Barbaro

It would be extremely difficult to do that. You can tell a human to stay off it for 6-8 weeks but horses obviously don't have that much sense. Add to that the instincts of being a prey animal in their original environment and it's a recipe for trouble.

This sucks. This just totally, absolutely sucks.

EDIT -- 1stADD: I understand that the veterinary facility they're taking him to is about 90 minutes from the track. We may not know anything more until after 9 p.m.

I have no idea whether this pic will post or if it will be red X-stacy, but if it works you can definitely see that this is really bad.

 

That was horrible. Ruffian made me cry more but I can still see Go For Wand getting back up off the track with her broken leg.

 

Ye gods, that is horrific. I think I was at a Five Guys during the race. Mercy, I'm glad I didn't watch; I'd probably give up on the sport forever.

 

Good Lord. That picture got to me. Where is that published, Coffeeman?

It's one those pictures that tells the story perfectly, but probably won't be published in many places. I just had to vet our own photo choices a few minutes ago, and none come close to that.

 

I found it on an AP story that AO-Hell picked up. Presumably, it's an AP picture.

 

This is the part of racing I hate.

Thankfully, I didn't watch the race live. I was gutting our kitchen for a remodel. I TiVo-ed the race, a buddy called and told me about it. I walked in and deleted the recording.

 

Was out all day and totally forgot about watching the race. After reading this, I'm glad.

 

This was a sad situation, but Go For Wand was much, much, much worse.  Maybe the worst breakdown of all-time.

And had she not broken down, it might have been one of the great races of all-time.  She and Bayakoa had hooked up pretty early in the race and were basically eyeball-to-eyeball all the way down the stretch. They probably would have hit the wire together a la Sunday Silence-Easy Goer in the '89 Preakness.  At least Barbaro didn't go down on his face and have to be destroyed right on the track like her.

 

Does this seem like an exceptionally long time to be waiting on an optional?

 

Not to be morbid, but they're probably not going to send one until the horse is either euthanized or is undergoing surgery. There's probably very little to add right now.

 

Anyone with the AP photo service might want to take a look at the photo of Barbaro's jockey with the saddle at his feet. I'm no photo expert on any means, but it does an amazing job of telling the entire story.