As background for those unfamiliar with horse racing or the anatomy of a horse, the blood supply to a horse’s feet is extremely brittle. For those that remember Barbaro’s situation two years ago, a compound fracture in even one of the legs often leads to disease and death, and horses are not often able to recover from any severe leg injuries. Therefore when a racehorse has a severe-enough leg injury, the unfortunate but humane thing to do is often to euthanize the horse.

In the wake of Eight Belles death, animal-rights zealots started screaming about all kinds of inhumane practices and accusations in the industry. The most startling was that the next day they were already crying for the suspension of the young jockey – a kid from Panama finally getting his chance to run in the Kentucky Derby. They accused the jockey of overly whipping the horse, yet watching replays show a jockey that was in control of himself and horse while steering her to a finish ahead of 18 male counterparts. Fortunately, the uproar shouldn’t dramatically affect those within the industry from derailing his career.

Next the trainer was accused of injecting steroids or inhumane training that would have led to the incident. While autopsy results are still pending, just the fact the trainer had to specially order drug results to disprove steroid accusations for this tragic accident demonstrates more reckless use of the media to smear accusations around.

While horse deaths are a sad yet occurring event, the real opportunity here was for non-industry folks to use this incident to work cooperatively with the industry on additional continued improvements. That is because in recent years, the industry itself has been extremely proactive in working to improve safety of the horses themselves.

Despite the objections of many traditionalist inside the sport that want to stay on dirt tracks forever, many of the top tracks in the United States and elsewhere have switched to a synthetic surface. But while early trends seem to indicate favorable results and less injuries and deaths, the information is still not statistically accurate enough to draw complete conclusions. Further, there are concerns on damage created to lungs or other soft tissue from horses and jockeys breathing in the material. So the industry is proactively attempting to find a safer track, but yet cautious not to submit to a knee jerk reaction as it continues to assess whether these new tracks are indeed an overall improvement.

Movements within the industry have been underway in many circles to work on eliminating whipping. While proper and non-excessive whipping of such a large animal is much different than whipping a smaller animal or human, finding a way to race horses without it has been gaining momentum for a couple years. But those outside the industry should also keep in mind that the use of the whip is often used to help steer a horse, adjust its running as to not tire out one particular leg, or other riding techniques that help avoid further injury for a jockey’s horse or other horses in the race. Finding a ‘replacement’ for that is not a simple task. It is also worth noting that jockeys can and are suspended for excessive use of the whip should they use it too much and not in the appropriate manner.

Lastly, outsiders claim that horses are mistreated and often ‘thrown away’ when they can’t win or turn a profit for their owners. For those who know me, I am an animal lover (2 cats and 2 dogs in the Hahn household run the place) but have become increasingly familiar and involved in horse racing over the past 9 years. The general attitude I have seen is just the opposite. Of course, I’m realistic enough to know that not everyone has the best interests in mind, but they are by far the minority and the racing industry continues to find methods to assist in the proper and humane retirement of racehorses. Many of these horses – both in racing days and in retirement – enjoy their lives and the pleasure they bring.

(Writers Note: I am proud to say that Button Down Racing (run by Michael Hardesty) where I have participated in several horse partnerships, now includes a fund to monitor and – when necessary – repurchase horses that have been owned by its partnerships to ensure they receive a proper non-racing lifestyle)

But getting back to the original point, the research and work in these areas seeking to improve horse racing safety are internally funded. Outsiders, rather than sling mud and accusations at an industry that loves the animals that make it possible, missed a great opportunity to help be part of the ongoing solutions. Additional investment and donations could go a long way to more progress. Think about how much good could potentially come out of using money for research rather than organizing protests about a young jockey that didn’t actually do what the accusations claim.

So I encourage anyone reading this to take time to understand the true status and situation of the horse racing industry before making any premature assumptions or accepting some of the faulty information in the press about the safety and cruelty issues. The death of Eight Belles was extremely tragic, but in my opinion not an indication of an inhumane industry run wild. I encourage you to also read the most recent entry on the blog of the President and CEO of the NTRA, as well as the May 5 entries. I also encourage reading articles on sites such as DRF.com from Jay Hovdey and Steven Crist. These articles provide perspective that I believe help give additional perspective from individuals who have much deeper industry knowledge and involvement than I do. To be fair, I also encourage you to read articles with opposing perspectives, as everyone has the right to their voice. But I hope that many of you will arrive at a similar conclusion in terms of the actual situation rather than the skewed picture portrayed by a vocal uneducated minority in the days after the Derby.

I am in complete support of continued improvement in horse safety, but the bottom line is that the reckless use of this incident failed to take advantage of a mutual and cooperative opportunity so that a few extreme activists could make some headlines.

Chris Hahn is an IT consultant who guest writes for MRISports.com on horse racing and other topics.