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Post by phinehas on May 2, 2007 9:59:38 GMT -5
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lawman
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Post by lawman on May 4, 2007 0:09:46 GMT -5
www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bal-sp.barbaro30apr30,0,5799399.story?coll=bal-sports-headlines ;D Barbaro hailed as hero
500-plus fans of late Derby champ gather to mark his 4th birthday
By Kevin Van Valkenburg
Sun Reporter
Originally published April 30, 2007
STANTON, Del. // They threw the words "hero" and "courage" around like they were confetti. They wore earrings, T-shirts, necklaces, hats and bracelets containing his picture. They cried and said prayers in his memory, they handed over big chunks of money for pictures of him and they gave a standing ovation to his owners, as well as to the people who tried, for eight months, to save him.
To the 500-plus people who showed up yesterday at the Delaware Park Race Track and Casino, Barbaro, the 2006 Kentucky Derby champion, was more than a racehorse. He was, as they said time and time again, a hero.
The celebration, organized by the group Fans Of Barbaro, was not only an opportunity to honor the horse on what would have been his fourth birthday at the track where Barbaro won his maiden race on Oct. 4, 2005, but it was also a chance for FOBs (as they usually refer to themselves) to meet one another, because many had bonded on the Internet over the past year. It was a chance to talk to people who felt touched by Barbaro's life, inspired by his eight-month struggle to recover from a leg injury he suffered at the Preakness, and deeply saddened when he had to be euthanized in late January after he contracted the hoof disease laminitis.
"On the train down here, I told someone, 'I'm headed to meet 500 people that I've never met, but they're still my family,'" said Nancy Goss, 60, who came from Hamden, Conn., and wore a Barbaro T-shirt, a Barbaro hat, bracelets with Barbaro's name on them and earrings with Barbaro's picture. "Barbaro just represents everything good about racing. He feels like an old friend."
People came from all over the continental United States, as well as Canada and Puerto Rico. At least 31 states were represented, and people - most of them dressed in the lime-green and blue that Barbaro wore while racing for Lael Stables - spent most of the afternoon hugging, laughing and talking about ways to honor Barbaro's legacy. Some said they were not even racing fans. They just felt a connection with him.
Barbaro's owners, Gretchen and Roy Jackson, attended the event, and before they could even take the microphone to speak, they were given a standing ovation.
"Never in my wildest dreams could I have anticipated anything like this four years ago when Barbaro was born," Gretchen Jackson said. "His racing career was remarkable for us. He just stunned us. Now that time has passed and Barbaro was hurt, struggled to heal and didn't win, we are into a new era and you are leading the way."
This was the biggest celebration for Barbaro's birthday, but it wasn't the only one. Around the country, several smaller but similar Barbaro gatherings were scheduled. Most of those attending have been dedicated members of the Web site timwoolleyracing.com, which hosts a Barbaro message board.
For those who can't understand why people would obsess so much over a horse and think the FOBs are a little bit crazy, that's OK. They don't particularly care.
"I think some of us probably are nuts," said Becky Fredricks, 55, who lives in Lothian in Anne Arundel County. "I'm probably nuts. I spent $1,000 last night on a picture of Barbaro grazing. But the money went to research to find a cure for laminitis, so I'm happy. A lot of people say things like, 'It's just a horse. It's not a person.' But, to me, they don't get it. Animals are so honest. Barbaro never lied. He never cheated. He never took drugs. He just wanted to run. He had a magical spirit."
Barbaro's death was particularly difficult for Fredricks, because just the day before she had to euthanize her Siamese cat, Lottie, because of kidney failure.
"I was already a wreck, and I thought I'd already cried as much as I could," Fredricks said. "Then the next day at 10:30, I heard that Barbaro had to be put down. It was tough. This has been good being here, but I'm still sad that he's gone."
