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Bob Costas is looking to guide the sports media with another panel/roundtable/forum/discussion group. Of course, this time around Costas -- who seems to do less and less actual media work so he can host more and more of these soirées -- will probably get less obscenity laden buzz words, but only because the panel is appearing on NBC.

A group of media members will be gathered to discuss the morality of horse racing and euthanization of the animals after their ability to race no longer serves their human overlords, amongst other very serious issues.

NBC received both praise and criticism for its conservative coverage of Eight Belles' death at the Kentucky Derby. Fresh off his sports media roundtable on blogs for HBO, Bob Costas will kick off the network's coverage of the Preakness Stakes (Saturday, 4:30-6:30 p.m. ET) with a panel discussion on the filly's catastrophic breakdown and other controversies surrounding Thoroughbred horse racing, says producer Sam Flood.

Among the guests: Churchill Downs veterinarian Larry Bramlage; Eight Belles trainer Larry Jones; NBC analyst Gary Stevens; and New York Times columnist William Rhoden, who blasted the sport of kings as 'only a couple of steps removed from animal fighting.'

But will the assembled deal with the monetary interests surrounding these animals everyone so suddenly cares about? Horse racing also makes too much money to ever get shut down, but then again, PETA generates too much money from these protests to see them end either.

The racehorse Native Dancer, who won the Preakness and Belmont in 1953, was so successful after being put out to stud that thousands of thoroughbreds share him as a common ancestor. But since two of those thoroughbreds were Barbaro and Eight Belles, some horse racing observers are wondering whether Native Dancer is passing down a genetic predisposition to break down.

Jon Weinbach writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Both Barbaro and Eight Belles were descendants of Native Dancer, a 1950s thoroughbred whose racing career was cut short by leg injuries. This bloodline has an excellent track record of producing champions but has been cited by breeders and equine experts for producing fragile horses. "The breed is getting weaker because we're breeding all the same relatives," says Kinney Hounshell, a bloodstock agent in Lexington. "Nobody is thinking about the ultimate price we're going to pay."

Genetics is complex science, and it would be far too simplistic to pin the injuries of Barbaro and Eight Belles on genes inherited from Native Dancer. There is no question, however, that breeders have a financial incentive to favor horses who can win races at a young age over horses who can have long and healthy lives. And for all the talk of reforming horse racing, I'm not sure anything can be done about that.

A couple of hours after the death of Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby, the political blogger Kevin Drum wrote this:

Hillary Clinton chose filly Eight Belles to win the Kentucky Derby today. Instead, EB came in second and then had to be euthanized after breaking both ankles right after crossing the finish line. So here's the contest: Who do you think will be the first pundit/columnist/talking head to use this as an idiotically extended metaphor for the state of Hillary Clinton's campaign?

I don't know who the first was, but I know that one of the dumbest came from the Chicago Tribune, which wrote this in a Thursday editorial:

The only filly in the crowded field crossed the finish line second, but the fans who'd bet on her still had one last gasp of hope. Perhaps some fortuitous technicality would disqualify the first-place finisher. But things got worse instead of better. We're talking about Eight Belles, who was euthanized Saturday after almost winning the Kentucky Derby. But we're thinking about Hillary Clinton.

As much as anything else, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is known for its outlandish protests. So the fact that PETA is planning a protest at the Preakness Stakes can't be welcome news for the organizers of the next leg in the Triple Crown.

From William C. Rhoden of the New York Times:

PETA staged protests Tuesday in Lexington, Ky., outside the offices of the state's horse racing regulators, and it plans to have a presence May 17 at the Preakness and again three weeks later at the Belmont. The goal is to make celebrities and vote-conscious politicians reluctant to attend the high-profile Triple Crown races.

"If we suddenly make it kind of tainted, it will not be really the place where you want to be seen," Newkirk said. "We want other politicians, other people, not to wish to be associated with it."

The death of Eight Belles gave PETA a huge opportunity to make its points about horse racing. Some of PETA's points are valid, some are not, but right now, PETA is doing almost all the talking. If the people involved in horse racing aren't willing to step forward and engage in conversations about safety concerns in their sport, PETA's loud voice will be the only voice most people hear.

The death of Eight Belles in Saturday's Kentucky Derby has led to calls for action, some of which make sense (banning the whip), and some of which do not (suspending jockey Gabriel Saez).

One proposal that makes so much sense that I'm surprised it hasn't happened a long time ago is banning trainers from drugging their horses on race day. Gina Rarick writes in the New York Times' horse racing blog, The Rail:

If a horse needs medication, it is not fit to run. That principle governs the rules of racing in all of Europe, most of Asia and Dubai. The United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia and some South American countries allow a panoply of race-day medications from anti-inflammatory drugs, which mask pain, to lasix, the diuretic drug that some believe controls bleeding in the lungs of a racehorse.

