Big Brown was magnificent in winning Saturday’s Kentucky Derby and should be a strong contender for the Triple Crown. Of course, the colt’s victory was overshadowed by the tragedy of filly Eight Belles breaking down after crossing the finish line and having to be euthanized right there on the track.

As much as I love the sport, I’m afraid the AP’s Richard Rosenblatt is right – the sport of big-time horse racing has a image problem right now, and it’s hard to see what can be done. For example, this past Saturday my wife watched the race with me but she was more concerned with seeing all the horses finishing safely than she was about her pick actually winning. And to see Eight Belles go down as she did, it’s not likely she’ll watch another race again. I’m sure she’s not alone in that regard.

But what to do? Spread the Triple Crown qualifying races further apart? Enforce standards that require a certain amount of down-time for horses in order to qualify for Triple Crown events? Perhaps the synthetic tracks they’re trying out at tracks across the country is the answer – who knows? As far as the Derby itself is concerned, I suppose you could reduce the chances of something happening by reducing the size of the field – after all, twenty is a lot of horses, and in a field that size you’re just increasing the odds of something happening.

But I don’t think it has anything to do with training or how the horses are treated – after all, this is a big-money sport where a lot of dough-re-mi is invested, and my guess is these horses are treated in accordance with the investors in mind. Once they’re through racing, that’s another matter, but in preparing for a stage like the Triple Crown that these horses are treated pretty darned well if not like gold. After all, these horses have been bred, born, and trained for this very thing.

At any rate, it’s certainly a complex issue, and without a doubt something the industry as a whole has to take a good hard look at.