Doyel: American Pharoah's win obscures a deadly secret

The other side to the Triple Crown won Saturday by American Pharoah happened behind a curtain, where you couldn't see it. It happened in front of hundreds of media, most of whom haven't written about it, which is why you probably didn't know — and won't, until a few seconds from now — that a horse was killed not a quarter-mile and not three hours before American Pharoah won the Belmont.

The dead horse's name is — was — Helwan, and he deserved better than he got, when what he got was what so many horses, too many horses, get for their troubles: They get bred to within the limits of mortality, and every now and then a line is crossed and a bone breaks and another horse is destroyed behind a curtain, where you can't see it and where the stewards of horse racing hope you won't hear about it.

So hear about what happened Saturday to Helwan, a 4-year-old colt from France who had won three of his first eight career starts before dying after his ninth. According to reports, Helwan was doing nothing remarkable, unless you consider a 1,000-pound creature being bred to run 30 mph, on a frame that maximizes its muscular carriage and minimizes its ankles, to be unremarkable. I consider it to be unconscionable. Show me a beautiful creature like a thoroughbred, and I'll show you a once-beautiful sport that has been ruined by the greed of man. Breeders want more power, more speed and less weight. The skinnier the legs, the lighter the horse.

And the bigger the danger.

So it was that Helwan was merely running down the backstretch, in third place, when his left front cannon bone — the bone above the ankle — snapped.

Out came the curtain. Behind it, who knows what was happening? We can only guess: Helwan was administered something to ease his pain, then was administered something to stop his heart. His body was driven off the track in a van.

Less than three hours later, American Pharoah walked onto the track. The show must go on.

No matter how many horses die.

Oh, this wasn't an isolated incident. One week earlier, a 5-year-old horse named Soul House collapsed and died shortly after finishing seventh of 10 horses at Belmont Park. One day before that, a 5-year-old horse named Icprideicpower died at Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack in upstate New York after a training session. Since January, 43 horses have died in racing or training.

Died in New York, that is.

How many horses have died since January in other states, including ours? That's not a fact the horse racing industry wants you to know. Not exactly the best form of advertising, you understand. Come to the track where you might see something special! Or you might see a curtain raised, a horse lying in shock behind it, taking its last breath.

According to the New York State Gaming Commission, 10 horses have died since Jan. 16 at Belmont Park.

According to the Los Angeles Times, 186 horses died in 2011. Died in California, that is.

And these horses that die at the racetrack, they don't have it as badly as some others. An estimated 10,000 American thoroughbreds are shipped each year to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. Which 10,000? The unluckiest 10,000. The ones that get hurt, not badly enough to be put out of their misery but badly enough to make them unworthy for breeding, and therefore worth more dead than alive. Or the healthy but slow ones, horses bred to race — horses with those strong carriages and skinny ankles — but not fast enough to get on a track. What to do with a horse like that, a breeding failure?

Turn it into meat.

That's another side to this sport of kings, this breathtaking sport that features beautiful creatures and is immortalized in beautiful sports writing and somehow manages to keep quiet the daily carnage at tracks around the country.

What's happening behind that curtain? Something horrible. It's the price some horses are paying so the rest of us can watch American Pharoah become the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years — three hours after a beautiful and blameless creature named Helwan died in the dirt.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel

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