Trainer Barclay Tagg checks on Nobiz Like Shobiz in the Churchill Downs stables in Louisville, Ky., before the 133rd Kentucky Derby in May 2007. (Ed Reinke/Associated Press)

Barclay Tagg has been training racehorses for 37 years, including 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Funny Cide, and this year's fourth-place finisher, the Canadian-owned Tale of Ekati.

The death of Derby runner-up Eight Belles last Saturday (the filly broke both front ankles on the gallop out after crossing the finish line and was immediately euthanized), set off a cloud of controversy including claims by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that the horse had been injured before even crossing the line and had been too heavily whipped to keep going, and that horses are under too much pressure to make money for their owners.

Tagg, who trains more than 40 horses in New York, Delaware and New Jersey, spoke with CBCSports.ca this week about his sport, the role of horse trainers, and the controversy surrounding deaths on the track.

Do you think people misunderstand what a trainer actually does?

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding in the whole business. I think there really is. People want to point fingers and blame and everything. Most of the trainers I know … now there are a couple of trainers I wouldn't want to send a horse to, and out of hundreds and hundreds of trainers you are going to get some people who are a little more ruthless, stuff like that.

But you know, Larry Jones [trainer of Eight Belles] is getting a lot of criticism, and from what I know of Larry Jones, he's a straight up, first-class guy, loves his horses, his horses are treated like kings and queens, they get the best care in the world. He's attending to them. He's there night and day. His wife is there night and day. They are fine, fine upstanding people. Most of the trainers I know are.

I try to associate with the people who are good people and not the people who aren't, but you know it's an expensive game and if you don't take care of your horses, and take care of them well, you're not gonna have horses that are going to make you any money, or will help you make a living or anything else.

But the things I heard on the radio the other day about how these horse people are all in it for the money and the money is so great that these owners just breed these horses and don't care about them ... and they sacrifice them and they break down and it's all because of money ... if you look at it, for every $2 million that owners spend on horses collectively, there's probably only $1 million that they make.

There is no way you make money with racehorses, it's a sport that people who have become wealthy spend their money on because they enjoy having horses and racing horses.

If I had an owner tell me he's going to make money with racehorses, and he's made money in all his…businesses and [thinks he] will with this, I tend to steer away from him and won't take horses from him because he's crazy.

You can't get into this business and think you can make a lot of money in it. Oil wells buy horses, horses don't buy oil wells and that's just the way it is.

What was the first horse that you trained?

A fella gave me a filly to train and I took her down to Laurel [Maryland], and she was second the first time I ran her. And I took her over to the old Liberty Bell Park, which is now Philadelphia Park, and I ran her a month later there and she won. A little filly called Tudor's Fancy, and that was Dec. 30, 1971, when I ran her the first time.

Thinking back to the horses you trained in your early years and the 20 horses that walked out in the Kentucky Derby last Saturday, do you see any significant physical difference?

I think a lot of them are better-looking than the ones I saw then, not better looking than Secretariat, maybe [1973 Triple Crown winner and fastest-ever at a mile and a quarter at Churchill Downs], he was an outstanding-looking horse, but you know I've been in it pretty heavily through the '70s, '80s and '90s and now the 2000s, I really don't see a big difference.

I'm not sure if more horses break down, but you see more horses. Every year there are thousands more horses born, usually.

People say in the old days we would run a horse 30 times in its two-year-old year, well you could do that with some of them, because back in the early 1900s there were 5,000 horses born each year. So if you had a good horse like Man o' War [ran in 1920 as a three-year-old and considered the greatest ever], or even in the late '50s or early '60s, there were only two of the races that were tough and the rest of them were pretty easy just because there weren't that many horses around.

When we have horses getting ready now, you've got 37,000 thoroughbred race horses born that year. And each prep you go in, there are four top class horses in it, so your horse has to run hard every time he runs, and if you tried to run him 30 times a year or even 15 times a year it's going to take it's toll on him.

Funny Cide's trainer Barclay Tagg rides on the track at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., after a workout in June 2003. (John Marshall Mantel/Assoicated Press)

You have to run harder now in every race than they had to then. You'd see horses like Man o' War and some of those horses that would win by 10 or 20 lengths, in race after race. You can take a $25,000 horse and run him in a $5,000 claimer, he's probably not going to have to run really hard ... so he can probably run 15 times a year for $5,000 and it's not going to take as much out of him or cripple him up as much.

But you try to run him against his peers at a $25,000 claimer, 15 times a year, you're gonna break him down, wear him out or sour him, you understand what I'm saying?

The races are harder now. The races these horses run in are harder and you have to give him four or five weeks in between races.

What of the claim by PETA that Eight Belles was probably injured before she crossed the finish line?

Anybody can say that, but if you notice her going around the turn after, her ears are pricked. She's looking forward. She's happy. She's comfortable. I think it happened fast, probably one ankle snapped on her then, the other ankle taking over for it caused it to break, too. I've seen that happen plenty of times.

When the horses get high speed fractures, and it can happen, those race tracks aren't perfect underneath you know. They've had a lot of horses behind you and in front of you and in nine races before that, and they beat up the bottom of the track and you can't prepare the track perfectly for every single race. You might make it look smooth, but you don't know what's going on underneath, especially a track that was muddy early on and dried out later, you don't know what's under there and there can be a little crookedness to it. Any horse can take a misstep and break down.

What do you think of the claim in some blogs that excessive use of the whip causes horses to exert too much [energy]?

Well, that's something you can say, but it still happens rarely, so I don't know.

They say, well, [football players, who get many injuries] have a choice [and] horses don't have a choice. Well, horses don't have much choice out in the wild, either. Hunters shoot them, cowboys run them off their land, wolves … now they're putting wolves back out there again in the pastures up there in the western states to repopulate the wolf population, they're going to be tearing horses down and eating them, where does cruelty start and stop, you know?

There is nothing that gets better care than these horses, and when they get hurt they get taken care of, and if they have to be put to sleep, it's as humanely as anything could possibly be.

What would be the result if you took the whip out of a jockey's hand?

Well I don't think you'd get honest racing at all. I don't think the whips do anything at all. I remember when I first started out, some of the smaller race tracks, some of the little smaller tracks where there was cheaper racing, some of those jocks were abusive. You'd see some welts on the horses and you'd see cuts on them, not extensive but things that had to be taken care of, you'd rub them with alcohol and make sure they didn't get infected, things like that.

I haven't seen any of that in 25 years. Nothing. I haven't seen a mark on a horse from jockey's whip. They can't really hit that hard with them, [you] don't see any marks on them any more.