The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is calling for Gabriel Saez, the jockey who rode Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby before the horse broke both front ankles and had to be euthanized, to be suspended from horse racing.

As if a 5-foot-3, 113-pound jockey could inflict that kind of injury on a 1,000-pound filly simply by riding her.

But then, PETA is the same group that once asked the Dutchess County town of Fishkill to change its name to "Fish Save" because it said Fishkill implied animal cruelty (note to PETA: “kill” is the Dutch word for “little stream”); and once blamed a traveling circus for a Dutchess County incident in which an elephant stomped a man to death (ignoring the fact that the man, drunk out of his mind, had entered the elephant’s enclosure and was taunting the animal).

It’s very hard to take these people seriously.