Thoroughbred horse-racing is a major league sport in New York state, one that this region in particular derives plenty of economic benefit from. So it’s clearly in the state’s interest to take actions that protect the long-term vitality of the sport, which some observers feel is jeopardized when a horse that is seemingly the picture of good health breaks down in the middle of a race.

While it was just after Saturday’s Kentucky Derby — the sport’s premier race — that second-place finisher Eight Belles inexplicably broke both front ankles and had to be humanely destroyed, it cannot obscure the point that there’s a problem with this sport: Its participants are dying in numbers that would be probably be viewed as intolerable if humans were involved. And the fact that these are just animals, being exploited by humans, doesn’t help the sport’s reputation, either.

Two years ago, Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro sustained a fatal injury while running in the Preakness while Pine Island suffered the same fate in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff; last year, George Washington was euthanized following a spill in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Whether it’s simply been a coincidental string of bad luck, or a case of horses being pushed to race at too tender an age (before bones and joints have sufficiently hardened), the consistency of the racing surfaces, or the severe in-breeding that tends to magnify these animals’ structural weaknesses, the industry and the people who regulate it need to address this problem soon. The last thing they need is for horse-racing’s dwindling fan base to start thinking of it as an inhumane blood sport.