Cover Softly, Gentle Earth

The whole country has watched hopefully as Barbaro was treated for a usually life-ending injury, hoping that wonderful horse could pull through. Yesterday, euthanization was the kindest end his very caring doctors could give him, as his pain had become too much to ask him to bear.

We are sickened by the loss.

Breeding of racehorses of course tends to concentrate on speedy conformation. The speed elements in horses call for lightweight, leggy, muscular horses but does not concentrate on endurance. Sprints are the most part of racing, and quick speed is usually looked for rather than general strength. As a result, our racehorses have somewhat spindly legs, and they break too easily. Any breeder can tell you of heartbreak in losing promising racers to broken legs. Anyone who hasn't turned off the news when Barbaro's race at the Preakness began knows that his own efforts to get up speed resulted in the break that ended Barbaro's life. That muscular body relying on those long legs broke his bones.

"They're designed for speed, not necessarily to be ill and recover well," said Kimberly May, a veterinary surgeon and spokeswoman for the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Laminitis, a painful inflammation that causes separation of the hoof, has long affected racing horses. References to it can be found in books on lameness from the 1800s, May said. Barbaro's laminitis developed from uneven weight distribution, but other horses might contract the disease from infections, exposure to chemicals or an unbalanced diet.

Having raised ponies myself, I learned that horses under two have bones that are not yet hardened, yet racing starts when a foal is under two years old. While a horse should be growing and developing, the racehorse is already training, and taking a rider's weight.

Reputedly the greatest female racehorse of all times, Ruffian broke down while a world watched, and I also watched in horror. It was a long time before I watched horseracing again.

" Her eleventh and final race, run at Belmont Park on July 6, 1975, was a match race between Ruffian and that year's Kentucky Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure. The "equine battle of the sexes" was heavily anticipated and attended by more than 50,000 spectators, with an estimated 18 million watching on television.

The first quarter-mile (402 m) was run in a blazingly fast 22 1/5 seconds, Ruffian ahead by a nose. Little more than a furlong (201 m) later, Ruffian was in front by half a length when both sesamoid bones in her right foreleg snapped.

That was probably the worst sight a racing crowd ever saw, yet the rules of racing, and breeding, were never reviewed.

I saw a few comments on how pampered the racehorses are yesterday, but that outlook neglects the fact that being taken out and run on a racecourse daily is work, not play. The training that a racehorse receives is constant, and while everyday horses get less intensively nutritional meals, they usually get something like a good timothy/alfalfa mix as my feed suppliers kept in stock.

Many racehorse owners are good and caring people, but they are accustomed to traditions of breeding that ignore the horse's greater needs to produce champions. I would like very much to see an increased awareness on the part of the racing community that the sport would be bettered by breeding for greater stability and strength, rather than just speed. Fewer tragic breakdowns would win support, not blame, from racing fans.