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Did anyone watch the Derby yesterday? Big Brown had an amazing win, but what happened to Eight Belles was tragic….She was my pick in the race (didn’t bet on her, just rooting from home) and I was so happy when she took second…and then she broke down and whatever excitement/joy I was feeling about the race popped like a balloon. I’ve been a little heartbroken about that poor filly since yesterday afternoon.
I’ve been trying to read up on the current articles, but I haven’t found anything concrete – does anyone know what the heck happened exactly??? I mean, my guess is a combination of being pushed too hard at too young an age, like all racehorses…but it seems like there had to have been something wrong with her legs before the race! For both ankles to go, and in the same stride?! And not even during the actual race but after having crossed the finish line…I just don’t really understand that…
Anyone else know more than me?
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
-J R R TolkienI was rooting for the filly from home as well. 🙁 I forgot about the race and so didn’t see what happened. I can’t bring myself to watch any of the videos knowing her fate.
I find it ironic in some ways that there hasn’t been a Triple Crown Winner since 1978, the year I was born at the University of Kentucky hospital.
pegasi1978 wrote:I was rooting for the filly from home as well. 🙁 I forgot about the race and so didn’t see what happened. I can’t bring myself to watch any of the videos knowing her fate.
I find it ironic in some ways that there hasn’t been a Triple Crown Winner since 1978, the year I was born at the University of Kentucky hospital.
I didn’t see any video of it either – all that was on the coverage that we were watching was video of Big Brown galloping off and you could just barely see Eight Belles shadow go down behind him in the corner of the screen…and I’m grateful I wasn’t in the room to see even that.
I was DISGUSTED with how little acknowledgement Eight Belles got…from anyone! The station covering the event barely said anything, Big Brown’s contacts in the winner’s circle BARELY said anything, and the Derby representatives and governor and sponsors there presenting the trophy didn’t say anything at all! I wouldn’t have watched the end at all except that I was waiting and waiting for some kind of montage or dedication or SOMEthing concerning the poor filly…but there was nothing. Nothing.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
-J R R TolkienThey don’t really understand what happened at this point. It was so tragic. I’m still trying to recover from Barbaro’s death. 🙁
Here’s the most recent article published on the Blood Horse website.
http://tcm.bloodhorse.com/article/45041.htmThis is the place to watch for Thoroughbred racing news. I intend to keep an eye on it for the next few days to see if they find out what went wrong. I don’t think there was anyway anyone could foresee this happening. I’m guessing one ankle went and she broke the second one when she shifted all of her weight to it mid-gallop. That’s just a guess though. I was cheering for her too. 😥
That poor filly 🙁 they race them to young.
Did anyone watch the Rolex. I caught the end of it and I heard something about a horse and rider got killed 😯 Maybe I just heard it wrong. Cross country is dangerous. I personally never jump over 3 and a half feet. If horses were ment to jump so high they would have been given wings.I remember either reading or hearing a lecture from someone that horses were not exactly meant to jump at all. At least, not like competition jumping.
Because of the way their eyes are arranged, they have to depend on cues from the rider to know when to jump. After they get so close to the jump they can’t see it, since their eyes are on the sides of their heads.
I personally feel that horses should only be ridden for trail/pleasure, for both horse and rider. And they shouldn’t be ridden with a full load for long periods when young, not until they are 4 years at least.
This riding them full tilt high stress racing thing before they are even 2 years old is bogus.
Most of these horses aren’t even 18 months old when raced and given the label 2 year olds.
Kyrin
I think a lot of it has to do with working the horses so hard so young. I know they don’t even start training the Lippizaners until they are 4 to 5 years old. I missed the Kentucky Derby but now I’m glad I did. I was so totally depressed when they had to put Barbaro to sleep – watching them euthanize the filly would have put me over the edge.
pegasi1978 wrote:I find it ironic in some ways that there hasn’t been a Triple Crown Winner since 1978, the year I was born at the University of Kentucky hospital.
