Did Eight Belles break her legs before or after the finish?

Question

I am just curious. One article said she was racing on 2 broken ankles, then another article reported this: “When we passed the wire I stood up. She started galloping funny. I tried to pull her up. That’s when she went down,” said her distraught jockey, Gabriel Saez.

Answer 1

After.  She crossed the finish line second.  She kept running, after, collapsed, tried to get up, then collapsed again.

Answer 2

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/22825103/v...

Answer 3

I am not sure of the answer, but,...

There are not enough regulations with this so called "sport."

One horse in every 22 races suffers an injury that prevents him/her from finishing a race. Care for a single racehorse can cost as much as $50,000 per year. So even winners, when they get older are killed a lot of the time, very few don't. 58 racehorses a year approx. are sent for meat slaughter... and of course there's insurance fraud, where the horses are injured on purpose to collect on them. They usually get killed.

“There are trainers pumping horses full of illegal drugs every day,” says the former Churchill Downs public relations director.

Which drugs are legal varies from state to state, with Kentucky holding the reputation as the most lenient state. The New York Sun explained that because “thoroughbreds are bred for flashy speed and to look good in the sales ring … the animal itself has become more fragile” and that “to keep the horses going,” they’re all given Lasix (which controls bleeding in the lungs), phenylbutazone (an anti-inflammatory), and cortiscosteroids (for pain and inflammation). Labs cannot detect all the illegal drugs out there, of which there “could be thousands,” says the executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium. Morphine, which can keep a horse from feeling any pain from an injury, was suspected in the case of Be My Royal, who won a race while limping.

KFC is a sponser, and they don't care about how the chicken they use for meat are raised/killed. There's ALOT of unneeded cruelty behind their food. Eating meat isn't the issue with KFC, it's the cruelty before the anmals are even killed.

Peta supporter, Pam Anderson (don't really like her, but I like that she speaks against animal cruelty), has said, "It makes me want to avoid Kentucky altogether, which is sad because there are so many great people there.”

and (never thought I would say this) but I have to agree with her.

Answer 4

After the race.  The jockey said after she finished, she was jogging funny, then just collasped.

Answer 5

She broke down to the point where the legs snapped after the finish line. It could have been - and very likely - the beginning of the injuries were sustained during the race......but it's something that will probably never be known.

To say it's not possible means you do not know the story of jockey Russell Baze, who whipped across the finish line earlier this year a runner he was on, who had broken down yards before the finish line. This was not the case in the Derby, but it can happen.

Answer 6

After, while galloping her out.  If you see a long version of the Derby, while they are leading Big Brown back to the winners circle, he suddenly spooks and throws his rider, that is when she went down.  He spooked at her collapsing.  Her is a video of her going down.  The second video is the whole Derby, before and after, you can hear what they say about her going down.

Answer 7

Because it was her front ankles that broke, I think it was after.  I don't think she would have been able to finish the way she did if they broke before the wire.