Controversy
Veteran Washington Post sportswriter Sally Jenkins wrote that thoroughbred horses had become too strong with bones too lightweight: "She ran with the heart of a locomotive, on champagne-glass ankles." Blaming the breeders and investors, Jenkins claimed, "thoroughbred racing is in a moral crisis, and everyone now knows it."
Controversial campaign group PETA called for the suspension of jockey Gabriel Saez and the prize money to be revoked were he to be found at fault.
Six generations back takes this horse to Native Dancer (foaled March 1950), along with all 20 of the horses in the race, and just about every horse racing in the United States today. Much opinion has been published in the press stating that there may be a connection between the fact of so much inbreeding stemming from Native Dancer, with the weak ankles seen in horses today, leading to Eight Belles' demise. The Los Angeles Times went so far as to headline its opinion piece that today's horses are being "bred for death". The owner of Eight Belles made comments and suggested solutions in an article in The Wall Street Journal.
Read more about this topic: Eight Belles
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
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