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Finding humanity in horses

By Max J. Dickstein, amNewYork Sports Editor | mdickstein@am-ny.com

May 9, 2008

No human being can match a thoroughbred racehorse's package of speed, strength, determination and grace.

Horsemen, sportswriters, bettors and fans repose so much dreamlike admiration -- and such high financial stakes -- in horses that the animals are described as, and treated like, professional athletes.

(Remarkable performers though jockeys are, the athletes who primarily determine racing results are the horses.)

It is tempting to bedeck the behavior of these majestic young gallopers with human characteristics, as if the particulars of each horse's personality do indeed show that he or she has that sense, exclusive to humans, of oneself as an individual.

The horses preen for the cameras, we're told. They itch for the chance to show their big-time racing ability during early-morning track warm-ups. They enjoy the good life playing with toys and neighing at stallmates within their barns.

When the horses are young and in form, or when they've retired to lush paddocks and barns far from the tracks, the words of vicarious appreciation flow easily. But the affectionate anthropomorphizing reaches its limit when tragedy comes, as it did with the deaths of Eight Belles at Saturday's Kentucky Derby and of Barbaro, who died nine months after a horrible injury at the 2006 Preakness.

A 3-year-old filly, Eight Belles died after breaking both front ankles immediately after finishing 43⁄4 lengths behind Big Brown at Churchill Downs.

The wrenching scene a quarter mile after the finish preempted the sort of image chroniclers of the sport might have purveyed -- that of the brave girl who had shown great pride giving chase to Big Brown, even though she had no chance of overtaking the stronger colt.

Instead, a suffering animal breathed its last after a freak accident during the post-race cooldown.

And words foreign to human experience -- terms such as "euthanize" and "necropsy" -- wedged themselves into the fellow feeling we'd shared so easily with an animal, one who communicated with us so simply.