This years Derby field...

appears to be wide open as it rains hard on "My Old Kentucky Home"...

Looking at the dime Super....Oh; I forgot I'm not at Keenland....

My picks for the race are (in the program #)...

Oooppps.... I've almost given you my well researched picks for the Woodford Turf Race right before the Derby...

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!!

At the party I attended I picked Big Brown and won a lot of $$$. WOW, the fave has been a loser for about the last 3 decades. Lucky me. Musta been cuz today is my b-day.

At the party I attended I picked Big Brown and won a lot of $$$. WOW, the fave has been a loser for about the last 3 decades. Lucky me. Musta been cuz today is my b-day.

Except last year . . . and two years before that--makes it 3 out of 4 for the favorite.

We were there. Watched the amublances with our hearts in our throat. I barely saw my way out of the place to the car. And my heart is broken. She was euthanized as we watched and we didn't even know exactly what was happing, only that it had to be as bad as we feared. I don't think I'll be able to do this again.

We were there. Watched the amublances with our hearts in our throat. I barely saw my way out of the place to the car. And my heart is broken. She was euthanized as we watched and we didn't even know exactly what was happing, only that it had to be as bad as we feared. I don't think I'll be able to do this again.

I wondered what it must have been like to have been there. The camera missed most of it, just seeing her fall at the edge of the picture. That was gruesome enough.

We were there. Watched the amublances with our hearts in our throat. I barely saw my way out of the place to the car. And my heart is broken. She was euthanized as we watched and we didn't even know exactly what was happing, only that it had to be as bad as we feared. I don't think I'll be able to do this again.

I wondered what it must have been like to have been there. The camera missed most of it, just seeing her fall at the edge of the picture. That was gruesome enough.

The win was completely overshadowed by the tragedy. She went down twice. It was horrifying.

Frankly, I can't stop crying. I've been to four derbys in the past six years, have loved the whole experience and have hankered after it nearly my whole life. But always with the fear lurking. It's part of the deal, I know. And I've always known there might be a time I'd finally have to say I can't support any of it anymore. At some point the risk is too much to bear for some of us I guess.

Just to pay tribute, a bit. She was brilliant. Gorgeous. It breaks my heart.

It's a major disappointment that none of the Louisville news or Derby venues, or even much of the major news media, have had much to say about the tragedy yesterday on the track. It's as if they've all simply decided to turn their faces from the horror and pretend it's not happening. I'm disgusted. Surprisingly, The New York Times has devoted a lot of time and space to Eight Belles, as opposed to the winning horse, and it's an interesting and heart breaking discussion to follow over there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/sport ... y.html?hp#
http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0 ... day-after/

The Washington Post is doing a little better than most as well, and so just sort of randomly I'm posting a bit of an article from them here:

Is Horse Racing Breeding Itself to Death?

The camera cut away from her, but it should have stayed on her. Eight Belles had run herself half to death yesterday, and now the vets were finishing the job as she lay on her side, her beautiful figure a black hump on the track. Horses don't just fall down like that, you thought as NBC flitted away, cowardlike, from the sickening picture to the more appealing image of the Kentucky Derby victor, Big Brown.

There is no turning away from this fact: Eight Belles killed herself finishing second. She ran with the heart of a locomotive, on champagne-glass ankles for the pleasure of the crowd, the sheiks, oilmen, entrepreneurs, old money from the thousand-acre farms, the handicappers, men in bad sport coats with crumpled sheets full of betting hieroglyphics, the julep-swillers and the ladies in hats the size of boats, and the rest of the people who make up thoroughbred racing. There was no mistaking this fact, too, as she made her stretch run, and the apologists will use it to defend the sport in the coming days: She ran to please herself.

But thoroughbred racing is in a moral crisis, and everyone now knows it. Twice since 2006, magnificent animals have suffered catastrophic injuries on live television in Triple Crown races, and there is no explaining that away. Horses are being over-bred and over-raced, until their bodies cannot support their own ambitions, or those of the humans who race them. Barbaro and Eight Belles merely are the most famous horses who have fatally injured themselves. On Friday, a colt named Chelokee, trained by Barbaro's trainer Michael Matz, dislocated an ankle during an undercard for the Kentucky Oaks and was given a 50 percent chance of survival.

According to several estimates, there are 1.5 career-ending breakdowns for every 1,000 racing starts in the United States. That's an average of two per day.

Eight Belles collapsed after crossing the finish line, her front ankles broken so severely she could not be taken from the track. "She didn't have a front leg to stand on to be splinted and hauled off in the ambulance, so she was euthanized," said Larry Bramlage, the Derby's veterinarian....

[for the rest of the piece, the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews ]

Thanks for the Post article. This was the very first thing that went through my mind when I heard the news and I have found it odd no one else has mentioned it.

I couldn't watch. It broke my heart. I had to leave the room. I love how they panned to the winner, acting like nothing was wrong, like the life of a magnificent animal wasn't being ended at that very moment. "Nothing to see here, people!" It just broke my heart into bits. So sad. What a tragedy.

Big Brown is a freak of nature. Damn, he destroyed the Preakness field. We might have out first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.

Big Brown is a freak of nature. Damn, he destroyed the Preaknes field. We might have out first Triple Crown winner since . . .

Be for real Ron. I think you're old enough to remember Secretariat. Now that is a horse who destroyed fields. And did your spelling skills go out the window tonight?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretariat_(horse)

Big Brown is a freak of nature. Damn, he destroyed the Preaknes field. We might have out first Triple Crown winner since . . .

Be for real Ron. I think you're old enough to remember Secretariat. Now that is a horse who destroyed fields. And did your spelling skills go out the window tonight?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretariat_(horse)

(edit, it's just not worth responding to)