A Dangerous Game
The crowing of the King of England wasn't the only royal event that was taking place this weekend. If you are a fan of horse racing, you know that Saturday was the Kentucky Derby. The derby is the first race in what is called the triple crown of horse racing.
It consists of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. If a horse can win all three of those, then they are a triple crown winner. It's a pretty rare feat. Many times horses might compete in one or two of the races, but not make it to the second or third one.
This past weekend was the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby and I can only imagine how crazy it is going to be next year when it is the 150th anniversary.
It wasn't all mint juleps and roses this weekend though.
Leading up to the derby, seven horses have died at Churchill Downs in the week leading up to the derby.
Actually, it started with two, then the next headline I read said four and finally by the time the derby was ready to start, the count was all the way up to 7.
Just for a little background, the Kentucky Derby is just the culmination of the races that take place during Derby Week at Churchill Downs.
Two of the deaths happened during race 2 and 8 on Saturday leading up to the Derby. In those races the horses miss-stepped and were deemed to be unable to recover from their injuries so they were euthanized.
Leading up to that, Friday a trainer was suspended due to the unusual deaths of two of his horses. The other three deaths were all due to injuries and once again the horses were euthanized.
As much as I want to love horse racing, these events kind of cast a shadow on the whole thing for me. I don't know much about horse physiology, but I'd have to guess it was a pretty bad injury for them to determine the horse needed to be put down.
I hope so anyway. If it is just a matter that the horse can't race anymore, then I kind of have a problem with that.
I don't know. I'm a pretty big advocate for the human treatment of animals and like I said, something just isn't sitting right with me on this.
I'm not sure how closely I am going to be able to follow horse racing in the future given the events of the past week.
That being said, Mage was the winner of the Kentucky Derby. I put a couple of wagers down on two other horses to win (not Mage), so that is $4 I will never see again.
I've always said I want to go to the Derby sometime and while that is still the case, I am not sure the cost is going to be worth it. Especially when it comes to the health of animals.
They are going to keep going of course. It's not like little old me going or not going will change anything.
Anyway, an event I was really looking forward to kind of turned into a bit of a downer given the tragedy that has taken place over the past week.
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A broken leg is enough to have to put down a horse. I'm sure that's true of less serious leg injuries as well. I guess given the nature of horses it's almost impossible to keep them off of a leg long enough for it to heal.
I don't know what the typical mortality rate is for race horses but that many horses dying in such a short time sounds unusual. Those horse are worth a lot of money so I would think there is a lot of motivation to take good care of them.
Yeah, I guess that is a good point. Not much chance they are going to be willing to go on bed rest! Definitely a lot of money. How much do you want to bet in six months we start hearing news stories about insurance fraud from some of these owners...
I'll say less than 6 months. Some of those houses are insured for big bucks.. insurance companies ain't trying to pay out
Yeah, I am not sure why I threw six months out here. It was just the first thing that came to my mind. Maybe three or less...
Yeah. Bad week for racing fans. I don't think there ever been that much death on Derby week before.. actually the last count I heard was 6..
The latest article I pulled was from Sunday and it listed seven. Who knows though. One is too many honestly.
There is an unfortunate history running back several years regarding the treatment of thoroughbred horses. Santa Anita Raceway in California made the news several years ago due to the unusual amount of deaths of racehorses.
The Money involved with this sport unfortunately is probably the cause of this pattern as the pressure placed on trainers to make the horses as fast as possible leads to the introduction of chemicals to enhance their speed and endurance. I believe that has a lot to do with all of the deaths in recent years.
Horseracing is unfortunately as corrupt as boxing used to be, and until some changes are made at the highest levels regarding testing and the treatment of these beautiful animals I believe it will continue.
That's too bad. I am sure there have been plenty of other incidents, but maybe the fact that these happened so closely together will actually draw some more attention to it.