The Triple Crown is incredibly hard to win by one horse. The Kentucky Derby is a 1-1/4 mile (2km). Two weeks later is the Preakness Stakes at 1-3/16 miles (1.91km). Three weeks later is the Belmont Stakes at 1.5 mile (2.4km). For each race, Colts and Geldings carry 126 lbs (57kg) and fillies carry 121 lbs (55kg). Considering that horses perform best between longer distance races with more than 2 weeks rest in between, asking a horse to run so many races so quickly is a huge push. It can be done, but it’s hard. The Belmont is where many lose out because the distance is so long. Many thoroughbreds may be fast, but to win the Belmont, you have to also be able to outlast everyone else and not burn out early or wait too long before pushing for it. It’s speed AND endurance, which is rough, especially with two larger races so soon before hand.
Arlla wrote:I didn’t see any video of it either – all that was on the coverage that we were watching was video of Big Brown galloping off and you could just barely see Eight Belles shadow go down behind him in the corner of the screen…and I’m grateful I wasn’t in the room to see even that.
I was DISGUSTED with how little acknowledgement Eight Belles got…from anyone! The station covering the event barely said anything, Big Brown’s contacts in the winner’s circle BARELY said anything, and the Derby representatives and governor and sponsors there presenting the trophy didn’t say anything at all! I wouldn’t have watched the end at all except that I was waiting and waiting for some kind of montage or dedication or SOMEthing concerning the poor filly…but there was nothing. Nothing.
The decision to euthanize and that both ankles were indeed fractured wasn’t known by many of those in the media until just before the trophy presentation, and then it wasn’t entirely clear what happened (other than the obvious). That is probably why little was said. Since the owner(s)/trainer of Eight Belles weren’t available for comment either, I don’t think they wanted to speculate more until more concrete info was available. Considering how she went down, they probably didn’t want to replay that over and over either because of how distressing it is to watch a horse fall like that. I missed watching the race by about 15 minutes :x, so I didn’t see the actual fall (I’m sure I can see it online if I really wanted to). I was definitely trying not to cry while hearing about Eight Belles. I remember Go for Wand breaking down in the Belmont Stakes in 1990 – she’s now buried at the infield at Saratoga. Ruffian broke down at the same track in 1975 in a match race against Foolish Pleasure (battle of the sexes). Despite her jockey trying to pull her back to stop her when it was apparent she was injured, she kept pushing herself into horrific injury 🙁 (You can google it to find out more. It makes Eight Belles’ fall look like a cake walk.). She was a horse that just was made to run and thought by many to possibly be better than Secretariat and wouldn’t let anything get in her way of running and winning – her drive was that great. She couldn’t be stopped by horse nor rider.
siberakh1 wrote:Considering how she went down, they probably didn’t want to replay that over and over either because of how distressing it is to watch a horse fall like that. I missed watching the race by about 15 minutes :x, so I didn’t see the actual fall (I’m sure I can see it online if I really wanted to). I was definitely trying not to cry while hearing about Eight Belles. I remember Go for Wand breaking down in the Belmont Stakes in 1990 – she’s now buried at the infield at Saratoga. Ruffian broke down in the same race in 1975. Despite her jockey trying to pull her back to stop her when it was apparent she was injured, she kept pushing herself into horrific injury 🙁 (You can google it to find out more. It makes Eight Belles’ fall look like a cake walk.). She was a horse that just was made to run and thought by many to possibly be better than Secretariat and wouldn’t let anything get in her way of running and winning – her drive was that great. She couldn’t be stopped by horse nor rider.
The race that Ruffian broke down in was at the Belmont track, but it was in July of 1975. A match race that pitted her against a colt, I believe it was Foolish Pleasure, but don’t hold me to it. And because of what happened, match races were banned from then on. They were running side by side when Ruffian stumbled. You could see her jockey trying to pull her in, and she fought him every stride. He got her pulled in, jumped off, and you could see him trying to keep her still, and all she wanted to do was go after that colt. They put an air cast on her leg(very high tech for that time…) and got her onto the ambulance. She had fractured her sesamoid and ankle bones. They operated on her, put a cast on, and when she came out of the anesthesia, she refractured the repair, and then she broke the elbow of her other leg, and they made the decision to euthanize her at that point. I was watching that race; I was 14, and as horse crazy as you can get. I was so upset when I saw that, and will always remember her limping into the ambulance.
