A horse doctor, an animal man

This weekend I attended a small Kentucky Derby party. Mint juleps were served, wagers were placed, and the final contest had us generating our own list of fake horse names . My two were Gallup Poll and Rumble in the Jungle. The unaminous winner was a three year old at the party who picked "Potato".

So we watched for 120 seconds as a Big Brown crushed the competition, blowing out the second place finisher Eight Belles by several lengths, then watched Big Brown's jockey (apparently dressed as Evil Kenievel) slowly gallop the horse around the track.

Then the wheels (or hooves) came off as the cameras fixated on the placing horse Eight Belles, who was lying motionless on the ground as several other horses and trainers lingered nearby. The Equine Ambulance (my band will be named that) rolled out and the on the scene reporter attempted to get a word with anyone in the know, resulting in:

"Well, tragically she broke both of her front ankles and we euthanized her IMMEDIATELY (emphasis mine)"

What?

It was quite the scene -- people celebrating, the trainer and owner drinking.... whatever they drink in celebration after a derby win, I don't know, horse blood? Meanwhile they kill a horse right on the track, load her into an ambulance, and then start talking about the Preakness.

Of course all of the news stories have talked about how Eight Belles' death has clouded an otherwise unspectacular derby, but in our case the party went on. We turned the TV off, joked about what form of euthanasia they used (my pick: strangling) and told the gathered children that one of the horses got "hurt" but that Big Brown was the big winner.

Obviously, our reactions would have been different if Carson Palmer had been shot in the head after breaking both his arms, if Amare Stoudemire had been drugged to death after blowing out his knee, or if Kerry Wood had been killed after any number of his injuries, but should they really be?

We're talking about a living being here. An animal that had been trained into the ground. No matter how humane the training might be, sometimes a horse doesn't want to run. Sometimes it's tired, sometimes it's in pain. Maybe on Saturday Eight Belles or Big Brown didn't want to race. Regardless, they strap a midget on top of them and off they go. Suddenly the jockey's a hero and horse is an athlete.

For the record, when I was a child we were partial owners of a horse named Frosty Margin. When I was about 5, it hurt its leg and was killed. Still never really over that.