TheBanyanTree: Keeping the faith...

[Dee]

Yesterday's Preakness, the second jewel in the illusive Triple Crown, 
went almost instantly from joyous excitement to horror when Barbaro, 
fresh from his Kentucky Derby win, shattered bones in his right rear 
ankle about a hundred yards out of the starting gate.

Broken legs in horses are a lot more complicated than the same injury in 
humans. It is, as they say, the nature of the beast. For us, the injury 
would be, though painful, pretty much no more than inconvenient. For 
horses, it can be lethal, for a variety of reasons.

A lot of mojo is going out today from all around the world, I expect. 
That bay colt has picked up a huge following and we're all praying for 
him. As near as I can determine, he's in surgery as we speak, at what is 
apparently THE best place for it. If skill and prayers and his own fine 
spirit can do it, Barbaro will survive this.

The most recent report I could find (within this last hour) is also the 
most complete: http://tinyurl.com/rbxs4 It's also the most scarey...new 
details show the injury to be more complicated and extensive than 
originally reported.

On the one hand, you could feel this is an awful lot of fuss over a 
"mere" horse, especially when compared with all the people tragedies 
playing out every day. On the other hand, we need our heroes when things 
are dark, and athletes who display skill and heart above the ordinary 
fall naturally into the hero role. And it may be it's only our animal 
heroes we can safely admire because they won't let us down with hidden 
clay feet smeared across the news columns. We know that sometimes the 
people handling the animal might be venal and nasty but the animal is 
simply doing what he or she does best, and doing it with skill and style 
and great heart. We can put our faith in that, knowing we won't be 
disillusioned.

(I hasten to point out, I have no reason to believe Barbaro's people 
have ever treated him with anything but the greatest care. The above was 
simply an illustrative statement.)

Hugs, Dee...keeping the faith...