It’s been a few days, and now I have more perspective—and more knowledge–about Eight Belles’ breakdown, which is more than I can say for the people at PETA.

PETA is calling for the jockey, Gabriel Saez, to be suspended for his ride on Eight Belles. They are also calling for this gallant filly to be disqualified from second and the purse to be taken from her connections. That’s right, her connections: the people who loved her, and the people who are, I can assure you, devastated.

Saez is a twenty-year-old Panamanian-born jockey who just rode the two biggest races of his life, winning on Proud Spell in the Kentucky Oaks and coming in a brilliant second in the Kentucky Derby with Eight Belles. Only three fillies have won the Derby in the 134 years of its existence, and only one other filly has come in second.

Eight Belles was sound when she went into that race. And all indications tell us she was sound when she came out of it. At the wire, her ears were pitched forward and she was striding out beautifully. PETA doesn’t know about what a horse’s ears or stride tells you. They already know everything, so they don’t need to bother with little details like that.

There is film of the race, and every frame is being looked at by the connections and by the attending physician, Dr. Larry Bramlage. There are still photos. I’ve seen them, in sequence. She was running well within herself at the wire and galloping out afterwards.

To be fair, no one yet knows what happened. What is known: it is unheard of for a horse to break down that far beyond the wire. She galloped out a quarter mile, being slowed down gently, which a jockey does precisely to avoid a breakdown. Horses are 1200-pound animals running on long legs. They were not engineered optimally for the racing life, even though they are great runners and love to run (you see that when they’re weanlings in a pasture). When they are done running, muscle fatigue sets in. This is why the jock slows the horse down gradually, because he doesn’t want the animal to take a bad step and get hurt.

PETA wants to punish Saez for “forcing that poor Philly (sic) to continue running past the wire”. What, did they want him to pull her to a sliding stop? Ignorant, and not only for their bad spelling.

PETA demands a ban on whips. There are rules against whaling on a horse. Whips, though, have saved the lives of horses and jockeys hundreds of thousands of times, and here’s why. Whips are used as cues. If a horse lugs in to the left, a jockey will use the whip on the left side to get him to move away to the right. Or vice versa. Sometimes the horse is too close to the rail. Sometimes horses get too close to each other, and the use of a whip will straighten them out and keep them from colliding. A horse also has a very strong hide. It’s the popping sound that encourages them to run. That said, there are jocks who whip and whip a horse, and they get in trouble for it. I would like to see us go the way of England, which has a very strict standard for whipping. But to throw out the whips completely would endanger both the jockey and the horse.

PETA is also calling for synthetic tracks. They probably don’t know that California has completely changed over to synthetic tracks, with mixed results. There needs to be more study to decide just which kind of track to put in, depending on the geographical area and the weather conditions. There are several different kinds. We are going toward synthetic tracks, and I can only guess this will happen even sooner, now.

How else is PETA planning to further its goals? One plan is to run out onto the track during the Preakness. While it wouldn’t bother me to lose a PETA member or two, I would hate to see the resulting pile-up of horses and jockeys. The ultimate irony would be if these people who so dearly love animals (but don’t know any) cause the deaths of several horses during the course of one race.

These are the people who have released dogs at dog shows, resulting in dogs being run over on nearby streets. These are the people who have released lab animals “into the wild” so they could be hit by cars, preyed on by predators, or die slow miserable deaths alone and afraid.

(Not that I’m for lab-testing of animals. I’m not. But you’ve got to use some common sense.)

I’m not taking the Humane Society or the A.S.P.C.A. to task for their righteous anger. There are a lot of things wrong with the horseracing industry. But it helps if we have a dialogue and work together to get things done, because that’s the point. These organizations understand this, but sadly, PETA does not.

Back to Eight Belles. The owner—who is heartbroken—is having a necropsy done. Everyone is looking for a reason this happened, so freakishly, a quarter mile from the wire. My guess? She was tired from the race. She also had a tendency to “crossfire”, which means that sometimes when she galloped, she’d run on one lead on the front and the other on the back. Question for PETA members: do you know what a lead is?