I didn’t see Eight Belles go down. I saw the rest of the horses finish, and realized they’d never shown the filly. Then the camera turned back and showed her lying on her side and not moving, and I knew it wasn’t going to be good. They blocked any sight of her with the 2 ambulances on the track. I did see thm talk to the track vet, who said that she’d shattered both ankles and was humanely destroyed on the track. We’d actually bet on her (my husband did with a bunch of guys at his job—the first time in his life he’d ever bet on the Derby, and after this, quite likely to be his last time!) because we have a 2 year old dark gray filly here whose barn name is Belle. 😥
Your right, der…. Yeah, it wasn’t the Belmont (corrects that above). Trying to keep track of all the races 😛 Yes, it was Foolish Pleasure.
She also hit her shoulder in the starting gate, causing her to favor and shift weight during the race on the leg she eventually broke. Her sire (Reviewer) also suffered a breakdown (euthanized) and her dam (Shenanigans) broke two legs after waking from surgery (also euthanized), so it’s possible her bloodline suffered weakness in the joints (not to mention Thoroughbreds already small ankles and her young age). She actually ran to the point that her bones were jutting out of her leg. She just wanted to keep going 😯 What started as two broken sesamoid bones turned into pulverized sesmoid bones, torn ligaments, a compound wound and her hoof just flopping. She woke after surgery thrashing, knocking the plaster cast (heavy) hard agaist her other leg’s elbow (smashing it to pieces) and tore open the fetlock all over again when the cast shifted and slipped. They euthanized her after that. She wouldn’t have stood through another surgery to redo the first surgery and now repair her elbow. I actually have her Breyer and Barbaro’s. I admire her spirit and will, even if it was part of her downfall. Wish I could have seen her run, but if her family line all had that weakness, it may just be as well that she was never able to be bred and potentially pass that trait along.
I usually do well when I bet (picked a 133-1 shot in the fillies race in the Breeders Cup before… Palestrina. She was double the size of the other fillies. She was practically the size of a mare… she was huge! Everyone else was overlooking her). I had picked the 2nd place horse too… too bad I was home and underage. I would have made a bundle! I didn’t have a pick for the Derby this year. Been too busy to keep up with the horsies lately and didn’t even know who was running. Forgot the race until my mom mentioned it and I was like “S**T!”, but it was already run (5:45pm). The Travers is the big one here in Saratoga. All sorts of festivities and the favorites tend not to win (Saratoga is known for this… the “Graveyard of Favorites.” Man O’War lost to his only race to Upset and Secretariat lost to Onion… My dad told me Secretariat was given a downer drug, but I haven’t seen anything just quickly perusing the web, or if it was just a rumor.)
I don’t want to offend anyone who is a fan of these races but I have a problem with the idea of racing horses before they have matured enough for their bodies to really hold up to the sort of stress and punishment a high-stakes race (let alone three) would have. Not to mention that breeding horses purely for their placement in such early races makes it a little unsurprising that so many breeding lines end up with repetitive defective traits, such as the tendency to break ankles. I really do wish they would give these horses the chance to grow up before they start training them so seriously and pushing them so hard. Even a year or two would make a world of difference, but it’s up to the horse owners and active enthusiasts to make change.
sunhawk wrote:I don’t want to offend anyone who is a fan of these races but I have a problem with the idea of racing horses before they have matured enough for their bodies to really hold up to the sort of stress and punishment a high-stakes race (let alone three) would have. Not to mention that breeding horses purely for their placement in such early races makes it a little unsurprising that so many breeding lines end up with repetitive defective traits, such as the tendency to break ankles. I really do wish they would give these horses the chance to grow up before they start training them so seriously and pushing them so hard. Even a year or two would make a world of difference, but it’s up to the horse owners and active enthusiasts to make change.
I dont think you are gonna offend anyone with that belief. I feel the same way. These horses are pushed too hard too young. I would wait till they are two and their tendons have a chance to mature. 🙁
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