(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

[nnaylime.livejournal.com]

Rosa Park's obituary should've been longer . . .

And yes, he was just a horse . . . but I'm still heartbroken. Seeing an animal suffer always breaks my heart. And I probably would've accepted this a lot more easily if he'd been put down when he first broke his leg so many months ago . . . the euthanization now is just a painful reminder of everything that poor animal endured up to this point and it kills me a little bit inside when something so beautiful and so helpless is reduced to such conditions.

[rarcke.livejournal.com]

Kepp in mind, by the time Rosa Parks died everyone who wasn't living under a rock, and most of the rocks, knew her story. If you don't follow horse racing or weren't local most people probably didn't know the story of the brave racehose.

I agree, Rosa Parks probably should have been longer but Barbaro's story was well worth this tribute., if not for the horse himself, for his owners, doctors and thousands of well wishers and fans.

[bubba.livejournal.com]

+1

[trelana]

The hype this entire time over a horse that by all rights should have been euthanised on the track has been absurd.

I understand the financial reasons behind wanting to salvage him, given his potential value as a stud, but the continued insistance by the Jacksons that, no really, they're doing it for the horse! got old really, really quickly. The prognosis was poor to begin with, and once he foundered, there really wasn't any chance of going on.

I'm actually curious about the decision to go ahead with the surgeries after the initial consult at New Bolton. I strongly suspect that the decision didn't lie much with the owners, but with the company that carried the insurance on the horse. To receive payment on a claim from an equine full-loss-of-use/mortality policy, you have to 'make every reasonable effort' to mitigate damages. With what was very possibly over $50 million on the line for the insurance company, it's very possible that they insisted on the surgeries as long as there was some sort of hope.

As veterinary medical practices have improved in leaps and bounds over the last couple decades, what would have been (and should have been, in my opinion) an on-track euthanasia has become something there's some sort of vague hope of recovering from, and equine insurers are more and more loathe to pay out on a claim without massive efforts being made, especially after taking huge hits to the wallet with incidents that have proven to be insurance fraud (e.g. Alydar's groom being convicted of breaking the horse's leg to cash in on the $36.5 million insurance policy that was carried on him, at a time when the farm was facing bankruptcy).

The only thing I'm sad about with regards to Barbaro is that they didn't do right by the horse and euthanise him immediately following the incident, or again, after he foundered. He shouldn't have had to suffer for closing on a year before they finally put him down.

[jdcohen.livejournal.com]

Barbaro was just a racehorse. Now, he is impressively sticky glue. The gift that keeps on giving!

--Jeff

[pkzimmer.livejournal.com]

I've gotten so sick of the Barbaro saga. Seriously, it's a horse. If it was your pet, it would be tragic. If it's someone else's, you feel bad for about 2 minutes, then move on with your life.