Mike Brunker Horse racing editor • Profile • E-mail

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A year after the tragic death of Eight Belles unleashed an unprecedented wave of criticism of horse racing, a central question surrounds the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby: Are the horses that will hurtle around the Churchill Downs racetrack on Saturday any safer than the ill-fated filly?

The answer, it appears, is a qualified “yes.”

The horse racing industry reacted to the freak accident that claimed Eight Belles’ life as if it had been struck across the face with a whip. As a result, several steps aimed at improving safety have been taken in the year since the filly collapsed as she galloped out after crossing the finish line in second place, behind Derby winner Big Brown.

Among the reforms that have been widely adopted are bans on the use of anabolic steroids within 30 days of a race, widespread adoption of less-hurtful air-cushioned whips and prohibitions on the use of a type of cleated horseshoe believed to cause leg injuries.

But make no mistake that racing remains a dangerous sport, both for its equine stars and the diminutive athletes who sit astride the 1,200-pound, flesh-and-blood racing machines. That point was driven home on Monday, when a collision between two horses at during training hours at Churchill Downs forced veterinarians to euthanize Raspberry Miss, an unraced 2-year old filly.

That’s why the sport’s guardians, participants and fans will be holding their collective breath as the nation focuses on its marquee event, the storied Run for the Roses. The 1 ¼-mile race presents a grueling challenge for 3-year-old thoroughbreds, which like teenage athletes are still maturing and testing their physical limits.

Critics, however, are not waiting to see if all 20 runners expected to break from the starting gate return safely to their barns.

Members of the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are planning to stage a “memorial” outside Churchill Downs on Friday and Saturday to highlight the risks not just to the Derby horses, but the thoroughbreds that compete every day at racetracks around the nation.

Interactive Video Quiz Test your Kentucky Derby knowledge with our new iCue application.

“We will have headstones, one with Eight Belles on it and 256 others with the names of other racehorses that died in the last year,” said Kathy Guillermo, a PETA spokeswoman. “Then there will be another for the other 800 or so horses whose names we don’t know. … People made a connection to Eight Belles, but there were about 1,000 other Eight Belles in the last year. They just weren’t as famous.”

U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., a critic of the sport’s decentralized structure, said he plans to introduce legislation this summer that would force tracks to meet unspecified safety standards or face the loss of simulcasting revenue — the lifeblood of the industry as attendance at live racing has declined.

“There’s been cosmetic changes — more committees formed,” he told the Associated Press last week. “They’re looking into this and that and making improvements, but the bottom line is, not a lot of change.”

Stuart Janney III, chairman of the Jockey Club’s Thoroughbred Safety Committee, said such criticism misses the mark. He said that various factions of the often fractured racing industry — including horsemen, owners and breeders, racing regulators and veterinarians — are now working together to address safety issues and had achieved virtual unanimity on difficult issues like steroids, something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

“I think it was very important that the industry demonstrate to itself that it could get … on a winning path,” he said. “It has done so in the past year.”

Video   CNBC's Run for the Roses A look at the business of horse racing in the state of Kentucky. "Run for the Roses" premieres Thursday @ 9PM ET.

Mike Ziegler, executive director of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s Safety and Integrity Alliance, also feels that the industry has made strides toward improving safety through a new racetrack accreditation program.

Requiring racetracks to adhere to an industry-developed code of standards is a more effective way of policing the sport than adding a layer of federal bureaucracy, he said.

“It can work like the health care industry,” he said. “Hospitals are accredited … and if they’re not, they’re out of business. The idea is that tracks will want to be accredited by meeting these minimum standards of what’s good for the horses and jockeys and fans will want to participate at those tracks.”

So far the program has accredited two tracks — Churchill Downs and Keeneland Race Course, both in Kentucky — after a review of their racing operations, Ziegler said. His team is currently poring over Delaware Park’s application and in the coming weeks will review those of Pimlico Racecourse in Maryland, Hollywood Park in California, Belmont Park in New York, Arlington Park in Illinois and Calder Race Course in Florida.

Whether or not federal regulation of racing is enacted, it is clear that Eight Belles’ death focused attention on horse racing’s hazards like no other accident -- even the iconic Barbaro’s ultimately fatal injury in the 2006 Preakness Stakes. That’s probably because her demise was both sudden and gruesome, as video released soon after the race showed her struggling to try to get back on her feet after breaking both her front ankles and collapsing on the track.

PETA turned up pressure on the sport almost immediately after the accident, picketing the Preakness and Belmont Stakes and pushing for a series of reforms that included banning all but the most benign medications, halting the racing of still-developing 2-year-olds, refocusing its breeding programs on longevity and replacing dirt tracks with synthetic racing surfaces.

The organization is turning up the heat again as the Triple Crown puts racing in the public eye.

PETA spokeswoman Guillermo this week said that the changes the racing industry has instituted since Eight Belles’ death amount to “window dressing,” and argued that the sport has failed to address one of its most serious problems — the widespread use of legal medications like pain-killers and anti-inflammatory drugs. Those permissive medication policies enable horses to be raced when they are “sore or injured,” leading to many more breakdowns, she said.