Barbaro - Tribute to a Champion

Barbaro captured the public's imagination - more through his injury and long hopeful recovery than his previous performance on the track. His loss made headlines and gathered attention from media that doesn't otherwise look at racing. Was he "just a horse"?

Barbaro started life as thousands of others do - in a foaling stall on wobbly legs that owners and handlers hope will one day carry the young one to greatness. On April 29, 2003 he came into the world at Sanborn Chase Farm in Nicholasville Kentucky, a fragile being facing a long road to being a racehorse, and a longer road to being a successful one. A son of Dynaformer, the bay colt was a product of careful breeding for a quantity unknown. Unlike halter horses bred for conformation or horses bred for markings a Thoroughbred is often seen as pretty is as pretty does. However, correct conformation helps a horse function efficiently. Speed is harder to breed for - unknowns and unraced mares have produced champions while champions have fizzled in the breeding shed. Even a horse blessed with speed must have more than speed. He must be trainable. He must be willing to turn it off when called to do so. While centuries of instinct and ability whispers in his head RUN he must be willing to defer to humans when called not to and when called on to use that brilliant speed.

There is another thing all good race horses possess - and impossible to breed for. It's heart. A horse with heart will try. He'll dig down and give you every ounce of effort he can summon. Heart is seen in $5,000 claimers as well as names known around the world. It's seen in the eyes of those horses that when a rival pulls alongside and looks them in the eye they dig down and fight back not wanting to give up. Some horses when challenged in this way quit. Others become legendary rivals such as great horses like Affirmed and Alydar, their names so linked together it's hard to think of one without the other. There's horses who are overwhelmingly superior - such as the highest standard of Secretariat's domination of the 1973 Belmont. These horses blaze into view with flashes of speed and come back tossing their heads eager to run some more.