Eight Belles

[CrimsonNan]

Comments please about the Kentucky Derby Saturday. I'm still too upset to even try to give mine.

 

[Bamaro]

Brought back memories of Ruffian & Barbaro:frown:

 

[bamanut_aj]

sad deal and props to quick medical attention she received. At least she didn't suffer long.

 

[cbi1972]

Eight Belles

In nautical parlance, "Eight Bells" is the end of a four-hour watch. It's also a nautical euphemism for the death of a sailor: his watch is over, eternally.

Clinton's Derby pick: Eight Belles
PERHAPS SEES SIMILARITY IN HER RACE

LOUISVILLE -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, entering the home stretch of her own close political horse race, revealed her sentimental choice for Saturday's Run for the Roses, the filly Eight Belles, a long shot.

"I want everybody to place a little money on the filly," Clinton told cheering supporters at her campaign headquarters in Louisville. In Wednesday's morning line, the filly was listed at 20-1 odds.

 

[DiamondDust]

Brought back memories of Ruffian & Barbaro:frown:

At least they didn't get put down on the track in front of all those spectators. I'm glad I had turned the race off after Big Brown crossed the finish line.

 

[Boclive]

Not sure what happened to Eight Belles. Given the normal stresses placed on individual legs, how do both legs fracture at roughly the same time?

Big horse with a big heart.

I don't think they should allow fillies to race against the boys. It's like letting them suit up for football or something. It's unfair to them.

IMO.

 

[bamanut_aj]

Not sure what happened to Eight Belles. Given the normal stresses placed on individual legs, how do both legs fracture at the roughly the same time?

Big horse with a big heart.

I don't think they should allow fillies to race against the boys. It's like letting them suit up for football or something. It's unfair to them.

IMO.

I'm waiting for PETA to demand that we breed horses with bigger ankles.

 

[Bama Torch in Pcola]

I'm saddened by what happened. I've got a soft spot in my heart for racehorses. They are such amazing creatures, it's a shame when one goes down.

These quacks that want to ban horse racing have no idea what goes on in the industry, nor do they know anything about the animals themselves. The chorus has already started.

 

[jps1983]

These quacks that want to ban horse racing have no idea what goes on in the industry, nor do they know anything about the animals themselves. The chorus has already started.

I'm glad somebody brought this up b/c it is a group of people trying to capitalize on a very sad moment. I'm glad the trainer took a small stand earlier today to quiet the critics.

 

[ValuJet]

...

 

[Bama Torch in Pcola]

That dude in the background has one of the best mullets I've seen in a while.

 

[gmart74]

i thought that dude was rosie.

 

[lafella]

It's not that unsympathetic to what happened. It's just something that has happened for as long as horses have been in use by the human race.

They get severe leg injuries and are put down, for their sake and the owners. Be it racing or work horses.

Anyhow Big Brown just obliterated the competition.

 

[Bamaro]

It is a bit disturbing that two of the last three Tripple Crown races resulted in a horse going down and being euthanised. Also, I heard that there were one or two other televised races (Breeders Cup?) in the last year with the same results. I hope this isn't a trend but is just an anomaly of bad luck.

 

[It's On A Slab]

Racehorses live a pampered (if perilous) life.

If they survive their racing career, it's a great gig. Nothing to do but play in the pasture and sire offspring. Sure beats gelding, French cuisine and/or the glue factory.

 

[Bamaro]

Racehorses live a pampered (if perilous) life.

If they survive their racing career, it's a great gig. Nothing to do but play in the pasture and sire offspring. Sure beats gelding, French cuisine and/or the glue factory.

The best ones do. I doubt it is so good in the lower echelons of racing.

 

[cbi1972]

Horses break their legs just running around in pastures, so I don't know what the big deal is.

 

[bamanut_aj]

Horses break their legs just running around in pastures, so I don't know what the big deal is.

if we would pass legislation banning horses and pastures, we'd have the problem fixed.

 

[jthomas666]

The best ones do. I doubt it is so good in the lower echelons of racing.

It varies. After their racing careers are over, they are often sold as regular riding horses. A friend of mine had a TB mare (from Secretariat's lineage) that supposedly "broke" under the stress of racing; she trained the horse for dressage and cross country, bred a couple of foals out of her, and had her for ~10 years.

 

[cbi1972]

Horses break their legs just running around in pastures, so I don't know what the big deal is.

Oh wait, yes I do.

Biases implicit in the availability heuristic affect estimates of risk. A pioneering study by Lichtenstein et. al. (1978) examined absolute and relative probability judgments of risk. People know in general terms which risks cause large numbers of deaths and which cause few deaths. However, asked to quantify risks more precisely, people severely overestimate the frequency of rare causes of death, and severely underestimate the frequency of common causes of death. Other repeated errors were also apparent: Accidents were judged to cause as many deaths as disease. (Diseases cause about 16 times as many deaths as accidents.) Homicide was incorrectly judged a more frequent cause of death than diabetes, or stomach cancer. A followup study by Combs and Slovic (1979) tallied reporting of deaths in two newspapers, and found that errors in probability judgments correlated strongly (.85 and .89) with selective reporting in newspapers.