Concern Over Racing Ethics As Horse Dies at Kentucky Derby

The greatest event in the American horse racing calendar, the Kentucky Derby, has prompted a renewed bout of soul searching after the horse who came in second had to be put down.

Eight Belles was the first filly to run the derby since 1999 and excelled to come in behind the winner, the colt Big Brown. But after she had crossed the finishing line, while cooling down, she suddenly collapsed on to her knees with her ankles fractured and the on-call vet said there was no way to save her.

It was the second time in two years that an animal died from injuries sustained at one of America's Triple Crown races. In 2006 Barbaro broke a back leg in the Preakness and died eight months later. Last October another horse, George Washington, was put down on the track after the Breeders' Cup Classic in New Jersey with a broken bone in a front leg.

There was an immediate outpouring of anger and questioning after Saturday's race, an event of barely two minutes known as the Run for the Roses. The Washington Post said thoroughbred racing was in a "moral crisis, and everyone now knows it".

The paper said that horses were being over-bred and over-raced, "until their bodies cannot support their own ambitions".

Attention has focused in the past on the hard dirt track, and there were also doubts this time that a filly should be put to run against colts.