The “lead” is the leg that leads when a horse gallops. Right or left.

I think she may have started into her usual “crossfire” as she galloped out, which would normally not be a problem, but this was a tough race at a distance she had never gone before, and she ran strong to the end. I think this made her clumsy. I think she took a bad step, and with her awkward gait, when she shifted to the other foot both of them went. That’s my theory.

We will probably never know.

The damage has been done. When this happens on national television before a worldwide audience, no matter how innocent the cause, the racing industry is in deep doo-doo. I don’t think people in the industry even know how bad this is. But they’re going to have to address it.

And they can start with the breeding. It’s time to breed for strength and stamina again, and toss the fashionable semi-cripples that are commanding the big stud fees now. And dumping the drugs, the way other countries have. It would be great to just give them hay, oats, and water.

Ironically, the two trainers who have had the most visible tragedies in the sport—Michael Matz and Larry Jones—are the good guys when it comes to taking care of their horses. Larry Jones isn’t dodging anything; he is having Eight Belles tested for steroids, to prove that she was not on them.

I do believe there should be another summit on these safety issues. Now. I suggest my own hometown university can spearhead this, as we have the only racetrack industry program in the country. So to the University of Arizona Racetrack Industry Program, I say, why don’t you take the lead?

The 134th Kentucky Derby is in the books, and I was privileged to see one of the most brilliant performances in recent history. How good was it? There aren’t words, just feelings. My heart soars, boundless, as I see Big Brown annihilate the field save one. (More on that one later.) It’s more intense than that. It’s almost as if I can fly, too. This horse could be the one. The Triple Crown Winner that has eluded us for thirty years. The joy I feel is complete. I’ve studied this horse, studied the field, I know all the stories, all the legends, all the statistics, all the past performances, a continuous line since 1875 when Aristides won the first Derby. It is in my blood. I’m Irish, and I love brawling politics and pure, beautiful horseracing. It’s part of me.

It also makes me no better than a junkie, only I’m mainlining Thoroughbred racehorse instead of dope. I know it’s going to kill me some day. The pain eats away at me, like the erosion of perfectly good teeth in a meth user’s mouth. It’s ugly. It’s degrading. People say to me, “How can you love this sport? On a day like this, how can you love it?”

And I have no answer.

Today Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby with such brilliant, bounding ease that I felt the breath leave my body. It was pure. It was something I grasped and felt slip out of my hands like ether, as I learned, along with millions of other viewers and racetrackers and visiting celebs, that the filly who battled for second, the brilliant Eight Belles, broke down after the wire and was euthanized on the track.

Why do I do this? Why do I love this? It’s like being torn right down the middle. The race is lost to me, and yet, two weeks later I’ll watch the Preakness. I’ll pray for a Triple Crown winner. I know that because I can’t kick it.

I know my share of racehorse trainers. They love their horses deeply. They have incredible highs and lows that will flatten you. Sometimes they go home alone with an empty halter. There’s nothing romantic about that.

I don’t know why horseracing inextricably links overwhelming feelings of joy and pride with deepest despair. I love horseracing so much, even though it punches me in the gut more and more often. I can’t imagine what it’s like to own a racehorse. Or train a racehorse. Or ride a racehorse. Or groom a racehorse, and then have it all go just like that. My heart goes out to Larry Jones, who clearly loved Eight Belles (you had to see the way he talked to her as he galloped her–”Larry Jones to Eight Belles, earth to Eight Belles, time to slow down”) and her owner, Rick Porter, who is inconsolable. And all the people who took care of her.

She certainly did take care of them.

I’ve known racehorses. My first job as a teenager was grooming Thoroughbred broodmares. My second job was ponying racehorses on the track. When I was sixteen I was fingerprinted and duly awarded my groom license. I know racehorses. They love what they do, most of them. They were bred for it. And then they were overbred for it.

