May 14th, 2008 - Horse Racing Betting - betEd.com Racebook

[Qbins Missile Crisis]

They're at the Gate...

...and they're offed

The "most exciting two-minutes in sports" had a tragic conclusion two weeks ago when, after finishing second, Eight Belles had to be euthanized on the Churchill Downs track.

The Kentucky Derby was supposed to be the crowning of a new "Super-Horse", Big Brown, but instead the story instantly morphed into one that embraced ethical and moral questions and opened up a debate about the very legitimacy of the sport of horseracing.

Not that NBC noticed. They essentially ignored the story of the three-year-old filly thrashing in the dirt with her two front ankles smashed to pieces while mere yards away they congratulated the winner. However, the hundreds of thousands in the stands, in the infield as well as the rest of the media there picked up on its import immediately because they had just seen a spectacular athlete kill herself trying to win a race.

Even politics came into it.

Hillary Clinton, because of the female thing, picked Eight Belles to win the Derby. Pundits were quick to notice the metaphoric parallels between the most famous horse race in the world and the race to be the most powerful person in the world.

Hillary came in second losing to a horse named "Big Brown." Not sure Barack Obama would be thrilled with that tie in, and hopefully they weren't advocating Mrs. Clinton taking a lethal injection on some podium somewhere after the race for the democratic nominee is officially over early next month.

Quicker still were the ever-classy People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) who were all over the tragedy, blaming everyone from the trainers, the jockey, the owners, the track and even the fans for paying to see the race in the first place.

The blame game aside, an intelligent debate should be instituted considering some recent statistics. Brought into focus after the death of another famous horse, Barbaro, a horse that actually won the Kentucky Derby, the number of fatalities on the track is disturbing to say the least.

The death rate in thoroughbred racing is 1.6 per 1,000 starts which equates to about one death in every 600 races run.

Not very long odds. But that's about 100,000 times more likely to happen than you being struck by lightening this year. Blaming overbreeding and overly aggressive and sometimes illegal training, horseracing is under intense scrutiny.

This weekend it's the Preakness, the second jewel in racing's Triple Crown - and hopefully not prophetically, the sight of Barbaro's downfall two year's ago.

Big Brown is the only entry from the Derby field in the race and he is considered by many to have the best shot at winning all three since Secretariat.

Yet after taking the Derby virtually uncontested, now there are now questions about him as well. Or more specifically, his trainer. Pretty much the poster boy for all that is wrong with racing, Rick Dutrow has been suspended for doping-related offenses in each of the past eight years.

And you thought baseball was bad.

Overbreeding. Drugs. Deaths on the track.

The Sport of Kings appears to be broken and requires a long term plan to repair itself. In the short term, what it needs most is a huge image boost to take attention away from its latest in a long series of controversies.

Big Brown may be tainted by association, but could a Triple Crown winner go a long way to solving racing's problems?

If so, a lot more than jockey Kent Desormeaux will be riding on Big Brown's back.

Let's hope NBC gets to focus on the winner's circle this time out because a new star is on the verge of making Triple Crown history.

Instead of, once again, ignoring ambulances on the track.

Cheers - Gavin McDougald - AKA Couch

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