This is going to be a cheap column. If I’m being honest, this column will be a column “about” a column; yesterday, my esteemed colleague, James Merilatt, wrote a piece on the death of Eight Belles, the filly who died after Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. I’m ripping off the idea. But after yesterday, I’m not convinced this should be a dead issue (pun intended, or not, depending on how sensitive you are).

As James so eloquently – and most importantly, accurately – pointed out, the death of Eight Belles was sad to be certain, but it was far from tragic.

Throughout the day, the inbox at Mile High Sports was inundated with emailers who vehemently disagreed with the point. They couldn’t believe our in-house columnist could be so cruel, so callused, so cold. Phooey. Never once was it written that the event wasn’t “sad” – it was, and he said so.

But throughout the day, I became increasingly irritated by the thought that this – a death of a horse – was such an outcry. When watching the race on Saturday, I was (for some inexplicable reason) pulling for Eight Belles. Perhaps it was because she a filly; perhaps I just liked the name. And I genuinely felt bad when she was put under. Prior to Saturday, though, I had no relationship or loyalty to this beautiful animal – and neither did you or anyone at PETA.

Why did this change our lives? Why don’t we react this way to real tragedy?

Yesterday, NBCsports.com posted their “Top 9” most tragic events to ever take place in sports. Eight Belles was ranked third, bested only by Dale Earnhardt’s Daytona 500 crash of 2001 and Hank Gathers’ heart failure during a basketball game in 1990, both tragedies to be certain (although Earnhardt’s willingness to participate in such a dangerous sport lessons the severity of the tragedy in my mind).

But “not as tragic” as Eight Belles, at least according to the list, were Ryan Shay’s Olympic marathon trials heart attack of 2007, Al Lucas awkward arena football league tackle (2005), Korey Stringer’s heat stroke during Vikings training camp (2001), Rockies minor league coach Mike Coolbaugh’s death as a result of a line drive foul ball (2007) and the Munich Olympic massacre of 1972.

What? Are you kidding? We can’t be serious when ranking a tragedy involving an innocent man, coaching a relatively safe game, whose two young boys and a pregnant wife are now left without a father lower than a pampered horse. The death of a horse can’t be more tragic than an Olympic festival that results in 17 deaths because of a terrorist act.

Not even mentioned on the list were the Marshall football team plane crash, the Oklahoma basketball team plane crash, or the Swift Current Broncos junior hockey team bus crash of 1986. I’d be curious to ask Joe Sakic, who played for the Broncos and survived that very bus crash, how the players on that team, the town of Swift Current or the parents of the four players who died might compare their tragedy to that of Eight Belles. How are they even comparable?

But why stop in just the world of sports? Tell me that the death of Eight Belles is of greater importance than the following headlines:

“10,000 Dead in Cyclone?”

“Stratton Coach Jailed as 41 Dead Dogs Found”

“Teen Sentence to 23 Years in Damm Murder”

“Carson Soldier Dies While Training in California”

“Pandemic List Specifies Those Not to be Helped”

And that was just yesterday. And that was just the Denver Post. And that was just the front page. I’d say we have larger issues than horses.

This is not to say at all that I don’t feel for Eight Belles or her owners and trainers –indeed, they suffered a loss. But as a nation, we didn’t even know the big, black filly. Is it more tragic that a mounted police officer’s horse is caught in the middle of a riotous gunfight? Or is it more tragic that there are gunfights at all? Tragic is the fact that the folks at PETA have already wasted time, energy and money on an issue that – in the grand scheme of things – is sad but won’t affect the world in the least.

Make no mistake, the spirit of a racehorse like Eight Belles tells her to run like the wind. I’m betting she never felt that tiny jockey on her back – she was too caught up in the thrill of competition.

It was a sad day for a great horse, but it was not a tragedy. Those can be found around any corner, on any day in any city in the world.

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