I am not a horse person. My brothers both are. My younger brother rides horses occasionally for recreation; my older brother owns a horse farm in Maryland and his wife teaches dressage (a form of horse competition/dancing of some sort which I don’t understand).

My dad and aunt rode horses routinely for transportation and as farm kids doing work around the farm when they were growing up in southeast Colorado. My paternal grandfather worked occasionally as a bona fide horse trainer at the Centennial Race Track in Denver when I was a kid.

But I, personally, know very little about horses and probably even less about horse racing. Professional horse racing has always troubled me a bit, perhaps bordering on organized animal abuse. Certainly the high level competition races like today’s Kentucky Derby holds the risk of animal abuses to gain “peak performance” or whatever from the horses. And today’s Derby ended on a tragic note: The second place finisher, a filly named Eight Belles, shattered both front ankles just after she finished and was immediately euthanised while she lay on the track.

I saw the finish of that race, and I was thinking as she finished in second place that she had put out a terrific effort and could almost have won.

I don’t know of anything animal lovers can say about such a thing. I’m sure Eight Belles’ owners and trainers did her no ill and sought to give her a good, healthy, long life. By the nature of this “sport,” horse racing breeds, trains, and uses horses to RUN — so the best possible treatment may by nature hold elements of inhumane treatment.

I wouldn’t presume to know any answers to the tragedy. I just wanted to “vent” a bit here in tribute to a beautiful animal who died suddenly, painfully, and far, far to young.

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