A lot of follow up to the tragedy at Churchill Downs on Saturday. For those that don’t know, the filly Eight Belles finished second to Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby, but broke down as she was galloping out going into the first turn. She broke both legs and had to be euthanized on the track.
The idiots at PETA are calling for the suspension of the jockey saying he should have noticed she was injured and should have pulled the horse up. This is complete BS. I’ve been interested in horse racing for nearly 20 years and this kind of injury doesn’t happen allowing the jockey to continue to make the horse run while it is injured. If she had gotten this injury while going all out down the stretch, there’s a good chance that jockey Gabriel Saez and others would have gotten hurt because Belles would have went down in a heap in front of the 18 other horses and jockeys behind her. The notion that he was giving her the whip when eventual winner Big Brown was 4 lengths ahead makes no sense. No jockey is that stupid. When I saw him giving the whip, I immediately thought he was doing it to keep her off the rail and that’s exactly what he was doing.
The worst part in all of this is that PETA is being treated with some kind of legitimacy. Let’s be real. PETA is a nutcase organization that relies on celebrity involvement to hide how nutty it is. Do you know how whacked these people are? They implored the mayor of Fishkill, NY at one point to change the city name because it shouldn’t be associating the word ‘kill’ with fish. Of course, the word ‘kill’ comes from the Dutch and means ‘body of water’ or ‘river.’ Therefore, the city name is translated into Fish River.
Kooks.
[...] … as the Brady Campaign knows about guns. Fortunately, Jay is a horse racing aficionado, and has debunked the PETA claims. [...]
By: Snowflakes in Hell » PETA Knows As Much About Horse Racing … on May 5, 2008
at 10:24 pm
It amazes me when the media cites PETA for anything other than throwing blood on fur wearers or their “Got beer?” campaign.
It’s like citing ELF on environmental issues.
By: Rustmeister on May 6, 2008
at 7:10 am
Tally Ho…. PETA commenter over on my site!
By: Sebastian on May 6, 2008
at 7:32 am
[...] Racing Follow-Up Some people were asking me about the sport of horse racing after my post about [...]
By: Horse Racing Follow-Up « The Right To Bear Arms on May 6, 2008
at 8:35 am
I was at the Downs that day. I watched 8belles in the paddock and warming up on the track. She was light on her feet, alert and generally looked relaxed given the nature, size and noise of the crowd. Saez and the filly rode a clean race. I could only see her clearly down the home stretch to finish, but there no indication of any trouble. I saw Saez use the whip and also thought he was trying to get her off the rail. Saez stood up at the finish line, the horse galloped with ease and then at the first turn, she made three awkward looking steps and went down. Saez hit the ground hard. Amazingly, he got up and ran over to the fallen lady. He stayed with her up until the point when they were going to euthanize her. He walked all the way back, carrying the saddle with his head down. He never once looked at anyone and appeared to be competely devastated.
In person this horse was a big, muscular, fine tuned athlete. Her appearance was very convincing that she could take on those boys and I firmly believe she deserved to run that race.
PETA’s accusations that she was physically mistreated, abused and beaten to death on the track have led me to concur that suspensions and fines should be issued. Against PETA. Clearly some idiot at that organization decided that they could exploit the death of this fine little filly and receive some free publicity at her expense. They have several important stake races they can now use to put themselves in front of the camera. I can almost visualize them sitting in a circle singing kumbaya before agreeing to go ahead with this ludicrous claim. They conducted no investigation, interviewed no people involved with this horse and as far as I can tell, know very little about the industry and how it works. Fines and suspensions should be issued? Oh yeah, PETA deserves max on this.
By: Elle on May 8, 2008
at 6:52 pm