The prevailing —no, overpowering—emotions at Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week are joy and excitement. They permeate the morning training hours, then percolate through the grandstand during the afternoon races.
But this year there is an undercurrent of tension, perhaps even dread. Unsettling things keep happening to racehorses, too jarring and numerous and awful to be swept aside by pageantry.
There were four well-publicized deaths in less than a week’s time, three during or after a race and one in training. The Daily Racing Form on Wednesday reported that a fifth death occurred Saturday night, when a horse flipped multiple times in the saddling paddock and broke its neck. During racing Wednesday, two horses were vanned off the track and returned to their barns with non-life-threatening injuries. On Thursday, Santa Anita Derby winner Practical Move withdrew after running an elevated temperature. But earlier Thursday, just two days before the 149th Run for the Roses, a chilling sound pierced the clear spring morning air: the track siren.
