I hopped off "Ollie" Ghazali and was shocked to see the amount of lather and sweat that had accumulated on the 16.2 hand 1/2 Arab-1/2 Thoroughbred dark bay beauty. You would have thought he had just gotten done running the Kentucky Derby rather than just having gone for a 30-minute trail ride at a walk.

As Ollie looked at me with his tired brown eyes, I quickly took off the saddle and bridle, put on his halter and lead rope and start handwalking him in the arena to allow him to cool down. At one point, he started pawing the ground and I could tell he was going down. I was worried. Had I overworked him his first time out of the pasture? What if he didn't get up again? How should I help him?

Fortunately, Ollie was just rolling in the dirt to cool off. After ensuring that every square inch of his body was encrusted with dirt, he stood up and looked at me as if to say, "what, you've never seen a horse roll before?"

Unfortunately, there are many horses this week that did not get up. The most well-known and tragic at this point is Eight Belles -- the 17-hand Thoroughbred filly who came in second at the Kentucky Derby, only to break both ankles just seconds later and have to be put down on the track. One of Michael Matz's latest horses, Chelokee, also broke down on Friday and would require surgery and stood a 50/50 chance of survival (were the people who placed the odds of survival the same ones who were previously determining the odds of winning? If so, this is a seriously twisted "sport")

Hearing about Eight Belles and Chelokee made me incredibly angry. I remembered all the wasted lives in the name of racing. I remembered Barbaro. I remember visiting Keeneland once many years ago on an ordinary Saturday only to witness first hand a horse break down and be euthanized right in front of our eyes.

My anger was born out of a self-righteous condescension of horse racing as a whole. We were EQUESTRIANS. We would NEVER dream of pushing our horses before they were fully mature and up to the stresses that training places on them. We ride horses because we love them -- not because we want money, fame and glory. In the Olympics, the equestrian events are considered a team sport -- where the team consisted of the rider and the horse.

Then I went to one of my horse websites. The Rolex Three-Day Event was last weekend. The Rolex Event is the Kentucky Derby of the Equestrian world (a Three-Day event consists of one day of Dressage, one day of a Cross Country endurance event involving speed and extremely difficult jumping obstacles, and a third day of stadium jumping). However, at the Rolex last weekend, two horses had to be put down -- including one who was favored to make the 2008 Summer Olympic Team. The horse fell and broke its neck. The rider remains hospitalized. Another horse -- a 13-year old -- broke his leg and also had to be put down.

I began to believe that maybe competitive equestrian events were the problem. Then I remembered Triage -- the first horse I ever leased. He was a stocky quarter horse but he was cursed with bad legs and the slightest mistep could cause him to bow a tendon. I spent more time hand-walking him and wrapping his legs than I spent riding him. He was ultimately donated to a therapeutic riding program where he would only be ridden very lightly.

Then there was Gilly -- the Throughbred who would do anything you asked him to do -- even though he turned out to have a torn cruciate ligament and should have been retired (as of this writing, his owners were still trying to find someone to buy him and advertising him as a 3-foot jumper and dressage schoolmaster).

And just this week, I learned that my trainer was going to be unavailable for awhile. It seems that one of her up-and-coming horses kicked a hole through the wall of his stall and broke his leg -- most likely a career-ending injury for him as well. No competition here. Just a horse in a stall. He, too, is one of the lucky ones. He will most likely be given the opportunity to recuperate and live out his life as a pasture ornament and family pet. He won't be put down because he can't "earn his keep". However, he won't be able to run and experience the true joy of galloping with the wind as he was born to do.

There is an element of risk in all sports. As humans, we are given the opportunity to decide if the risk is worth the payoff. If we are hurt, we can at least take comfort that we chose to put ourselves in that position. Nobody forced us to participate. Horses, on the other hand, don't get to choose. I know trainers like to say "s/he just loved to race, jump, compete". However, I think those trainers are projecting their own emotions because the alternative of believing you were to blame for the death, pain, or suffering of your beloved horse would be excruciating.

Eyes are truly the window to a horses soul. When they look at you, you can almost hear them thinking "my life is in your hands; don't screw it up". Unfortunately for too many of us this week, we have failed. Here's hoping that next week, we are able to do better.