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The late, great Barbaro

A great horse, fallen by the excesses of racing and the damage it causes. I love horse racing, but it’s clear again, especially after this event, that the damage and pain it causes is not worth it. Poor Barbaro. Poor us.

Barbaro euthanized

Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, whose valiant battle for survival after shattering his right-hind leg in the early stages of the May 20 Preakness brought international attention unprecedented emotional support, was euthanized early today at the University of Pennsylvania New Bolton Center, where he had been hospitalized for more than eight months…

A deterioration of the originally injured leg required surgery on Saturday during which pins were inserted through the bone and connected to an external device. That setback, complicated by a left-hind hoof afflicted by severe laminitis, indications that the front hooves were beginning to become laminitic and Barbaro’s inability to lay down for 48 hours following the last surgery led to the final decision “There was not one foot that was not affected,” Gretchen Jackson told the Thoroughbred Times.

I grew up in a home where horse racing and betting were part of the experience. My Uncle Jack was a bookie, and my Uncle Ed was always betting on the horses. He would have office pools for the horse races and I was always good at picking winners. At a very young age, he started taking me to Hollywood Park and Santa Anita tracks. I enjoyed the sport a great deal, loved how beautiful the horses were, and was told over and over again, the horses love to run like that, they love to run together.

Through the years, though, you would see horrific accidents, legs breaking, horses dropping. I was loathe to admit that’s because of the unnatural pressure, the unnatural training, and the push to drive the horses literally to their limit.

No, that does not happen in nature. This is not how horses run normally. I’m sorry to say this, but and even sorrier that it took the death of a favorite horse of mine to finally come to this conclusion, but now I will be officially against horse racing. While I have enjoyed it, and it’s very exciting, the price for the horses is just too high.

For further reading, MSNBC has a nice story about Barbaro’s impact. The AP (via SI) notes the actions Churchill Downs will be taking to memorialize Barbaro. Canada,com gives us a listing of major events in Barbaro’s life, and Tim Layden at Sports Illustrated has a really moving tribute to him.

This is more than a goodbye to a great and handsome champion; iis a reminder to all of us of our responsibility, our duty, to find ways to honor and embrace the greatness of all animals. It’s time we stop using and hurting them for our “entertainment.” It’s sad and difficult, but I hope many of you will come to join me in this sentiment.

God rest your soul Barbaro. That pasture you’re in up there has got to be pretty incredible.

UPDATE:

Considering the tone of the following email, it looks like my position has exposed the personal nature of at least one “horse trainer.” With an attitude like this, it’s just another reason to get horses out of that exploitive arena. I think it’s mportant for you to see how some people think and how some feel they will be make friends and influence people. Or not.

Tammy,
You are an idiot. You probably watch NASCAR every weekend for the crashes but want to criticize horseman for letting horses do what they love. Until you come to the racetrack and watch the horses train in the mornings please refrain yourself [refrain yourself?–ed] from making stupid comments about something you know nothing about. Sure, your family is a bunch of bookies and gamblers. Does that really qualify you to judge horsemen?
Talk about something you know, like getting you eyebrows waxed.
Sincerely,
Horse Trainer,
Donna Keen

Ooh, that stung! Well, maybe not as much as getting my eyebrows waxed 🙂 Lovely, and so grown-up isn’t it? It certainly highlights the callousness that I believe has permeated the racing industry. And we can’t ignore that nice little smear of, “NASCAR” families. You freakish rubes, you. There is no way you Middle-American Retards would ever, ever understand the Sport of Kings and how desperate the horses are to kill themselves making sure said Kings are amused.

It does sound like my personal reaction to the Barbaro tragedy, and informed rejection of racing, has caused the 8-year old in this “horse trainer” to come out blathering. Frankly, she sounds like she’s been around the backend of her charges just a bit too long. And thanks, Donna, for confirming that people who put horses through a thing that shatters their bones for the amusement of humans are even more juvenile, self-obsessed and hostile than I imagined.

