The 134th running of the Kentucky Derby this past weekend should have been an epic moment for the sports of horse racing, as Big Brown emerged as a bright, new star.  The headlines today should be full of speculation about whether Big Brown can make a run at the Triple Crown, a feat that has not been accomplished in over 30 years.  Instead horse racing wakes up today dealing with a crisis that has the potential to cripple the sport.

I watched the Derby with friends after completing a late round of golf on Saturday.  The pageantry and excitement of the Kentucky Derby makes it one of the “can’t miss” sporting events for me during the calendar year.  So we hurried off the golf course and scrambled to catch the last few minutes of pre-race hype on NBC before the late afternoon start.  A quick stop at our local horse track that morning meant that the majority of our group was cheering for Pyro.  He was viewed as a dark horse favorite, so he seemed like a lock to at least show.

The exciting at the start of the race was typically, everyone was screaming for their horses and trying to figure out who was actually leading the race amid all of the chaos.  A few lesser known horses took and held the lead for the first half of the race, but then a rumbling on the outside.  Big Brown, the pre-race favorite, started her charge coming out of the last turn; and when he was done there was a new Derby champion and hope for the sport.  As Big Brown charged to a victory, another favorite in the field Eight Belles came on strong at the end to win second place.  Eight Belles was a favorite among many people watching because she was the only filly in the field of 19 other males horses.  Two potentially great stories were now the possible legacy of the 134th Kentucky Derby race, but then tragedy struck.

We were busy searching for any winning tickets when someone noticed that one of the horses was down on the track.  Immediately my focus shifted back to the NBC broadcast which was reporting that Eight Belles was lying on her side on the track past the finish line.  A few minutes later it was reported that she had broken both her front ankles pulling up after the race, and shortly after that it was confirmed that she had been euthanized on the track.  The sport of horse racing went from triumph, to tragedy to crisis in the span of 5 minutes on Saturday afternoon.  Now instead of talking about their new great champion, Big Brown, and the gutsy performance of a filly, Eight Belles, they were explaining to an audience of millions on NBC why a horse had to be killed.

The post race headlines reflect the crisis that has now gripped the sport of horse racing.  Major media outlets almost uniformly ran with the theme of triumph and tragedy at the Derby.  Horse racing analysts were all thrust into the role of explaining why the horse could not be saved.  NBC devoted a surprising amount of post-race attention to the injured filly laying on the track, and that understandingly overshadowed the victory ceremony for Big Brown.

The big question now is how does horse racing recover from this public tragedy?  How do they grab the attention of sports fans for the Belmont and Preakness, when so many people witnessed the death of Eight Belles at the Derby?  Following up so closely on the Barbaro accident, which received so much media attention, are horse racing fans going to be able to focus on the sport?

Eight Belles tragegy at Kentucky Derby (photo courtesy: SeattlePI.com)

No doubt about it the Kentucky Derby and the sport of horse racing are the big losers this weekend.  The marquee event on the horse racing calendar produced a result that will linger negatively in people’s minds for a long-time to come.  The stories abound about the crisis surrounding horse racing, and the blamebeing placed on Churchill Down’s non-synthetic track.  These stories will take a lot of time to go away, and probably are issues that should be discussed openly by those involved in the sport.  They need to address safety in the sport, the same way that Nascar was forced to after the death of Dale Earnhardt in the Daytona 500.  Hopefully from this tragedy, changes will be made to better ensure the safety of everyone involved in horse racing.