Horse Racing Derbys

Now that the Triple Crown races are over and the summer is upon us, settle back and get ready to fire every weekend at any track of your choice.

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One false step was all it took.

Every racehorse that captures the public's imagination has something more going for him than speed, and in Barbaro's case, there was already plenty to like.

The big bay colt stood 17 hands high, had a bona fide hero for a trainer and greatness stamped on his rump the day he zoomed away from a field of 19 other 3-year-olds at the Kentucky Derby. Then he put a foot down in the wrong place at the Preakness, reminding us how fragile the pivot is on a 1,200-pound thoroughbred where all that power meets the road.

In that instant, Barbaro's story was no longer about winning a Triple Crown, but about survival.

A horse was transformed into a myth.

Millions saw Barbaro stumble and fracture his right hind leg Saturday at the Preakness Stakes, then watched those searing images over and over in slo-mo, high-def instant replay. Then his story turned into a medical drama, as one of the best veterinary hospitals in the world raced to repair an injury that would have sealed Barbaro's fate only a few years ago.

Bouquets of roses piled up outside his stall. A giant get-well card awaited signatures at Churchill Downs. In this era of 24/7 news, millions of Americans hungry for the latest on Barbaro's condition clicked on TVS or called up the Internet.

He became, as the New York Times so aptly put it, one of our "national pets."

"They're such beautiful animals and once they've shown they're great, people fall in love with them," said trainer Bob Baffert, who has won three Derbys but never a Triple Crown. "And people were expecting big things from this horse."

No doubt the public loves its champions, and its animals even more. That combination is what makes horse racing go; that, and gambling, anyway.

"But I think this one even got the gamblers," Baffert added. "Nobody likes losing, but almost everybody loves seeing great things happen. We raced against him at the Derby, but skipped Saturday because we knew the chances of beating him were pretty slim. I tuned in just to watch him run.

"Then, everybody is waiting for this defining moment, and for him to get hurt ... Put it this way: It's the only race I've ever seen where they show the winner crossing the wire and almost nobody is acknowledging it. Everybody was in shock."

Racehorses have struck the national nerve before, for all kinds of reasons. Secretariat, arguably the best ever, won his Triple by widening margins during the summer of 1973 and gave a nation numbed by the Vietnam War and Watergate something, finally, to cheer about.

Long before Seabiscuit became a movie star, his rags-to-riches-story regaled an audience suffering through the cruelest years of the Great Depression. Man O'War's funeral was broadcast on the radio, an honor in his day accorded only to popes and heads of state.

Barbaro has the nation's attention, but only that for now.

His condition was improved Tuesday and he heartened owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson, trainer Michael Matz and countless others staging prayer vigils by behaving like, well, like a horse.

Standing in his stall, he showed enough agility to flick his left hind leg up and scratch an ear. Better still, he reportedly showed interest in some mares nearby. That will come in handy if Barbaro ever recovers enough to stand at stud.

And anybody who's seen Smarty Jones in retirement knows life doesn't get much better than that.

The wildly popular "people's horse," who came up short in his bid for the Triple Crown in 2004, now lives at majestic Three Chimneys Farm. He gets bathed each morning, eats when he wants, has a secretary line up his dates and roams a 2-acre paddock under the stars each night.

All that awaits Barbaro IF he recovers, and that won't be known for some time.

Meantime, he's become the jumping-off point for a renewed debate about safety at the racetrack, an uncomfortable one for the industry, to be sure. Thoroughbred racing relies on a steady stream of foals and the demands of the Triple Crown requires high-priced, often high-strung horses to face increasingly tough tests at a stage when they're about as developed as a teenager.

That unpredictability may well be why the Englishmen who devised the big stakes races more than 200 years ago settled on 3-year-olds; because it makes both watching and wagering entertaining, fills grandstands and lines lots of pockets.

It also makes it easy, on occasion, to forget the cost in horseflesh. Racing has always been a calculated gamble and in the last dozen years, especially noteworthy in big races, it's also made for a steady stream of notable injuries and early retirements.

Right now, that's the best outcome Barbaro's handlers and his growing legion of fans can hope for. How his story turns out may well decide whether future fans tune into the sport or drop out. Sometimes, winning and losing aren't defined solely by what happens on the track.

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