Flowers and a handmade card honoring Eight Belles are on display in the lobby of the Kentucky Derby Museum on Wednesday in Louisville, Ky.

Louisville, Ky. ? Frank Daniels stood outside the paddock at Churchill Downs on Wednesday, thinking about the first race of the day while watching a rebroadcast of the Kentucky Derby on a big screen.

Daniels is a racing fan who has been coming to Churchill Downs for 35 years. His eyes stayed fixed as Big Brown surged to victory. A split second later, filly Eight Belles followed, storming to the finish 43â4 lengths behind but well ahead of the remaining 18 colts.

“She didn’t look hurt, did she?” Daniels said. “That’s a strong-looking horse right there.”

What the replay didn’t show, or anyone could have guessed as she lunged for the wire under jockey Gabriel Saez, is that Eight Belles would be dead a quarter-mile later after breaking both of her front legs as she galloped out.

She was quickly euthanized on the track, tempering Big Brown’s dominant victory and raising questions on everything from the safety of the dirt at Churchill Downs to whether Saez abused Eight Belles with his whip in the dash to the wire.

Though the Kentucky Derby Museum has received a handful of letters and a flower arrangement in support of Eight Belles, there hasn’t been the kind of overwhelming response to her death that accompanied 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro’s injury in the Preakness.

The fans at Churchill Downs on Wednesday already appeared to have moved on. There wasn’t an Eight Belles hat or pin to be seen in the modest crowd of a few thousand, though there were more than a few Big Brown hats scattered about the grandstand.