Filly Eight Belles is 2nd, but suffers fatal injury

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Eight Belles finished second in Saturday's Kentucky Derby, but any celebration turned to grief and sorrow when the filly collapsed with two broken ankles and had to be euthanized.

Trainer Larry Jones was clearly emotional and fighting back tears as he spoke at his barn after the race at Churchill Downs.

"I never knew anything had happened," he said.

Jones, who sent out Hard Spun to finish second in last year's Derby, said, "We were high-fiving. We were ecstatic. I thought we had déjà vu with last year. As she galloped around the turn, she was following [winner] Big Brown and her ears were up. I knew she'd be back quick to be unsaddled.

"When I heard a horse had broke down, I thought that maybe it was one of the ones that had run poorly. I saw [jockey Gabriel Saez] on [NBC interviewer] Donna Brothers' horse and I said, 'What's up?' He said, 'Mister Larry, they put her down.' She ran the race of her life."

As Eight Belles slowed her pace after the race, she collapsed with condylar fractures in both legs, said Larry Bramlage, an on-call veterinarian representing the American Association of Equine Practitioners.

"It's something that I wouldn't even have considered," Bramlage said. "I haven't seen this before."

Because she didn't have a front leg that could be splinted, she was immediately euthanized, Bramlage said.

There was "absolutely nothing you could do," Bramlage said. "This was tough enough had it been one, but it happened in both [legs]."

A necropsy was scheduled and her owner, Fox Hill Farm's Richard Porter, asked that she be cremated.

Saez said he stood up after they passed the finish line and felt Eight Belles start to gallop in an unusual manner.

"I tried to pull her up, but she went down," he said.

At Jones' barn, people came and went, many with tears in their eyes.

"These things are our family," Jones said of the filly. "We've put everything into them that we have and they've given us everything that they have. They put their life on the damn line and she was glad to do it."

Eight Belles came into the 1-¼-mile Derby on a four-race winning streak, but had not raced farther than 1-1/16 miles. Porter and Jones decided to enter her in the Derby rather than entering her in Friday's 1-1/8-mile Kentucky Oaks, the showcase for fillies.

A Jones-trained filly, Proud Spell, won the Oaks by 5 lengths.

In the week leading up to the Derby, Jones often spoke of Eight Belles' strength and ability to take on a field of 19 colts.

"She went out in glory," Jones said, his voice breaking. "She went out a champion to us."

Because of the distance from the grandstand, many in the crowd didn't realize tragedy had struck.

"Everyone breathed a big sigh of relief that everyone came around the track cleanly and then all of a sudden it happened," Bramlage said.

"Horses really tire. They are taking a lot of load on their skeleton because their muscles are fatigued. The difficult thing to explain with her is it's so far after the wire, and she was easing down like you'd like to see a horse slow down by that point. I don't have an explanation for it."

Desormeaux rides

his 3rd Derby winner

Jockey Kent Desormeaux was in such a slump a few years ago that he had to do something, even if it meant moving his family from California to New York.

On Saturday, Desormeaux's big move landed him in a spot more in keeping with his Hall of Fame career: the winner's circle.

Desormeaux gave Big Brown an effective ride.

"I'm absolutely the luckiest man in the world," he said after becoming the eighth rider to win the Derby at least three times.

Notes

• Denis of Cork, a 27-1 shot who was last with a half-mile to run in the Derby, rallied for third under Calvin Borel — who won last year's Derby aboard Street Sense.

"He ran a huge race," Borel said of Denis of Cork. "We saved every inch of ground we could just to get there."

• In Grade I races before the Derby, 4-year-old filly Intangaroo ($30 to win) took the Humana Distaff at 7 furlongs on dirt and 6-year-old Einstein ($6.40) made his supporters look smart in the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic.

Hystericalady, who was third in the Humana Distaff, is owned by a group that includes George Todaro of Seattle. She won the Humana Distaff by 4 lengths last year.

Artiste Royal, owned by Dave Heerensperger of Bellevue, was third in the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic.

Compiled from Gannett News Service, Newsday and The Associated Press