The hope for many Barbaro fans is that he'll actually accomplish more in death than he did in life by raising awareness about laminitis (which also killed Triple Crown winner Secretariat), and by convincing people that slaughtering horses, simply because they're old or injured, is inhumane. Thanks to the efforts of the FOBs, it was announced yesterday, more than 600 horses have been saved from slaughter this year, and yesterday $18,000 was raised for laminitis research.
The most moving tribute to Barbaro yesterday, however, came from someone who wasn't even there. Edgar Prado, the jockey who rode Barbaro to victory in the Kentucky Derby, couldn't attend, but he e-mailed some of his thoughts to ESPN and ABC reporter Jeannine Edwards, who read them aloud while choking back tears.
"Thank you, Barbaro, for giving me the best ride of my life," Prado wrote. "Thank you for letting me love you. Thank you for being my friend. I hope one day we can be reunited for one more ride."
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Post by dixiepixie on May 4, 2007 3:52:14 GMT -5
OMG, phin, what have you done? Now we will NEVER see the end to the cut -N- paste horse stories.
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lawman
Apprentice Cog
Posts: 237
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Post by lawman on May 4, 2007 5:10:24 GMT -5
My pleasure....glad to be of service! LOL
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lawman
Apprentice Cog
Posts: 237
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Post by lawman on May 5, 2007 23:28:25 GMT -5
Try as they may, the detractors can't steal the beauty from this great, warm, touching story and memory!
Tom Archdeacon: Barbaro's spirit hovers over Derby
By Tom Archdeacon
Staff Writer
Friday, May 04, 2007
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Mike Smith went to get his head shaved a couple of weeks ago and when the lady with the clippers found out he was a jockey, she suddenly got real interested:
Not because he was a Hall of Fame jock who's won races all over the world. Not that he'd won the Kentucky Derby two years ago aboard 50-1 Giacomo. Not that he'll ride Tiago in Saturday's race.
"She didn't know nothing about racing, but she did know Barbaro," Smith said with a smile as he stood on the Churchill Downs backside this week. "She asked me everything about him ... That's all she talked about."
Late Wednesday morning, trainer Todd Pletcher, who has five horses running in this year's race, sat down for a special press conference at the track with his mentor, D. Wayne Lukas, who has trained four Derby winners. Yet within minutes the questions they were answering had to do with Barbaro.
Tuesday night trainer Larry Jones — who has Hard Spun in Saturday's race — went to a gala Derby dinner and witnessed the room go quiet when a film of last year's race was shown and there came Barbaro, roaring down the stretch, leaving the field in his wake for a stunning 6½ length victory, the widest margin in 60 years.
"The film showed all that Michael Matz (Barbaro's trainer) went through — all the highs of the game — but it didn't show the rest of the story," Jones said. "And when it ended, we kind of sat there a few seconds because we knew what happened two weeks later. That was tough ... It still is."
Two weeks after winning the 2006 Derby, Barbaro took a bad step in the first furlong of the Preakness Stakes and suffered a catastrophic injury, breaking the cannon, sesamoid and long pastern bones of his right hind leg into 30 pieces.
Often that becomes life-ending right there on the track, but Barbaro's owners — Roy and Gretchen Jackson — sent their beloved colt to the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center where Dr. Dean Richardson performed surgery and then spent eight months doing everything possible to help the animal survive. Eventually laminitis, a painful hoof disease that attacks inactive horses, laid siege to Barbaro and he was euthanized Jan. 29.
But while the Derby winner has been dead over three months, he certainly is not gone. Especially not this week, especially not here.
Unbeaten Curlin, at 7-2, may be Morning Line pick for Saturday's race and 4-1 Street Sense may be the choice of many insiders, but the real Derby favorite remains Barbaro.
And because of the advances in track safety and equine care his memory is now helping foster, his legacy continues to grow.
"The greatness of Barbaro — in good times and bad— is unprecedented," said trainer Bill Kaplan, who has Storm in May and Imawildandcrazyguy in Saturday's race. "He'll live forever in people's minds as America's darling."
