“A horse is the projection
of peoples' dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful
- and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane
existence.” ~Pam Brown
Barbaro, the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner, was put to sleep
on January 29, 2007, finally losing an eight month battle
precipitated by a shattered right hind limb sustained at the
Preakness Stakes. His eight month ordeal had been followed
with intense interest and his ultimate demise was a huge,
and hugely sad, disappointment.
Barbaro’s death brought a wide range of comments. "Goodbye,
brave and beautiful boy," wrote Adela Henninger, 47,
of Rathdrum, Idaho, on the Penn Veterinary Medicine message
board. "Go back to the wind, and nevermore have to tolerate
the weakness and ignorance of mortal man. You're finally running
in endless fields…. Run on, Barbaro."
On the other side of the coin, LA Times columnist T.J Simers
penned, “Tell me the difference right now between the furry
bump in the road that once was a squirrel, and Barbaro today.
Courage? You don't think it takes courage to try and run across
eight lanes of the I-5 only to get flattened three lanes shy?”
further adding, “Come on, it’s just a horse.”
Clearly, the saga of the horse inspired love and devotion
as well as controversy. But what, if anything, can be learned
from Barbaro?
Well, first off, we learn horse racing is a rough game. These
are equine athletes being pushed to the limits of their physical
capabilities. When you push something to – and beyond – its
capabilities, sometimes things break. In the case of Barbaro,
things not only broke, but they were shattered. The amount
of force directed on Barbaro’s right hind limb essentially
caused an explosion in the limb, destroying bone, blood vessels,
tendons and ligaments. Barbaro was the most notable recent
example, but such injuries actually occur with alarming frequency.
Second, we learn that surgery is a tricky business. When too
much tissue is destroyed, there’s really not much that a surgeon
– even one as accomplished as Dr. Dean Richardson, at the
University of Pennsylvania – can do. Even though it was technically
possible to screw bones back together, the discomfort of the
injured limb caused Barbaro to bear most of his weight on
the other hind limb. Horses can’t bear all of their weight
on one limb – the overload breaks tissues down. Ultimately,
what killed Barbaro was not a failure of the surgery, but
an overload of the horse’s biomechanical system. There was
just too much stress on Barbaro’s system for the horse to
overcome.
Third, we learn that people have a tremendous capacity for
caring, and that horses have a unique and special way of getting
right to the heart of that capacity. Thousands of cards, flowers,
carrots and messages were sent to Barbaro; over a million
dollars was raised for equine research. So, in spite of the
terrible outcome, some good may have ultimately been done.
To those who say that the attempt to save Barbaro’s life was
simply a matter of economics, that the owners wanted desperately
to save Barbaro so that they could get millions of dollars
in stud fees, I say, “Humbug” (actually, I rarely say, “Humbug,”
but in this case, it seems apt). If the owners wanted millions
of dollars, all they would have needed to do is put Barbaro
to sleep – he was insured for millions of dollars. Instead,
they elected to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to
see if they could save their horse’s life.
Of Barbaro himself, we can only say that he was beautiful,
and strong, and ran like the wind. We can’t really say that
he was courageous – he was just doing what horses do. Still,
in spite of the terrible ending, Barbaro was cared for, and
every attempt was made to save his life. That, I think, was
a good thing. And, even though racing is a tough business,
and even though the odds were stacked against him, Barbaro
did have the good fortune to live at a time when it was possible
to dream of an attempt to save him. And, personally, I think
that such dreams are part of the best of what it is to be
human.
“Many people have sighed for the 'good old days' and regretted
the 'passing of the horse,' but today, when only those who
like horses own them, it is a far better time for horses.”
~C.W. Anderson
