Jonathan Friedman
Tragedy at Pimlico
I had a beautiful dream Saturday night. In my dream, the legend-in-the-making racehorse Barbaro jumped from the starting gate early during the Preakness Stakes, the second jewel of thoroughbred horse racing’s Triple Crown. There was some discussion by the television commentators that it was a bad sign. But Barbaro proved them wrong when, after the race finally started, he quickly ran to the front of the pack. And like he did in the Kentucky Derby two weeks before, Barbaro crushed the field and easily cruised to victory.
I was soon awoken by the sound of my roommate coming home, and I realized that it had all been a dream. What had in fact happened that day at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore was the most devastating thing I have ever seen in horse racing. After Barbaro prematurely ran out of the starting gate, jockey-turned-television commentator Gary Stevens said it was a bad sign. But everything looked clean and the race was finally started. Within moments, the race caller, Tom Durkin, shouted that Barbaro had been pulled up by his jockey, Edgar Prado. The NBC camera flashed to the horse as it struggled on three legs. Then the camera focused back on the race, but now, that seemed so unimportant.
More than 118,000 people who had come to the track to see a racehorse on a likely path toward being the first Triple Crown winner since 1978 were now observing an athlete struggling for his life.
With the race over, all eyes turned toward Barbaro. The people connected to the horse and the track officials attended to him. Barbaro raised his bad leg and lowered it several times as if he were attempting a self-healing process. An ambulance arrived to take him to a veterinary clinic. The television commentators speculated on what could happen. All agreed it didn’t look good.
Barbaro had broken his leg in three places. One of the bones was shattered into more than 20 pieces. What made the situation especially frustrating was, as NBC showed replays of the race, one was unable to find one major moment that could be singled out as the cause of the injury. It had nothing to do with his false start, Barbaro had simply taken a bad step. And the few strides the horse took as he was being held up by his jockey caused two more bone breaks after the initial one.
The thoroughbred is an ironic animal. It is a powerful athlete faster than any other animal on land after a mile, with a muscular body weighing in at more than 1,000 pounds. But holding up that large body are four fragile legs, sensitive to the slightest mishap. And without the support of all four of those legs, the horse cannot live.
Although Barbaro’s luck was terrible when he took the step that caused the injuries, good fortune has been with him since that time. His jockey quickly noticed something was wrong and pulled up Barbaro, preventing the horse from obeying his instinct to keep running, and damaging the leg beyond repair. The more than six-hour surgery the next day was considered a success. And Barbaro has since walked on all four legs, with Dr. Dean Richardson, the man who conducted the surgery, saying Barbaro appeared “bright and appropriately frisky.”
But Richardson would still only call it a 50-50 shot for Barbaro to live through the recovery process, a “coin toss,” he said. Barbaro faces many threats to his health over the next few months, including possible infection and diseases associated with an uneven weight balance caused by the injured leg.
I am often asked what attracts me to thoroughbred racing, why it intrigues me more than sports where the main stars are my own species. It is not the gambling. Although that adds to the excitement, one can place a bet on any athletic, or even non-athletic, event.
For one, I love the history associated with the sport. A thoroughbred’s bloodlines can be traced back hundreds of years. Many of the most prominent races began before the 20th century, and the fantastic stories associated with them are countless. I often spend hours looking through books and Web sites detailing great tales of thoroughbred racing’s history.
Another thing about the sport is the magnificence of the animal. The thoroughbred is a beautiful animal that looks even better as it runs at speeds that no other living thing on land could hope to achieve. And when thoroughbreds are racing on the track, they are not doing something that is unnatural. A jockey sits on top of the horse to work as a guide, but this is not a lion jumping through a hoop or a greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit. These are horses running, just as they would do in the wild.
Saturday was not one of the beautiful moments for thoroughbred racing. And as I watched Barbaro struggling with his injury, it appeared to me that his chapter in history would be a tragic one in line with Ruffian and Go for Wand-two spectacular thoroughbreds that lost their lives due to accidents on the track.
As I watched the terrible scene on television, my heart broke as a horse who just minutes earlier was being discussed as possibly the greatest in a generation was facing death.
With the dedication of skilled people working to save his life, Barbaro’s story might not end so tragically. Yes, we will never get to see him race again, and never know what could have been. But hopefully he will make it through the recovery process, and be able to live a long life as a stallion creating offspring that can amaze us like their father did.