Sometimes you just find yourself rooting for a positive outcome because it just seems like the right thing to do.
That was certainly the case with Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winning horse which suffered a terrible series of fractures in its left-leg about 70 yards into the Preakness at Pimlico in Baltimore last May.
Lots of people thought the colt wouldn't make it through that first weekend. Instead, it fought back repeatedly against the odds, and it looked like Barbaro might recover. Alas, it was not to be, as co-owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson announced Monday that they had euthanized the horse.
The Chicago Tribune has a detailed look at the various illnesses that Barbaro struggled to overcome, including the one that finally lead to his death, laminitis, an Inflammation of the sensitive laminae of the hoof. Veterinarian Tom Bowman, former president of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association, says that despite all the advances made in animal care over the past decades, they haven't found a way to cure serious laminitis.
Julie Ravner and Alex Chadwick of NPR also offer a look into the final few days of Barbaro, still housed at the facility in Pennsylvania where he had been taken just hours after his original accident.
The Equine Podiatry Center (who knew?) has all the answers to every question you might have about laminitis.
Pat Forde at ESPN writes that, while there are no real villians in this story, there are some changes that might help the sport of racing minimize these incidents.
Still, as gripping as Barbaro's story was, I find myself wondering why we were caught up in this story. We're still taking about a horse, not a person.
Part of my job as senior writer of The Christian Science Monitor's Daily Update on Terrorism and Security is to scan the world's headlines each day, and the stories of the atrocities I find on a regular basis often leave me shaking my head in sadness and bewilderment. Many die each day, and they are almost always just numbers to us.
But maybe that's why Barbaro touched us. Barbaro's story didn't seem so overwhelming in the midst of the world's daily carnage. And we knew that there was a chance at a happy ending - even if it didn't come.
And we sure can't say that about all the stories in the news these days.
Recent Comments