Eight Bells (Kentucky Derby horse)

[Pam]

I don't support racing (dog or horse). There are plenty of things for intertainment without victimizing animals.

I wrote this poem this morning

Eight Belles in the wind
Beautiful melody that will never end
Running free now without pain
May your death not have been in vain

You ran for the roses with heart and soul
True to your lineage from long ago
With heavy hearts, our tears fall
You shouldn't have died at all

The rainbow bridge is now your home
With never ending pastures to roam
Eight Belles in the wind
Beautiful melody that will never end

I share your views on racing Val. Your poem is beautiful.

[Vela]

Maltese love, there are a lot of horses who do have fractures and do recover, not usually to race, but they do make it. Nureyev in 1987, recently The Tin Man last year, Mariah's Storm (Dreamer was loosely based on this, she did break her leg and come back and won), Hoist the Flag, Bluegrass Cat had a hairline fracture and was retired safely. There are actually a lot of horses with injuries, even broken bones, who recover and often have new careers or at the least are pasture sound.



Richard, you can go here and look up all of the horses by name. Here is Eight Belles

http://www.pedigreequery.com/eight+belles


You can type in the horse's name you are looking for at the top and it will bring up the bloodlines.

Horses are bred to try to breed out the faults of either parent. Sometimes it works, and someitmes it doesn't. There are lots of Unbridled babies who don't break down too. Like you said, they like to try to breed a weak part of one horse to a horse that is stronger in that area to try to "fix" it, etc. That's the general idea anyway. (BTW I agree Bodacious was one heck of a bull) Debry field is below if you want to look up and compare bloodlines.

Derby Field:
Big Brown
Cool Coal Man
Tale of Ekati
Anak Nakal
Court Vision
Z Fortune
Big Truck
Visionaire
Pyro
Colonel John
Z Humor
Smooth Air
Bob Black Jack
Monba
Adriano
Denis of Cork
Cowboy Cal
Recapturetheglory
Gayego

Also, for those who only hear the negative, there are SO many horses who go to the track every day and they come back fine. You only hear about the horrible side and parts because they don't report about all that horses that DON'T go down. It's a horribly tragedy when they do, but it happens in all sports. Eight Belles was the only horse to die in the derby that I know of, at least in any kind of recent history, like the last 40 years.

[pitc9]

Vela... you said that race horses are breed to race and they love to race.
How does anyone really know that?

All they know is that's what they've been forced to do since they were born, and if they don't run fast enough they'll end up as part of the 34% of american race horses that end up in slaughterhouse.

According to USDA figures, approximately 90,000 horses have been slaughtered in this country in 2006 as of mid-November. In addition, more than 19,000 horses have been exported to Canada for slaughter and another 8,500 to Mexico.

I understand that horses love to run, but to be forced to run till their bones snap..... that's not what they want to do. Freak accident or not, it happened.

I still can't stop thinking about these horses.

[lizbud]

Vela... you said that race horses are breed to race and they love to race.
How does anyone really know that?

All they know is that's what they've been forced to do since they were born, and if they don't run fast enough they'll end up as part of the 34% of american race horses that end up in slaughterhouse.

Yeah,horses love to run like greyhounds love to run & pit bulls love to fight.

[critter crazy]

Yeah,horses love to run like greyhounds love to run & pit bulls love to fight.

How the heck can you say that Greyhounds dont love to run??? That is what they do!! Even a Greyhound, that has never raced, will run for the sheer enjoyment! That is what they Love!! Horses are the same way!! Horses love to run, they arent forced!! Do you have any idea how hard it is to force a 1200lb plus animal to anything??? I do! Horses love to run, and they will gladly do it all day long if allowed.

How you can compare Dog fighting to racing, is beyond me!! There is no comparison at all!!

as far as the racing industry goes, horses should not be allowed to be even started on the track, till they are at least 4yrs old. They need this time to grow.

[Vela]

as far as the racing industry goes, horses should not be allowed to be even started on the track, till they are at least 4yrs old. They need this time to grow.

I agree with starting them too young. I wish they would wait. Maybe time will change that about the sport and they will simply move all of the races back a year in age. Maybe not, but I can hope! If they moved all races back one year in age, there would be fewer breakdowns IMO.

[lizbud]

How you can compare Dog fighting to racing, is beyond me!! There is no comparison at all!!

