines and look hard at doing away with all dirt tracks -- they'll leave themselves vulnerable to the abolitionists who want to get rid of the whole thing. The mass audience may wake up one day and agree with the PETA people, and find nothing in the sport worth preserving.