Eight Belles

It is hard to imagine, even after Barbaro, a more wrenching finish to a Run for the Roses than the fate of Eight Belles, who, after a spectacular place, went down with two broken ankles and was put to death before the whole world. There was not the slightest doubt that the filly had to be euthanized, but even among those who understood that fact from the moment the horse went down and know that it was neither an unusual nor a preventable death, Eight Belles's last moments were a time for reflection.

Of course, the editors of the New York Times promptly saddled up that old nag, Karl Marx, and rode into the debate blaming capitalism. "Horsemen like to talk about their thoroughbreds and how they were born to run and live to run," wrote William C. Rhoden. "The reality is that they are made to run, forced to run for profits they never see." It's something to wonder at, what the horse mind-readers over at the Times reckon Eight Belles would have done with the profits on, say, the superfecta (which, incidentally, returned $58,737.80 on a $2 bet).

Just the same, we'll put two dollars down that Mr. Arthur Sulzberger Jr. doesn't have a cleaner and more comfortable stall, more masseurs and servants to give him a bath and a rubdown, a better diet or, for that matter, a better barber than Eight Belles enjoyed in her short but magnificent life. And, oh, the fields of glory where our great thoroughbreds live out their days. Who can forget the pictures of Secretariat, grazing years after his triumph at Churchill Downs or fail to imagine that it was an earthly paradise and every succulent blade of blue grass the least that could be done for the heroic horse.

Not all race horses need to be so coddled for the point to be made that, for all the pain and suffering, there is an uplifting, inspiring side to these storied steeds. We don't gainsay the logic of the reforms that may come out of this. Our Max Watman on page one today offers a few, as varied as changes in the tracks and in the way our champion horses are bred. But horse-racing is a spirit raising gamble for both horses and humans, a grasp for a glory that goes way beyond any profits and cannot be had without the risk and the danger that on Saturday claimed a three-year-old filly who will be remembered for as long as horses race.