The common thread with all of these animals is they are all exploited on
some level to make money for people & this really ticks me off. They are
not pets, they are commercial products.

[Pam]

The common thread with all of these animals is they are all exploited on
some level to make money for people & this really ticks me off. They are
not pets, they are commercial products.

Agree 100% Liz.

[Vela]

On the flip side, what makes you think they are forced? Do you spend time around race horses? Do you know anyone in racing? I do and I know the horses and those who do it LOVE to run. They aren't forced, half the time they have a hard time keeping them from running too fast in work outs. The horses LIKE it. My Morgan LOVES to run. He would run all day if I let him. I have to ask him NOT to. I don't force him. There are horses who don't like to race or run, don't have it in them the desire to do it, so they don't race them. If a horse doesn't run and doesn't want to perform, they are not raced. You cannot force a horse to run and/or win if it doesn't want to. Knowledge like that comes only from being around an animal and getting to know it.

There are poor trainers and barns and breeders in thoroughbred racing, just like in every sport, but unless you have spent time with the people and horses involved, you can't make assumptions based on seeing a few horrific stories. Well I guess you can, but they won't be accurate. NOBODY wants to see their horse go down like that. The jockey was in tears, the owner was in tears, the trainer was in tears. The love them, they pamper them, they take VERY good care of them, most of the people.

I know of owners and trainers who have rehomed horses who didn't like to run or had injuries that prevented them from running safely. A HUGE majority of those horses are now in "pet" homes living a good life and well loved by someone else. The Jackson's retired Barbro's brother, Man in Havana, to be a hack horse on the farm, because he didn't like to run. Rick Porter, who owned Eight Belles, rehomes horses who aren't happy racing with other families for most of the time NO money. He then keeps track of the horses to make sure they are well cared for.

And that is not true that if they don't run fast enough they will end up at slaughter. Some will, yes, but MORE horses end up on slaughter houses because of hore people being BYB or horse mills, just like puppy mills. There are back yard breeders in horses just like in dogs, and that is where the majority of the slaughter horses come from. I know all about the slaughter statistics, but that is only part of the picture. The horses who are bred with no thought to where they will find homes, whose parents are poor breeding animals, and the horses with no training or are very old are the horses that generally end up at slaughter. I will not pretend no race horses ever go there, some do, but you can't make a broad based judgement about a whole industry because some of the people in it do the wrong thing.

Unless you actually know the animals and people involved, you don't know what they do or don't like to do. You can TELL when an animal is happy or unhappy, just like with your own dogs. Horses are just as expressive.

Comparing horse racing and pitbull fighting is a little odd though.

I don't think people should watch horse racing if they don't like the sport, or have issue with it, then it will just upset them, but to paint everyone involved with the same brush and make them out to be sadistic jerks is not true either.

[pitc9]

I don't think people should watch horse racing if they don't like the sport, or have issue with it, then it will just upset them,

Even then it will all still go on, not watching it will never make it go away. And with the way the pictures of Eight Bells and her injuries have been plastered all over the news and internet, it's hard not to see her.

but to paint everyone involved with the same brush and make them out to be sadistic jerks is not true either.

I'm not lumping all horse breeders/trainers..etc. together. It's the same that goes for dog breeders. One bad person is all it takes to ruin it all for everyone, and I understand that.

Sometimes I think it's less upsetting to know that a homeless dog is being put to sleep rather than a homeless horse is being sent to slaughter.

Seeing what happened to Eight Bells on Live TV is what's making this hurt that much more and is what has upset people, like me, that are against racing even more. To see first hand what can, and does happen to those young horses.

[Grace]

Yes, horses love to run. If you doubt this just go to You Tube and type in Secretariat Belmont. Sit back and watch a horse who loved to run.

He won by 31 lengths; the jockey didn't lay a hand on him; Secretariat simply loved running.

[RICHARD]

Just for the record.

Animals evolve into their bodies and body parts become 'specialty' traits.

Dogs?

Whippets and GHs got the legs to run, terriers got the speed and the digging gene?

Sledders? St Bernards? Coats to keep them warm. Looking at a horse you would have to guess that long lean legs would be a predisposition to speed.

When you look at the long-legged animals, deer, giraffes and elk- they all have the speedy leg look. It only makes sense to assume that a horse is a runner.