(no subject)

[desh]

Barbaro was euthanized.

And, look, you can be sad about this if you want. But all I'm saying is this:

The AP obituary of Barbaro, as reported by cnn.com: 1778 words.

cnn.com's obituary of Rosa Parks: 970 words.

It's sad. But he was just a racehorse.

Comments

[trelana]

Some times, the public needs to have something to rally around. G-d knows morale in the US isn't the best it's ever been, and during such times people seem to latch onto the story of an underdog beating the odds. Phar Lap in Australia around 1930 and Seabiscuit in the late 30's both come to mind -- the general public rallied around these horses that showed little promise, only to come into their own and run rampant over some of the best, most expensive horses of the time.

Horse racing isn't anywhere near as prominent as it was 50-75 years ago, when it was a (if not 'the') big headline sport. The big name races still have fairly decent viewership figures, but it's not anything like the past, and many small race tracks are turning to slots and video poker to offset their dwindling income from attendance and parimutuel wagering.

I can't say I'm upset that racing in general was getting some positive, widespread press during the time Barbaro was at New Bolton, since it's a sport I hold dear -- in high school, I worked morning gallops at Finger Lakes race track before I went off to school. But is the euthanising of one horse something that should be headline news on CNN? Hardly. Outside of racing circles, you rarely hear about the other great horses that have met their end in discomfort. Ferdinand, the 1986 KY Derby winner and another crowd favourite at the time was slaughtered for meat in Japan in 2002, and Exceller, another great horse who defeated other huge names of his time (Seattle Slew, Affirmed, etc) met the same fate in Sweden in '97. Really, though, the death of Barbaro has its place. I'd expect it to headline on the Daily Racing Form, the Bloodhorse, the Thoroughbred Times ... but not CNN.

[desh]

I vaguely remember that when Prairie Bayou broke down in the 1993 Belmont Stakes, the news got one paragraph at the end of the Philadelphia Inquirer's main Belmont results story. And that upset me in the other direction: this breakdown should've been front page news...on the sports section. For one day.

Also...wow. I had no idea you were so into horses (though I can't say I'm surprised). Thanks for all the info.

[trelana]

1993 was just a brutal year for the Triple Crown -- Prairie Bayou in the Belmont and Union City in the Preakness. Union City was really one of a string of horses that D. Wayne Lukas pretty much destroyed during that time -- for a time, he was rather notorious for running horses into the ground in an attempt to get as many top flight runners as possible (see also Folklore, Consolidator, Grindstone, Charismatic, etc). He seems to have improved at least a bit over the last few years, though.

It's not something I talk about most of the time nowadays, though I'll probably pick back up a bit when I get a couple horses again, now that we have room for them. I grew up with them, though mostly hunter/jumpers and some dressage, not racehorses. I galloped for a couple years out at Finger Lakes, but never did anything else in that vein.

The knee I've had three surgeries on so far was wrecked by a horse, actually. I was 13 or 14 at the time (don't remember if it was before or after my birthday), took a too-green horse through too tight a combination of jumps. He planted his forelegs and stopped at the second fence, then jumped it from a standstill. I was fine with the stopping, it was the going-again that got me -- I came off, he landed on my right leg, I rolled and ripped my knee apart, then he kicked me in the back of the head. Really, I was lucky to survive, but I was 14 and stupid and was back riding a few months after my knee reconstruction.