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Barbaro Remembered By Those Who Raised Him
Greg Burchell doesn’t know if it’ll be days or weeks. For now, he just can’t bear leading any of the 26 horses on his farm in Nicholasville, Ky., into a certain stall inside barn No. 4.
The stall is different from the others because a diamond-shaped opening allows the occupant to stick his nose out for a better view. It’s also the place Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner Barbaro was born and spent many of his early days.
“We’re letting it rest,” Burchell said of the stall. “It’d be sacrilege to put a horse in there after Barbaro died.”
The horse was euthanized Monday at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, where he was rushed after breaking down in last May’s Preakness (gr. I). In Barbaro’s birthplace, the horse country of central Kentucky, the death is being taken hard.
Barbaro was foaled before dawn on Apr. 29, 2003, at what is now Springmint Farm. Long-legged and somewhat oversized, it took two people to pull him out, said Sandy Sanborn, who along with her husband, Bill, raised the colt for owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson.
Greg Burchell doesn’t know if it’ll be days or weeks. For now, he just can’t bear leading any of the 26 horses on his farm in Nicholasville, Ky., into a certain stall inside barn No. 4.
The stall is different from the others because a diamond-shaped opening allows the occupant to stick his nose out for a better view. It’s also the place Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner Barbaro was born and spent many of his early days.
“We’re letting it rest,” Burchell said of the stall. “It’d be sacrilege to put a horse in there after Barbaro died.”
The horse was euthanized Monday at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, where he was rushed after breaking down in last May’s Preakness (gr. I). In Barbaro’s birthplace, the horse country of central Kentucky, the death is being taken hard
Barbaro was foaled before dawn on Apr. 29, 2003, at what is now Springmint Farm. Long-legged and somewhat oversized, it took two people to pull him out, said Sandy Sanborn, who along with her husband, Bill, raised the colt for owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson.
“He just needed a little help,” Sanborn said. “If a lot of horses need help, they’ll fight you. Barbaro, if he needed help with anything, he would pretty much look at you and say, 'OK, what do I need to do?”’
Sally Mullis, who was the farm’s barn foreman while Barbaro was there, recalls how personable the colt was.
As a yearling, Barbaro pulled tendons in a leg and was fitted for a splint. Because that meant he would have to stay cooped up for several weeks, Mullis decided the place he would be most comfortable was the stall where he was born – the one with the diamond-shaped opening.
The stall had been built for another horse that was preparing to race, but it proved the perfect recovery room for the eventually famous patient, she said.
“He could hang his head out,” Mullis said. “Anything that was going on at any certain time of the day, there he was.”
This week, wreaths and a bouquet of flowers were placed near a small sign outside the Springmint gate that reads “Birthplace of Barbaro.” Mullis said she will soon hang a more permanent memorial plaque on barn No. 4.
Condolences for Barbaro have been expressed across central Kentucky, including the farms were his mother and sire now live.
“Everybody in the business feels the loss of Barbaro so deeply that it would be unfair to say we have any more or less tie to him because of Dynaformer,” said Margaret Layton, publicist for Three Chimneys Farm, the home of Barbaro’s sire. “That’s the impact of Barbaro. That’s how strongly he impacted everyone in this business.”
