Hillary Clinton Faces Wrath over Eight Belles Gaffe - 05-24-08

May 24 - This week Senator Hillary Clinton came under fire from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) after she wrote a letter earlier this month urging Kentucky Derby race goers to put a bet on filly, Eight Belles, the same horse that tragically died after finishing the race in second.

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While the letter was obviously written before the tragic event, Clinton has become an obvious target to PETA following the death of Eight Belles. PETA is avidly against horse racing, saying that the sport is cruel and unethical.

In her letter published in early May, Clinton wrote that she 'hopes everybody will go to the derby on Saturday and place just a little money on the filly for me. I won't be able to be there this year, but my daughter will be there with strict instructions to put a bet on Eight Belles'.

To protest the death of Eight Belles, who had to be euthanized after breaking down after the race with two broken fore-ankles, this week 30 members of PETA protested outside Pimlico Race Course, the venue of last weekend's Preakness Stakes.

Once Ingrid E. Newkirk, president of PETA, heard that Senator Clinton had asked her daughter to place a bet on Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby, she wrote her own scathing letter in which she said that 'horse racing is as indefensible as dog fighting, and Senator Clinton must step up immediately and condemn it as animal abuse'.

Newkirk's letter went on to say that 'Eight Belles and countless other horses are abused by the horse racing industry and suffer horrendously just so that people can bet on them as though they were nothing more than hands in a poker game'.

It also stated that while PETA takes no position on whether Senator Clinton wins or loses the race she is in (referring to the presidential nomination), it called on the Senator to publicly reject betting on horse racing, which PETA maintains causes horses pain and death for human amusement and profit.

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