I don’t know how long I can go on like this. It’s a stalemate between optimism and pessimissm, hopefulness and hopelessness, pleasure and pain. Like the racehorse, I feel it has been bred into me, perhaps wrongly. Sewn into my spirit and blood like the limestone-rich bluegrass of Kentucky I’ve never seen up close, like the air I breathe, like the great stories of the turf I grew up on.

Every time this happens, a part of me wants to give it up. But I can’t. Not right now, anyway.

Stay tuned.

As I hack my way through the near-impenetrable forest of my new book, I sometimes write ahead. I’m looking for some small piece of the book that will inspire me to get through the springy, head-whacking limbs of the first half. Often, these scenes end up being mere placemarkers, but I like the idea that they’re set in the future waiting for me, like a beacon in the jungle gloom.

My character’s mother died when she was very young. Jolie has no real memories of her, which is fortunate, because her mother was verbally abusive. Her mother suffered from post-partum depression, but the seeds of her mental illness were there before the child was born. Jolie’s father loves his daughter without reservation, and tries to keep her mind off her mother’s anger. A VHS tape of Snow White was the toddler’s constant companion, especially after her mother’s death, and her father painted a rosy picture of Jolie’s babyhood, hoping to replace whatever trauma the child might have suffered with good memories. He might have gone a little overboard:

“She hadn’t done it in years, but suddenly Jolie felt the need to look at her mother. Not the photos on the mantel she walked past every day. They were photographs of a young woman on her wedding day and also on vacation in New Mexico. That woman had pale skin and black hair. She was young and generically pretty. There was a trace of fragility in that beauty, or maybe it only seemed that way, considering what lay in wait for her. The photos were beautiful but one-dimensional, only approximating her mother’s spirit. As a child, whenever she asked her daddy what her mother was really like, he told her she was like Snow White—good and pure and kind and beautiful. Jolie had grown up with the Disney Snow White book and the VHS tape. And so she grew up thinking of her mother as Snow White, even though logically she knew that wasn’t true. It was in the Disney book and on the Disney tape that she experienced the bond with her mother. Everything was entwined with Disney’s Snow White, so that the few glimpses she had of her mother were these: the soft, flawlessly smooth face of Snow White bending down with sweet breath and gentle, luminous eyes, sun and shadow on a white wall behind her. Or being strapped into her stroller by a slender girl in a puffy-sleeved maiden’s dress. It was the Disney character in the sunny kitchen, moving about in a graceful waltz, bluebirds flying to her shoulders.”

Okay, then. Books are long and instant gratification is rare. So sometimes, when I’m inspired, I paste a snippet of my writing into an email for my long-suffering writing buddies, Chilly and MP. (The names are changed to protect the innocent.)

Sometimes MP can be inspired, too. Here’s his version, below:

“As a child, whenever she asked her daddy what her mother was really like, he told her she was like Big Bird—good and pure and kind and beautiful. She had grown up with the Sesame Street TV show and the stuffed animals and the comic books. And so she grew up thinking of her mother as Big Bird, even though logically she knew that wasnʼt true. It was on PBS she experienced the bond with her mother. Everything was entwined with Jim Henson’s Big Bird, so that the few glimpses she had of her mother were these: the soft, feathery face of a yellow Muppet bending down with sweet breath and a gentle, luminous beak. Or being strapped into her stroller by a six-foot ostrichlike creature of ambiguous sexuality. It was Big Bird in the sunny kitchen, moving about in a graceful waltz, Bert and Ernie riding on his or her back.”

This is the respect I get. But I am philosophical. To paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, “You go with the friends you have, not the friends you wished you had.” I only wish I could get this picture out of my mind: Big Bird’s prodigious beak coming down and spearing the baby in the eye.

What are your earliest childhood memories?

