Sunday, May 21, 2006

Horrifying

The Preakness was almost worse than the Mets game. Barbaro (Kentucky Derby champion and favorite) started his day a little early by crashing out of the gate before the race started (do they have false starts in horse racing?). Then once the race started, Barbaro pulled up almost immediately. Turns out Barbaro broke his rear right leg in two places. Jockey Edgar Prado slowed the horse immediately and got off, probably saving him from doing more damage to his leg. His racing career is definitely over but they hope to save him, the problem with horses is you can't put them in bed. The vet said that a human with this injury would be off his feet for 6 weeks. You can't do that with horses, so if there is damage to the blood supply to the foot they will have to euthanize Barbaro. The saddest thing was watching the poor horse struggle to run on 3 legs, protecting the injured one. Just heart breaking. I've seen some serious injuries to human athletes but never anything life-threatening like this. Let's hope they save Barbaro so he can have a productive life knocking up sexy fillies.

here you can really see the horse trying not to step on that leg


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