Oh, and Donna, someone does need to be educated on the issue, and that person would be you. Not that you’re personally biased or anything. Nah…So don’t take it from me, take it from Brad Telias in the Sporting News and his coverage, prompted by Barbaro’s injury, of why race horses have become increasingly fragile over the last several generations. And for more background Donna, (yes, it is amazing I can do all this and keep myself groomed), here are a variety of articles pre-Barbaro injury, from 2001 through 2006 about the danger to horses posed by horse racing and a increasingly careless racing community.

1) Ted Miller, “Six Recent Horse Deaths at Emerald Downs Spark Concern,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer 8 May 2001.
2) Bill Finley, “Sadly, No Way to Stop Deaths,” New York Daily News 10 Jun. 1993.
3) Sherry Ross, “Fans Are Buying In,” Daily News 1 Jun. 2003.
4) “The Odds Are You’ll Lose: Owning a Racehorse,” Financial Times 1 Feb. 2003.
5) Glenn Robertson Smith, “Why Racehorses Are Cracking Up,” The Age (Australia) 15 Nov. 2002.
6) Miller.
7) Tim Reynolds, “Technology Can’t Prevent Horse Injuries,” The Lexington Herald-Leader 30 Aug. 2001.
8) Andrew Beyer, “A Beyer’s Guide for Racehorses,” The Washington Post 3 Jun. 2003.
9) William C. Rhoden, “An Unknown Filly Dies, and the Crowd Just Shrugs,” The New York Times 25 May 2006.
10) Rhoden.
11) Reynolds.
12) John Scheinman, “Horses, Drugs Are Racing’s Daily Double; No Uniform Policy in Industry,” The Washington Post 27 Apr. 2003.
13) Janet Patton, “HBPA Proposes Uniform Policy on Drugs in Racing; Horsemen’s Group Targets Maze of State Rules,” The Lexington Herald-Leader 17 Oct. 2001.
14) Max Watman, “So Far, So Good for Barbaro,” The New York Sun 21 May 2006.
15) Scheinman.
16) Peat Bee, “Cut the Poppycock and Treat Drugs With Horse Sense,” The Guardian 13 Jan. 2003.
17) Alex Straus, “Dark Horses,” Maxim May 2002.
18) Tom Keyser, “Gill Is Still Permitted to Stable, Race Horses at Pimlico, Laurel,” The Baltimore Sun 6 Apr. 2003.
19) “Trainer, Vet Charged in Trotter’s Death,” Associated Press, 22 Apr. 2001.
20) Straus.
21) Skip Hollandsworth, “The Killing of Alydar,” Texas Monthly Jun. 2001.
22) Straus.
23) Barbara Bayer, “1986 Kentucky Derby Winner Ferdinand Believed to Have Been Slaughtered in Japan,” The Blood-Horse Magazine 26 Jul. 2003.
24) Allen G. Breed, “And What of the Spent Racehorse?” Associated Press, 25 Nov. 1999.
25) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Horsemeat Exports—Value,” 2004.
26) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Horsemeat Slaughtered/Prod Animals (Head),” 2005.
27) Josh Harkinson, “Horse Flesh: Texas Struggles With What to Do With Its Overabundance of Equus Caballus While Europeans Wait With Open Mouths,” Houston Press 13 Apr. 2006.
28) K. McGee et al., “Characterizations of Horses at Auctions and in Slaughter Plants,” Colorado State University Department of Animal Sciences, 2001.
29) Todd J. Gillman, “Judge Won’t Stop Slaughterhouses; Appeal Weighed,” The Dallas Morning News 14 Mar. 2006.
30) C.L. Stull, “Responses of Horses to Trailer Design, Duration, and Floor Area During Commercial Transportation to Slaughter,” Journal of Animal Science 77 (1999): 2925-33.
31) Harkinson.
32) Kris Axtman, “Horse-Meat Sales Stir Texas Controversy,” Christian Science Monitor 28 Apr. 2003.
33) Rich Hofmann, “Racing Brings Up the Rear in Safety,” Philadelphia Daily News 23 May 2006.

So start reading honey, make yourself some Ovaltine, and take your valium. And if you had any self-respect, you would also find yourself another line of business.