Listed in Publisher’s Marketplace, no less (wish I could afford to subscribe, but that’s another story). Here’s the scoop on Lori and her fantastic new book deal.

I won’t say that promoting her on my website had anything to do with it. (But I’ll think it.)

Congratulations, Lori! One of these days we have to get together to celebrate. We’ll go to Reptile Gardens for some alligator wrestling (on you, of course, because now you’re RICH!), then back to your place for margaritas. One of these days, baby. It’s gonna happen.

Note: Lori G. Armstrong’s latest Julie Collins mystery, SHALLOW GRAVE, is out now!

When I actually put my behind in the chair and started to flesh out the ideas I’d had swimming in my head, there was never any doubt that I’d write about where I live. Where I’ve lived almost my entire life. A place I know, a place I love, a place that fascinates me, a place that at times disgusts me, but is never ever boring.

Yes, I’m talking about South Dakota.

Although I’d been heavily influenced by my home girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder, earlier in my life, it never occurred to me as an adult to write historical fiction. I live thirty miles from Deadwood, but it never occurred to me to pen tales set in the Old West either. My place in fiction is firmly rooted in modern times. I’m good with that.

But is that bad for my future as an author? Will I forevermore be deemed a ‘regional’ writer? In order to be successful should I stop writing about the place I love and write about places with a higher population base because that’s what sells?

I (naively?) thought my books would give fans of medium-boiled mysteries a different contemporary perspective on Western South Dakota. We’re not all ranchers, cowboys, rednecks, and Indians, although we do have our fair share of them, and they are interesting folks to write about. We have murders. Fraud cases. Theft. Child abuse. Crooked politicians. Drug issues. Racism. Sexism. Ageism. Cattle rustling – seriously, that is still a problem. The bottom line is we have conflict here, same as anywhere else. Thrills? Yep. It just takes a little longer to track them down.

One thing that ties us all together in this ‘region’ known as South Dakota, and yet separates us, whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, waitress, plumber or hired hand, is the vastness of our state. The two major cities are 350 miles apart. It is a ten-hour drive from the north-western corner to the south-east corner. Usually I get an extremely puzzled look when I mention to people in urban areas it’s ‘not that far’ - when it’s a six hour drive. We’re used to it. We shrug, get in the car and get on our way.

So my ‘region’ is 75 thousand square miles. Yeah, that’s some small potatoes.

No author I know wants to be called ‘regional’ because it brings to mind moms, dads, and your 5th grade teacher as the only folks to show up at your book signings. It also suggests no one outside of your region would ever be interested in your books because how could anything interesting happen there? Everyone knows everything worth writing about happens in big cities.

Let’s break it down: 5 million people live in LA. 10 million live in NYC. 3 million live in Chicago. 2 million live in Houston. 3 million live in Miami. 2 million live in Seattle. 2 million live in Phoenix. So…if the population of the US is 300 million and you take away, let’s be generous and say 70 million people living in/and around the biggest cities in the country…you are left with…

230 million people who don’t live in a metro area.

I’m gonna step out on a limb and say I think big cities are more ‘regional’ than the rest of us, you know, those poor, unenlightened souls living in the flyover country, the Wild West, the backwoods, and sleepy Southern states.

Does the setting matter? What makes you pick up a book?

Lori G. Armstrong left the firearms industry in 2000 to write crime fiction. Her first mystery novel, Blood Ties, published in 2005, was nominated in 2006 for a Shamus Award for Best First Novel by the Private Eye Writers of America. The second book in the Julie Collins mystery series, Hallowed Ground, was released in November 2006, was nominated for a 2007 Daphne du Maurier Award for Best Mystery, a Shamus Award for Best Paperback Original of 2007 by the Private Eye Writers of America, and was recently named the winner of the 2007 Willa Cather Literary Award for Best Original Softcover Fiction, by Women Writing the West. The next book in the series, Shallow Grave, was released November 1st, 2007. Armstrong lives in Rapid City with her family.