You see signs of that everywhere here. Today, Barbaro's jock Edgar Prado will raffle off the saddle he used in last year's Derby with proceeds going to the Disabled Jockey Fund.
Tuesday — in an online charity auction put on by Woodford Reserve bourbon — a New York woman paid $22,222 for a gold-plated mint julep cup bearing Barbaro's image. The money goes to charity.
Saturday Derby fans who pour into Churchill will find $2 "Riding with Barbaro" blue rubber bracelets being sold at each entrance. The proceeds go to the Barbaro Memorial Fund, set up through the National Thoroughbred Racing Association to study equine diseases.
Between Saturday's sixth and seventh races, the video boards will replay Barbaro's Derby run, there'll be a tribute by local school kids and the Jacksons will be given a $25,000 check for the Memorial Fund.
Then — in a move whose merits are being debated because it could encourage over-taxing an animal — Yum! Brands will award a $1 million bonus to the Derby champ should he top Barbaro's 6½-length winning margin.
Other tracks across the nation are holding Barbaro tributes as well and Saturday night NBC will air a documentary — Barbaro: A Nation's Horse. Next month HBO will show its own Barbaro film.
Churchill Downs still gets mail addressed to Barbaro from around the world, as does Matz, who told writer Sean Clancy of a letter he got from a 10-year-old boy from the distant African country of Namibia. The youngster lives in an orphanage. He has AIDS. He loves Barbaro.
Last Sunday the Friends Of Barbaro (FOB) — a Web site dedicated to helping at-risk horses — held a Barbaro birthday party at Delaware Park that drew 600 people from as far as South Africa. The work of FOB is but one facet of Barbaro's growing legacy.
Besides the various funds set up since the last Derby for equine research — the Barbaro Fund at New Bolton has already collected $1.2 million — there's added focus on tracks replacing their dirt racing surfaces with synthetic substances in hopes they'll limit the number of breakdowns.
Thoroughbreds — powerful, but brittle legged — suffer fatal breakdowns at a rate of 1.5 per 1,000 racing starts. That translates to two deaths a day in the United States.
While all three Triple Crown tracks still have dirt surfaces, others have switched. Arlington Park in suburban Chicago debuts its new Polytrack today. Keeneland switched to an $8 million synthetic surface last fall. Del Mar is installing one now and Santa Anita will soon.
Turfway Park in Northern Kentucky had 24 fatal breakdowns two years ago, switched to a synthetic surface and had three last year. But that number jumped back up in the past fall-winter meet to nine.
With the platform their fabled colt has provided them, the Jacksons also have tried to end the slaughter of horses in the U.S. There are still two slaughterhouses in Texas and one in Illinois and according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures, they "processed" 100,800 horses last year.
Lukas had nothing but praise for the Jacksons:
"Talk about amazing sportsmen. It would have been easy after the first month to say this isn't going in the right direction and I think they were getting those signs. But they didn't take the easy path. They went all the way to the bottom — so did that doctors team — and tried everything. Those people spent millions of dollars to keep Barbaro as long as they did."
And from that maybe something positive will come said trainer John Shirreffs, who won the Derby with Giacomo and has Tiago in Saturday's race:
"It's a sad story, but maybe because of it there won't be as many other sad ones. If they're able to save some horses thanks to the experiences of Barbaro then it was worth while.
"And that would mean Barbaro's legend will just keep growing."
Contact this reporter at 225-2156 or
tarchdeacon@daytondailynews.com
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Post by kevin on May 5, 2007 23:41:41 GMT -5
Please provide the link from now on instead of pasting the whole article. Thanks!
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lawman
Apprentice Cog
Posts: 237
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Post by lawman on May 5, 2007 23:55:32 GMT -5
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Post by Dale Jackson on May 6, 2007 11:36:22 GMT -5
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Post by phinehas on May 6, 2007 17:39:01 GMT -5
This thread is about George. George lost his life saving children.
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Post by kevin on May 6, 2007 20:33:19 GMT -5
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