tottman / CC

Bodies may not be buried at Churchill Downs, but with so many horses having drawn their last breath there after having been run to death, it might as well be a cemetery. And for two days it will be, because PETA has erected 265 headstones outside the racetrack this week.

Why 265, you ask? We included 263 headstones to represent the horses who have died on the track since last year's Kentucky Derby and whose names we know, one headstone for the approximately 832 other horses who have died but whose names are not known—because racetracks are so bad at reporting breakdowns and deaths—and one headstone for the approximately 12,000 thoroughbreds who are sent off to slaughter each year.

Churchill Downs is, of course, home to the Kentucky Derby and is where Eight Belles lost her life one year ago. Since the Eight Belles tragedy, Churchill Downs has made some reforms in the ways that horses are treated on its track, but banning the use of legal drugs to mask injuries hasn't been one of them. PETA is calling on the people who run the track to ban the use of all drugs in the week before a race. By bringing attention to the thousands of lost lives that don't make headline news, our display will hopefully inspire horse-racing officials to take action.

After all, by my calculations, the horse-racing industry has caused 13,095 horses to die this past year. That's enough to fill a cemetery plus some.

Update: Check out these pictures from the unveiling, then go browse more art by Dan Lacey, who painted the gorgeous picture of Eight Belles.

Posted by Shawna Flavell

Curious about the names of the horses who have died on racetracks during the past year? Click here.

Back in January, we told you about one of our cheekier stunts in our ongoing quest to help chickens who are raised and killed for KFC. Long story short: It involved the cemetery where KFC founder "Colonel" Sanders is buried and a headstone for PETA's own Matt Prescott (who, don't worry, is still among the living). The headstone is inscribed with a poem, the first letters of which spell out, "KFC TORTURES BIRDS."

Now, granted, we might have a slightly, um, off-center sense of humor, but what we saw as cheeky, others thought of as, well, morbid. One commenter even accused us of having "desacrated [sic] an entire graveyard." (Seriously? And people call us drama queens!)

Fortunately, a lot of other people "got it." Unfortunately, among those who didn't see the humor were the operators of the cemetery (and, just possibly, those chicken-pluckers at KFC). Suffice to say that we now find ourselves in possession of a homeless gravestone.

Cave Hill Cemetery forced us to remove Matt's headstone after cemetery officials caught on to the hidden message it sent. As such a unique piece of activism history, we'd hate to see it collecting dust when it can be out there getting the message out about KFC's real secret recipe. So now this piece of animal rights history can be yours just in time for Halloween, the creepiest holiday of the year—give or take Yom Kippur and Dia de Los Muertos. We're offering you the chance to own something that will scare the bejeepers out of your local trick-or-treaters. So head on over to eBay and make a bid—not only can you own a piece of animal rights history, you can help PETA put an end to the cruelty of KFC and other animal abusers as well.

Posted by Jeff Mackey