The crowing of the King of England wasn't the only royal event that was taking place this weekend. If you are a fan of horse racing, you know that Saturday was the Kentucky Derby. The derby is the first race in what is called the triple crown of horse racing.
It consists of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. If a horse can win all three of those, then they are a triple crown winner. It's a pretty rare feat. Many times horses might compete in one or two of the races, but not make it to the second or third one.
This past weekend was the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby and I can only imagine how crazy it is going to be next year when it is the 150th anniversary.
It wasn't all mint juleps and roses this weekend though.
Leading up to the derby, seven horses have died at Churchill Downs in the week leading up to the derby.
Actually, it started with two, then the next headline I read said four and finally by the time the derby was ready to start, the count was all the way up to 7.
Just for a little background, the Kentucky Derby is just the culmination of the races that take place during Derby Week at Churchill Downs.
Two of the deaths happened during race 2 and 8 on Saturday leading up to the Derby. In those races the horses miss-stepped and were deemed to be unable to recover from their injuries so they were euthanized.
Leading up to that, Friday a trainer was suspended due to the unusual deaths of two of his horses. The other three deaths were all due to injuries and once again the horses were euthanized.
As much as I want to love horse racing, these events kind of cast a shadow on the whole thing for me. I don't know much about horse physiology, but I'd have to guess it was a pretty bad injury for them to determine the horse needed to be put down.
I hope so anyway. If it is just a matter that the horse can't race anymore, then I kind of have a problem with that.
I don't know. I'm a pretty big advocate for the human treatment of animals and like I said, something just isn't sitting right with me on this.
I'm not sure how closely I am going to be able to follow horse racing in the future given the events of the past week.
That being said, Mage was the winner of the Kentucky Derby. I put a couple of wagers down on two other horses to win (not Mage), so that is $4 I will never see again.
I've always said I want to go to the Derby sometime and while that is still the case, I am not sure the cost is going to be worth it. Especially when it comes to the health of animals.
They are going to keep going of course. It's not like little old me going or not going will change anything.
Anyway, an event I was really looking forward to kind of turned into a bit of a downer given the tragedy that has taken place over the past week.
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or 
