On Barbaro: "He never lied to us"

[WilliamPitt]

A 'Bottomless' Heart

By Sally Jenkins
Tuesday, January 30, 2007; Page E01

In diagnosing the public's unreasoning love for Barbaro, maybe it comes down to the fact that he never lied to us. Human nature seems like a sorry, wastrel thing, compared to that horse. No doubt, we idealized him, but the fact is, we could have used a happy ending for Barbaro, given some of the Gilded Age characters who parade safely through public life into retirement. His survival seemed like one good thing, a balm for foreign wars, domestic deceit, and the bimbo cocktail party circuit, ruthless wealth-swappage, and cross-entouraging that we lately call American culture.

Barbaro was an honest, blameless competitor. Our ridiculously soft feeling for him was based at least partly on that fact. Unlike so many people in the sports pages, he was neither felonious, nor neurotic. He let us place burdens on him, whether a saddle, a bet, or a leg brace, and he carried them willingly, even jauntily.

On the track, his trainer and jockey reported that there seemed no end to what he was willing to give. "Bottomless," was how they described his heart. He obviously raced for pleasure, and he ran with such dynamic abandon that he made circling a track seem an impetuous act. His effort was always sincere and supreme, and when he won the Kentucky Derby by 6 1/2 lengths, the largest margin in the race since 1946, it was less of a surprise than an affirmation to the people who had reared him. "Why shouldn't we have felt that way? Every time he had run before, he never let us down," trainer Michael Matz said to the Thoroughbred Times. "His will to win was obvious in whatever he did."

Also, he was handsome. On display in his stall, he had the calm expression of an inveterate star, and a preening stance that suggested he'd heard the roar of the crowd and knew he'd won the big one. Even his doctor, Dean Richardson, who hardly saw him at his best, noticed this. When he was asked why Barbaro excited such affection from perfect strangers, a choked Richardson replied, "He was good looking."

We followed his medical reports like they were our own. Phrases like "laminitic area," and "deep subsolar abscess" became familiar, as did the anatomy of his horribly damaged hind leg, the shattered pastern and sesamoid, and the pinned cannon bone.

There have been continual attempts to analyze why Barbaro's fight to survive so captivated the public, but maybe it's fairly simple: He had both innocence and greatness and it's not often you find those ephemeral qualities alive in the same creature. What's more, anyone who watched Barbaro run in the Derby felt that they saw traces of a distinct character: He was winsome. This gave his suffering specificity. We felt we knew him.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/AR2007012902109.html

[DinahMoeHum]

1. Will Rogers used to say: you never hear of a horse going broke

betting on people.

Rest in Peace, Barbaro. Did you get to meet Ruffian yet?

:toast:

[TygrBright]

2. awshit, now you made me cry....

Just thinking of those two great hearts meeting up together and doing a post-game recap of their experience with the human race.

Maybe that IS the underpinnings of the whole phenomenon of Americans spending astounding amounts of time and money and affection on companion animals, and giving scads of dough to animal-welfare causes, while it continues to be a terrible struggle for charities that help children and elderly people and sick people and all the other needy members of our own species to stay in business.

Maybe we look at human nature, these days, and see the sordid and cynical and self-aggrandizing and greedy side that is so ubiquitous in the media and all around us, and think that animal nature is superior, overall, to what we observe among ourselves. We have so few real heros anymore. We have celebrities instead.

sadly,
Bright

[VOX]

4. Don't forget to include 1984 Derby winner Swale...

Although not a victim of a leg fracture, he succummed to a massive heart attack a few days after the Belmont Stakes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(horse)

Swale (April 21, 1981 - June 17, 1984) was an American thoroughbred racehorse. A son of Seattle Slew, Swale was trained by Woody Stephens and ridden by Laffit Pincay, Jr., both now members of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Swale won the Florida Derby enroute to winning the Kentucky Derby, finished seventh in the Preakness Stakes then came back to win the longest and most gruelling of the U.S. Triple Crown races, the Belmont Stakes.

On June 17th, 1984, eight days after the Belmont Stakes, Swale died of a massive heart attack during a bath. Still, he was Champion 3-year-old Colt, 1984. He is buried at Claiborne Farm.

The "Swale Stakes," an annual Grade II Stakes race for three-year-olds at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Florida, was named in his honor.

[hlthe2b]

3. thank you for this, Will

Maybe it will melt some of the cynical, cold hearts belonging to a few DU posters lately...


This piece really captures it, I think...

[wicket]

5. Ok, I'm bawling

:cry: