Working at this stage of a horse's life, it's perhaps no surprise that Frank doesn't tune in to the high-stakes races like the Derby or Preakness.
"I can't watch," Frank said. "They run them to death."
Like others in the wake of the latest high-profile racehorse death, Frank faults the way the animals are bred, raced and pushed to or beyond their limits; she doesn't believe, for example, that horses should be raced before their third year.
There have always been detractors to horse racing - the animal-rights group PETA, for example, quickly jumped on Eight Belles' death to highlight its long-running call for reforms, such as a switch to what some consider the safer synthetic tracks. But because of Barbaro and now Eight Belles, even those of us who are casual viewers, who only pay attention when we have a mint julep in our hands or when the Triple Crown show comes to our own Pimlico, can no longer ignore the sport's tragic toll.
The high-profile injuries are just the tip of the iceberg - a horse trained by Michael Martz, who was also Barbaro's trainer, broke a leg at another race at Churchill Downs leading up to the Derby, an incident that drew little widespread attention until Eight Belles' fatal breakdown.
Also receiving renewed attention was a study by a veterinarian named Mary Scollay, who found there are 2.03 deaths of horses per 1,000 starts on traditional dirt tracks, versus 1.47 fatalities per 1,000 starts on synthetic fields. The study comes with the usual caveats - it was based on a small sample, it's too early to draw conclusions about the relative merits of the two tracks, etc. - and yet who knew there were that many deaths at all? A simple Web search will reveal many, horrible ones - horses' leg bones snapping through the skin, a filly that suffered a heart attack in the home stretch and died.
The blur of the horses and the jockeys' silks, the all-too-rare opportunity to don a lavish hat, the roses or the black-eyed Susans at the finish line - horse racing at its height is a sport of immense beauty. But perhaps it is a terrible beauty.
jean.marbella@baltsun.com
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