BALTIMORE - Maybe the false start should have been the sign. Maybe the horse knew something was wrong and was panicking. Because really, how often does a horse false-start in a major race? So maybe they should have never put him back in the gate.
This isn't meant to place blame. After all, doctors checked Barbaro thoroughly after his false start and deemed him fine. There was nothing physically wrong with him. But his false start might have been a warning not to tempt fate.
Barbaro had won the Kentucky Derby convincingly two weeks before. Undefeated entering the race, he won by six and a half lengths, expanding his lead even though jockey Edgar Prado wasn't pushing him at the end. Entering the Preakness, he seemed like a legitimate Triple Crown contender.
That false start, though, was weird. As was the start of the race, when the horses passed the grandstand for the first time and Prado pulled Barbaro up, easing him to the side, jumping down, and using his shoulder to support the huge horse's weight.
Horse racing veterans knew immediately what had happened, but to the novice horse racing fans, the kind that only watch the three Triple Crown races every year, this was something strange? What was happening? What does it mean when a horse breaks down?
Barbaro had broken his right hind leg in 20 places, an absolutely catastrophic injury. Had Prado not pulled him up exactly when he did, the horse probably would have had to be put down on the spot. Instead, he was saved, starting a national obsession that lasted for seven months.
For the rest of the summer and into the winter, America was bombarded with Barbaro stories. He was the lead story on ESPN whenever another he had another procedure in an attempt to save his leg and his life. Barbaro received far more attention than any horse actively racing that year. He received get-well cards from people around the country, with people reacting to news of his recovery like they would for news of their own pet - or even their child.
The next January, after a setback when it seemed he had recovered, Barbaro was euthanized. Those fans who had sent him get-well cards openly wept, a movie based on his life was planned, and Barbaro's ashes were buried underneath a bronze statue of himself outside Churchill Downs. It didn't matter that he only finished six races; he had become America's horse.
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