WAMC: Thoroughbred Safety Hot Issue Following Derby (2008-05-09)

Paul Shepard, a Silver Spring resident and former national writer for the Associated Press, says his love of horse racing began in the 4th grade watching Secretariat's 31-length victory in the Belmont Stakes. His passion for the game led him to join the ranks of race horse ownership in a Maryland-based partnership. But the tragic breakdown of Eight Belles in Saturday's Kentucky Derby and the surrounding controversy over the safety of the animals has him thinking wholesale reform must be adopted if the sport is going to survive.

All the majesty of horses and horse racing is on display at the Merryland Farm horse training center in Hydes, Maryland, a half-hour's drive from Baltimore in northern Baltimore County. This week, on a sunny day, a chestnut colored filly, ears pricked forward and eyes bright with anticipation, prepared to run a few laps around the five-eighths of a mile training track. Under the watchful eye of her trainer, J.R. Smith, she practically drags her rider to exercise around the oval.
Her run is the perfect marriage of power and grace. Smith nods his approval to the filly's rider as she prances off the track a few minutes later back to her stall.
It's the kind of sight that has taken Stewart Nickel from running a computer firm to managing partnerships that buy and sell racehorses throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.
TAPE: (12 SECONDS) 01:30, Stewart MP3
IC: What people outside the game don't realize is that from the outside looking in is these horses are bred and love very much to do what they do. 01:42
But these days, with the death of a filly named 8 Belles in Saturday's Kentucky Derby, the popular image associated with racing is far less than virtuous.
The sport is being vilified by respected sports journalists, like Bill Rhoden of the New York Times as animal cruelty - not quite as bad as dog fighting, but an evil nonetheless that should reformed or prohibited altogether.
Even for rank-and-file racing fans like Jennifer Miller, a librarian from Washington D.C., the joy brought on by the stirring victory of Derby winner Big Brown gave way to sickening grief moments after the race.
TAPE: (17 SECONDS) 00:42, Jen Miller MP3
IC: They said 8 Belles had come in second and I kept wondering why we didn't see her galloping after Big Brown and then they panned over and showed her on the ground and it just really kind of knocked the wind out of me and I couldn't really be excited about the race anymore. 00:59
Miller was watching the Preakness two years ago, when Barbaro broke a bone in his ankle shortly after the start of the race. Though the horse had to be euthanized months after the race in a saga that captured the nation, Barbaro never went down at the time of the misstep. Saturday was different.
The sight of the filly, crumpled on the track - handlers trying to keep her calm, provided a far more chilling and troubling scene for Miller.
TAPE: (9 SECONDS) 01:32, Jen Miller MP3
IC: With 8 Belles, we saw her lying on the ground and that was very upsetting to see. The very first thought that jumped into my head was I'm done. I'm not watching anymore. 01:43
Racing owners, like myself, know the drill all too well. We swallow hard, grit our teeth and say we accept the breakdowns of horses as a sad part of the game -- the same way boxing fans circle their wagons when a fighter is killed in the ring.
That is true. And nothing is going to completely stop bad things from happening as long as racing means 2,000-pound animals run on four spindly legs as hard as they can while carrying a human on their back.
Maryland bloodstock agent William Reightler believes the breakdown of 8 Belles could result in some reforms.
TAPE: (15 SECONDS) 00:18, William Reightler, In the whole scheme
IC: Certainly what this does it highlights, um, the fact that we always do have to try to challenge ourselves and find better ways to help protect these horses, 00:33
I agree. It's time to step up our efforts to make the sport more humane.
The introduction of synthetic racing surfaces in the last decade, thought to offer less pounding on the horses, has been a good start. While the results on whether they reduce breakdowns have been inconclusive thus far, some action is better than no action at all.
A good next step would be to ban or strictly limit medication on the days a horse is scheduled to race. Masking a horse's pain with medication gets the short-term victory of a full starting gate. But liberal medication rules bring long-term problems in the form of more unsound horses racing. It also means more brittle animals in the next generation of Thoroughbreds, as physical flaws are passed onto their progeny.
Smith, the Merryland Farm trainer, said he couldn't think of any precaution that could have saved 8 Belles from her fate - short of not racing her. She did, after all, complete the grueling mile-and-a-quarter race and beat 18 of 19 other horses to boot.
TAPE: (11 seconds) 00:01, JR Smith
IC: It's a lot like - that particular breakdown, is much like you walked out the house in the morning and fell off the step and broke both of your legs. You know it's something that happens but it's quite rare. 00:11
Smith is right that little could have been done in the case a gallant filly named 8 Belles. But this much is certain, if racing doesn't begin to seriously consider any and all ways to reduce fatal breakdowns, Jen Miller won't be the last racing fan to abandon the sport.
I'm Paul Shepard, reporting from the Merryland Farm in Baltimore County, for 88.1, WYPR