What Took So Long?

Barbaro Euthanized.

If you think the NHL has a bad reputation, horse racing's is even worse. It was said back in May of last year that when a horse sustains the type of injury that Barbaro did that the horse is usually euthanized pretty quickly because there is veterinarians can do for the animal, sometimes right on the race track. These incidents (along with some criminal mismanagement of the sport many years ago) has cast horse racing in a bad light because the athletes in question are often really treated like large pieces of meat.

Barbaro's story is going to do nothing to change that perception. While it was noble of his owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, to do just about everything they could to pull the horse through, it wasn't enough. As a matter of fact, they ended up unintentionally creating a public spectacle of Barbaro's attempted recovery. Second-guessing and questions will now abound over the treatment that the horse received and horse racing is going to continue to suffer as a result of it because you will hear commentator after commentator say that the horse shouldn't have received as much treatment as it did.

Hindsight is always 20-20 but deviating from the established norms is not always, but often a bad idea.