If the horse racing governing bodies in most of the rest of the world can operate without giving horses drugs on the days they race, it seems to me that we can do it here. Horse racing authorities in the United States need to take these steps to show that they take the health and safety of their horses seriously.

Yesterday I questioned whether some horse racing opponents were damaging their own cause in the wake of Eight Belles' death at the Kentucky Derby. It turns out that one prominent horse racing opponent was in the process of damaging her own cause just as I was writing that.

Nicole Matthews, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, was on Mike Tirico's ESPN Radio show yesterday afternoon. And when she was asked to defend PETA's position that Eight Belles' jockey, Gabriel Saez, should be suspended, she revealed herself as completely incapable. Here's a transcript, based on the portion of the interview that was re-played on ESPN Radio this morning:

Tirico: Did he do something that other jockeys haven't done in the recent past?

Matthews: Well, horse racing is a dirty, greedy money game.

Tirico: OK, that's a big picture question, Nicole, and I understand that and we can get that for a brief moment in a minute. But come back to my point. Did he do something that somebody in the seventh race at the Derby didn't do?

Matthews: Well, you know, thoroughbreds are raced on hard dirt surfaces, too young and too often and they're whipped viciously as they come down the stretch.

Tirico: Let me try my question a third time. Did he do something that a jockey didn't do in the sixth race at Churchill Downs Saturday

Matthews: [inaudible] horses is a standard practice, of course.

If PETA can't answer the basic question of whether Saez did anything different from any other jockey, then it shouldn't take the position that Saez should be suspended. Advocates for animal rights have many valid points about the dangers of horse racing, and I personally believe that the sport needs to make changes, including banning the whip. But if PETA can't answer the most fundamental questions about this situation, then it doesn't have much to add to the conversation.

Last year I wrote a FanHouse post about a man who died running the Chicago Marathon. No one left any comments.

On Saturday I wrote a FanHouse post about a horse who died running the Kentucky Derby. The comments have poured in, more than 400 and counting.

There are so many differences -- the man who died chose to run and the horse didn't, the Derby was on national television and the Marathon wasn't, and so on -- that maybe I shouldn't even mention the two cases together. And yet there's something about the juxtaposition of those two posts that I find it a little distasteful.

In response to the death of Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby, I've heard from some readers who believe horse racing should be banned, and others who believe there's nothing cruel about the sport at all. I find neither side convincing.

But I do think some middle ground can be found in a suggestion that was made on ESPN First Take this morning by ESPN's lead horse racing analyst, Randy Moss: Ban the whip.

"I think that's a great idea," Moss said of taking the whip out of jockeys' hands. "It is a longstanding tradition in thoroughbred racing and it's a tradition that is unnecessary."

Moss (who is not related to the New England Patriots' wide receiver) said the whip "gives the wrong picture to the people watching horse racing" -- it makes the sport look cruel, and it gives the impression that it's necessary to whip a horse to get it to run.

I think Moss is exactly right. Horse racing isn't going to be banned, and I don't think it should be. But I do think the people who run the sport should take steps to address the legitimate concerns from those who say it's cruel. Banning the whip would be a simple and important step.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling for jockey Gabriel Saez, who rode Eight Belles to second place at the Kentucky Derby only to see her break her front legs and be euthanized on the track, to be suspended from horse racing. From PETA's blog:

This young filly's death may have been humane, but the race sure wasn't. PETA is calling for the immediate suspension of jockey Gabriel Saez-who whipped Eight Belles mercilessly as she came down the final stretch, no doubt in agony from two front legs that were about to snap.

But the veterinarian on the scene, Dr. Larry Bramlage, told the Lexington Herald-Leader that he takes issue with PETA's approach, and that there's no evidence that Eight Belles was in agony as she ran down the final stretch.

According to Bramiage, the injury rate for racehorses is 1.6 per 1,000. He adds, "We don't want to accept even that, but horses love to race and are the most pampered of all athletes. I would not put horse racing in the cruel category."

William C. Rhoden has a powerful column in today's New York Times about the death of Eight Belles, the filly who took second place at the Kentucky Derby yesterday, only to break both front legs and be euthanized on the track minutes after crossing the finish line.

Rhoden writes:

Why isn't there more pressure to put the sport of kings under the umbrella of animal cruelty?

The sport is at least as inhumane as greyhound racing and only a couple of steps removed from animal fighting.

Is it the fact that horse racing is imbedded in the American fabric? And the Triple Crown is a nationally televised spectacle? Or is it the fact that death on the track is rarely seen by a mainstream television audience?

Rhoden doesn't have an answer to that, and I'm not sure I do either. There are few American sporting events that can match the pageantry and history of the Kentucky Derby. But if the powers that be in horse racing can't find a way to make the sport safer than the horses, pageantry and history won't be enough to justify its continuing place of prominence in the American sporting landscape.