~~~EIGHT BELLES~~~

by Anna
(Michigan)

2005-2008

This was supposed to be a day of tempting history for Jones and Eight Belles.They were taking on 19 colts and trying to make Eight Belles the fourth filly, and the first since Winning Colors in 1988, to win the "Run for the Roses." This was to be a day of celebration for owner Rick Porter and his entourage no matter where she finished. She was the first filly to enter the Derby since 1999.

Now there will be a necropsy and then cremation.

It was a day that held such promise.

And a day on which the racing industry should have been celebrating a legitimate Triple Crown contender in Big Brown. Not an afternoon to explain how, for the second time in two years, tragedy befell their sport.

The day was not supposed to end in death of another great racehorse.

In Memory Of Eight-Belles