Peta slimeballs would like to see every racehorse euthanized, along with all pets and domesticated animals.
Screw PETA!
Who the hell are they to demand anything of anybody?
I “demand” PETA disband until there are no more abortions!
We should just do away with every great American tradition because PETA or MADD or the Centers For Science In The Public Interest or the PTA or the UAW or the DNC or AFSCME says we should.
“PETA faxed a letter Sunday to Kentucky’s racing authority claiming the filly was “doubtlessly injured before the finish”
Because these socialist morons would know without even so much as a necropsy? The arrogance is stunning.
PETA = People Eating Tasty Animals. The hell with PETA. They are the who who killed hundreds of animals rather than try to get them adopted by good families. PETA is probably known for killing more animals than all the puppy mills and dog fighters in the country.
PETA has no standing in any of this.
Hey, perhaps Free Republic ought to file a lawsuit against PETA for using up air and food resources that could be used on animals, instead.
I don’t like PETA either but I agree with suspending the jockey and investigating the poor horse’s death.
Do you think people would bet money on jockeys racing around on PETA people?
I am sure the officials properly filed the compliant.
Using the news to advance their agenda. Period.
I’d be the last one to defend PETA but there is talk in the racing community that Saez was PO’d at the filly and pulled the nose down after the finish line as punishment for a bad effort causing the injury.
This is a totally different claim than the BS PETA is spewing, but let’s face it, this kind of accident isn’t normal.
BTW, I checked on Saez before the race, he’s only a 20yo from Panama. Not unusual as far as jockeys go, but look at the trash swimming the Rio Grande. I was thinking maybe he was a young Edgar Prado. Darn glad I didn’t bet on him.
What, they think this guy doesn’t already feel like sh*t? Nothing like kicking someone when they’re down.
Another freeper posted an prerace article by a sports reporter who was concerned that Eight Bells was too lightly raced to take on the Derby, and predicted tragedy.
I’m not a PETA lover, but if the horse was abused, I’d like to see some consequences. Perhaps the racing fraternity should take this on.
I’ll see if I can find it.
Here it is. It was written by a racing reporter, so I wouldn’t lightly discount it.
By the way, what the heck was done to the search? All the posts are all jumbled, ones from 5 years ago listed before yesterdays. I wouldn’t have been able to find it if I hadn’t bookmarked it.
Someone believes Eight Belles never had a chance to get through it uninjured:
Kentucky thoroughbred racing columnist Paul Moran, April 30, 2008, wrote the following column:
“Where are the animal rights activists when you need them?
Eight Belles was entered in the 134th Kentucky Derby on Wednesday. Success would demand that she run 10 furlongs faster than 19 males. There is the most remote possibility that she will succeed, this covered by one of life’s immutable truths: Anything can happen in a horse race.
What is far more likely is that Eight Belles will be permanently scarred by the experience.
Three fillies have won the Derby, in 1915, Genuine Risk, Genuine Risk, in 1981, and Winning Colors, whose victory will mark its 20th anniversary on Saturday.
Regret, though she was generally unsound, was an extremely fast filly whose regularly defeated males. But Genuine Risk and Winning Colors were nothing like Eight Belles. Both were big, rugged fillies who competed against males on even physical terms. Winning Colors defeated males in the Santa Anita Derby before the Derby. Genuine Risk prepped for the Derby in the Wood Memorial, in which she finished third.
Eight Belles has nothing in common with those fillies.
She is, however, a beautifully conformed filly, light-framed and feminine. Her misfortune is not trainer Larry Jones, who skirts the issue uncomfortably. A trainer who criticizes the decisions made by an owner will not be training for long. Though he came here a year ago with Hard Spun, who was runner-up to Street Sense, Jones shows no symptoms of Derby fever and he seems uncomfortable discussing Eight Belles’ chances in the Derby. Owner Rick Porter, however, is apparently beset by Derby fever.
Unlike the three fillies who have won the Derby, Eight Belles has never faced males nor has she attempted a race beyond 1 1/16. She has won her last four races, one in New Orleans, three in Arkansas but none in Grade I company. She would be formidable in the Oaks on Friday, in which Jones has Proud Spell for more reasonable, less vain connections who are probably concerned with the welfare and well being of their prized filly.
There is no reason beyond vanity to run Eight Belles in the Derby, either. As a breeding prospect, her value may be increased but a broodmare can produce only one foal a year. Breeders found it almost impossible for Genuine Risk to conceive and Winning Colors has had no impact as a broodmare.
The only thing that might have saved Eight Belles from the cruelty she is about to endure was a poor post position but the draw put her connections sixth in order of selection, assuring a favorable position in the barrier a day after she drew the outside post in a field of 12 entered in the Oaks. She will face the firing squad from post five.
Porter has enjoyed great success, having owned the very good filly, Jostle, a Grade I winner in 2000, Round Pond, winner of the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Distaff and Hard Spun, who he sold for an enormous amount of money last year. Porter should know better. He should also show a bit of compassion for a very nice, still developing filly who, if he sends her into the teeth of a buzzsaw on Saturday, may very well leave he career in the shadows of the twin spires. If so, it will be a sad, sad day. –PM
I hope PETA understands that. I think the jockey should be investigated just to make sure that he didn't push her to the breaking point. If nothing foul or sinister happened, then PETA should be quiet and move along.
I am surprised that this story didn’t say that it was Bush’s fault since the Liberals seem to think everything else that’s going wrong in America is Bush’s fault.