I don’t normally read the local (Charlotte, NC’s Observer) sports columnist, but today’s column caught my eye; his final sentence sums up my feelings beautifully.
Posted on Fri, Jul. 14, 2006
IN MY OPINION
Barbaro’s valiant race could be on its final run
TOM SORENSEN
If you want to see a tough guy turn tender, invoke Barbaro. America doesn’t have a team, but it has a horse.
Living means more than staying alive, and if the colt can’t escape his pain, his owner will allow him to sleep the permanent sleep.
Barbaro has undergone four surgeries since he was injured at the start of the Preakness Stakes two months ago. The hope was that the surgeries and the six casts he has worn would enable him to overcome the devastating injury to his right hind leg. Alas, that hope appears slim.
I don’t want to embellish this, but I suspect most of us can remember where we were when we saw the replay of the injury, if we missed the race. Calls were made, e-mail exchanged. Did you see it? We saw it. It was horrific, a simple misstep, a shattered leg and a life altered and maybe ended.
Even if we don’t follow horse racing the way we follow football we wanted to see Barbaro win the Preakness. The colt won the Kentucky Derby by a staggering 6 1/2 lengths. The rest of the field might as well have been running in mud. For Barbaro, it was as if a smooth red carpet had been rolled all the way around the track.
We like greatness, and this was it. Until the Preakness, Barbaro had run six races and won them all. Find me an athlete who was having a better year.
Animals can be cocky, obnoxious and willful, petulant, put-upon and ungrateful, and aren’t they great? The people I trust most have an instinctive love for animals. How we treat them is one of those qualities that tells the world who we are. Anybody who abuses an animal that can’t fight back or call the cops is worthless.
If you kick the dog, leave it outside on a sweltering summer day or dress it like some four-legged Barbie, have at it. But I hope when you get to St. Peter – if there is a St. Peter – he’s wearing a PETA button and holding a leash.
My dogs are no Barbaro, but the idea of having to put one of them down is impossibly sad. They’re not obedient. If I say sit or stay or roll over they look at me as if I should be put down. What are they, seals?
I can’t imagine life without them. I call them when I travel, take them for walks downtown because I worry about them becoming too suburban, and buy them gifts at least once a week. And not once has Nike, the Boston, or Caymus, the greyhound that rescued his rescuers, looked at a gift and said, “You expect me to wear that in public?”
Not that I would buy them clothes. No dog wants to wear clothes, except for a poodle, maybe. They want bones, they want treats and they want to run and explore and be loved.
My dogs get to me and Barbaro got to us. He looked as if he loved to run, and he did it beautifully. Most of us saw him finish only one race. He is 3 years old.
I have visited the grave of Secretariat. I hope I’m ancient before I have the opportunity to pay my respects to Barbaro.
Perhaps this instance would be useful in getting the JC to come into modern day (JMO opinion, let’s not turn the thread into a live cover vs AI debate).
