I have been educated about the seriousness of this site, so I will no longer post humor here. However, there was nothing remotely humorous about the Preakness. I am not in PETA, but what a teaching tool it is for them when a baby horse (for that's what racing horses are when they run) breaks something in his hind leg and is shown in closeup lifting the injured leg off the dusty turf at Pimlico.
Horses, greyhounds, roosters. Gosh, what does it say about our species when we push other animals so relentlessly?
I don't accept every point in PETA's platform, but I must say that when animals are used for extreme sports such as all-out racing, it's despicable.
Barbaro will probably recover and be put out to stud (an enviable career choice for a male of any species). But what we don't see are the thousands of thoroughbreds each year that wind up dead and dogmeat as babies when they get injured or don't make the grade. And everyone's seen greyhound rescue dogs, so I don't need to expand upon that.
There's no easy answer for this one, but I think it might be advisable to increase the age at which horses run rookie years, and to deliberately breed animals who might be slower but who would be sturdier.