Sad day if you're into thoroughbred horse racing. Barbaro was put down today.

http://sports.yahoo.com/rah/news?slug=ap-barbarodeath&prov=ap&type=lgns

 

Should have been done the day it happened.

Tim

 

Yep! Maybe Barbaro should have been put down just after the accident.
Hard to say, though.

Horse racing is a brutal sport, for the horses.

 

People on the outside of the rail have a tendency to think the owners of these thouroughbred horses only care about the earning potential of the horse. Years ago this may have been more true, than not. Today there are a lot of horse farms around where I live here that take a lot of money to operate. ....

The chances of any of these farms having a big money winner are slim. One stud fee from a winning blood line, one pop, is $500 K . So that tells me the horse owners are not in racing to make a fortune, odds are against them, Thouroughbred horses have it in their blood to run. If they are not on a track they will race with a dog running along the fence. They just love to run...


In Barbaros case I think the owners just loved the horse. They knew most likely he could never even go to stud. They gave him every chance to survive and said he looked to be in pain, so they had to do what any responsible animal lover does. put him down. The owner said they just wanted him to get well, stud or not, just so they could turn him out to pasture. They loved that horse, as most true horsemen/women do here in Ky. It must be a very sad house at Barboros farm tonite...

 

I agree with you Greg, but sometimes people love their horses (or animals in general) too much. They think they're doing them a favor by keeping them alive, but they don't think of the pain they're puting the horse through. Some times the kinder thing to do is put them out of their misery. Barbaro's chances were slim to none to ever being out to pasture and pain free, and most people knew it from the start.

Tim

 

I am happy it was not done the day it happened, they learned a ton from helping him, and it is a sad day.

 

I agree Tim. I know for us outsiders to see someone keep a horse alive that has broken its leg, it seems inhumane. If I recall "Seabisuit" had broken his leg and was saved from death by some one that just wanted him to stay alive. (Watch the movie, it is cool)

Each time the equine vets work on a horses leg, I think medical advancements and knowledge have the potential to grow . Barbaro's people did the best they could and should sleep better now knowing that. jmo...

 

Poor guy. I was hoping he would pull through and beat all the odds. But after 8 months of ups and downs it looked like he was walking through a mine field, one potentially life-threatening setback always seemed just around the corner.

 

It makes me sick to think of what that horse went thru...RIP.