Did anyone here examine video of Eight Belles go down?

Question

There are videos on YouTube showing Eight Belles go down, one is titled "Eight Belles collapses at Kentucky Derby 2008" and the other is titled "Eight Belles - Kentucky Derby Collapse and Death." I viewed both videos numerous times looking for a clue to how this happened.

She was in a galloping four-beat gait with a left foreleg lead but then there was a sudden deviation in mid-gallop to a right foreleg lead, putting her right foreleg down immediately after the left foreleg. It is not unusual for a tired horse to change lead legs in mid-gallop, but since it is usually the inside foreleg that leads on a bend, it is extremely unusual to see a horse change lead legs from the inside lead leg on a bend to the outside leg mid-bend in mid-gallop. But Eight Belles did exactly that and you can see her right foreleg break when she did, probably breaking the left foreleg in the fall. The mystery to me now is why did she do that?

Answer 1

I honestly don't know anything about horses, but what Eight Belles did looks so strange to me, I don't understand it either and it breaks my heart to see that video. I'm looking foward to reading other people's opinion on this....

Answer 2

Yes, I, too, watched that video, while still in utter anguish over this heartbreaking devastation just a few hours earlier.....I'm from the "these are mere babes, pushed to horrific extremes" school of thought.....I do also recall reading in one of the many other reports that the jockey indicated he was having difficulty pulling her up.....do you suppose he might have wanted her to slow up more quickly than she wanted to, or could, and, that she, in an effort to accomplish the task, or as a reaction to being pulled up too hastily, stumbled/misstepped in the way you described?

Answer 3

i saw that yes, at the begining it did seem like she changed leads, but it was only the one leg, maybe she did break the other when she fell, both front legs went down, so maybe when the jockey was trying to pull her up is when the other snapped.

Answer 4

It looks to me like she broke her right leg on the stride before she changed leads.  If you're watching the "Eight Belles - Kentucky Derby Collapse and Death" video, it's the stride at 25 seconds.  She lands with her back legs just fine, then her right front hits the ground and her head kinda lowers and her neck curls... it looks different from the other strides... it's not just the way that her head would normally move at the gallop... there's something rounder about it.  I think her right leg broke on that stride and she switched leads to avoid landing on that leg so soon again because she knew it hurt...  but by switching to her right lead, it was worse for her because the front lead leg supports all of the horse's body weight by itself... and that's why she collapsed...  She broke her right front during the stride at 25 seconds, she changed her lead in her front legs to take her weight onto her left leg, but then her right leg came down and couldn't support her weight so she started falling and on the next stride she went down completely.  And I think when she was falling, you can see that her left leg is still curled underneath her and she's still in stride and she's trying to catch her weight on that left leg and I think she lands on the front of her ankle which breaks that leg too.

So we agree, except that I think her right leg was injured the stride before she swaped leads.

edit:  After reading the answer before mine, I went to watch her other races again.  She has absolutely no problem changing leads.  I went to watch the videos again because I thought that I remembered her changing leads very well... I get really mad when jockeys don't change the horses leads in the stretch because the horses would run faster if you switched the leads and I distinctly remember from watching the videos before that she has no problem in that area.  So after watching them again, i am again certain that she has no problem switching leads.  She changes to her right lead in the stretch of the Honeybee, Fantasy, and Derby and holds that right lead through the end of the race.  She does lug into the rail however... that is true.  But a lot of horses do that.  Racehorses in morning workouts are trained to do their fastest running when they're close to the rail.  If you watch them gallop on non-workout days, they always keep the horses out far away from the rail... then when they want the timed work, the "handily" part of the work, they drop the horses down to the rail.  It's like the horses comfort zone.  I don't think lugging in alone can show that she had any problem whatsoever.  I stand by Larry Jones... he's an excellent horseman... he really knows how to get horses fit for racing... he's an excellent trainer and he'd do anything for his horses.  There's no way that he would have let Eight Belles race if he thought she was even a little bit unsound.

Answer 5

I figured she broke the left one first....she took a couple of bobbling steps, then the sudden shift to the right leg and then almost immediately she went down.  I read that the left was the worst damaged, it had an open fracture, that would go along with the extra strides when she realized she was hurt and put more weight onto her right, she did more damage to it.  Then the right one broke and she went down.  But I sure wasn't there, just watched the videos, and it's easy to armchair quarterback....

Answer 6

The mystery to ME is why they had to kill her!!!

Answer 7

This is a very perceptive observation. Horses run on leads: either the right leads and the left follows, or vice versa. Normally, on turns, a horse runs on its left lead then switches to the right for the straightaway. Indeed, Eight Belles does as you said and switches to her right lead on the turn -- awkward and uncommon. Notice, however, in all of her previous races -- and the Derby -- she spends the entire race on her left lead. She doesn't even switch to her right, and when the jockey tries to get her on it, she switches immediately back to her left. And, she "lugs-in' while doing so -- horse racing talk for drifting towards the rail, which is why the rider hits left handed to keep her off the rail.

When a horse does this, it's quite often the sign of a "sore" horse, they switch off of their sore lead and stay on the leg they are more comfortable, sort of like "ouch" that hurts.

What's more worrisome is that she ran this way in her last three or four races. Perhaps more was known about her problems before the race? 8 times out of 10 this type of action is a sign of a sore horse, but, sometimes horses only run on one lead... its hard for me to say where I stand, but I have some doubt that everything is out in the open.

Answer 8

Oh yeah...look at that...SHE TRIPPED.