Lessons ring out from Eight Belles' death

You don't have to live in Kentucky to appreciate the power, beauty and challenge of horse racing, but maybe it helps. The state's racing tradition is worth preserving. And it's worth improving. The death of Eight Belles at the end of Saturday's Kentucky Derby exposes the question of whether we have yet another professional sport in denial of things that need to be done.

In some ways, horse racing carries an additional burden, because the animals don't have a choice. For example, if a baseball player, bicycle racer, football player or whomever wants to pump himself full of drugs to gain some sort of short-term advantage, that's a choice.

Our story today about the synthetic track (Turfway) vs. dirt track (Churchill Downs) debate makes a strong case for synthetic turf as being better. But still, the synthetic fatality rate is 1.47 per 1,000 starts. I'm no purist on the subject of animal rights, but it seems evident still more can and should be done.

There is a lot of interesting commentary on the Web today about a number of issues the American racing industry should face, including the slow pace of reform, the use of medications that everyone else but Canada bans, the young age of many racing horses and the practice of breeding for speed over shorter distances instead of durability over longer races.

This article from the Wall Street Journal, and this one from ESPN.com are interesting places to start if you'd like to drill deeper.