After the fatal injury of another great competitor marred another marquee event, the thoroughbred racing industry may well have exhausted America's patience for its basic brutality.
Saturday's Kentucky Derby ended in the gruesome injury of the filly Eight Belles, which broke both front ankles after crossing the finish line five lengths behind winner Big Brown. As she lay on the dirt at Churchill Downs, Eight Belles was euthanized where she fell.
Two years ago the great Barbaro broke a leg in the second race of the Triple Crown, The Preakness. He died months later, a sad epilogue to one of the saddest stories in thoroughbred racing.
The horrible end of this year's Kentucky Derby - masked by NBC's cheery broadcast - raises anew uncomfortable questions about whether horse racing can ever be humane.
These horses are bred for speed to a degree that compromises their physical safety. They run on surfaces that are inherently dangerous and are forced to train exhaustively before their bodies are mature enough.
The death of Eight Belles, specifically, raises the safety of fillies racing with colts.
The horse racing industry - the responsible precincts, at least - have been raising alarms about all of those things for decades now, but the potential riches have discouraged breeders and trainers and owners and others from taking any of those dangers seriously enough.
They have no choice, now.
After another death, the public has already begun to demand the industry do better by the horses that carry its dreams.
If reform doesn't come soon, fans will turn away, repelled by a business that appears content to make its money by imperiling its brightest stars.
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Racing sometimes involves accidents.
It's always a tragedy when a horse race ends with the death of a horse doing something it spent it's whole life training for.Nobody would wanted it to happen,nobody intentionally caused it,contrary to the contentions of that purveyor of continuing death,PETA(suggested sign over the headquarters'Over 17,000 Killed').Race horses are different,they don't work well at normal horse tasks,as a relative found out many years ago when 'saddled' with a few on his farm.They truly have been bred for the particular strength and stamina required for racing.The editorial writer somehow believes that dirt isn't a proper surface for them to run on,so I guess all those wild horses are doing it all wrong,and have been for many inexplicably successful generations.We know that any type of competition,especially racing of any type,involves risk,but if the horse had a chance to voice it's preference,chances are it would race.