Watched the Preakness yesterday and, like everone else I’m sure, was both horrified and sickened to see such a beautiful horse as Barbaro go down. After 8 hours of surgery today, the docs say his chance at survival is 50-50. That’s a heck of lot better than I thought after seeing Barbaro in distress and his jockey’s reaction once they got him into the horsey ambulance. I thought for sure he was going to be euthanized. Even though he got through today’s surgery, his recovery is at best an uncertain proposition.

In my view, when Barbaro first left the gate early he should have been disqualified. While I understand the needs of those who have invested so much time, money, and effort in preparing a horse for pursuit of the Triple Crown – and there would have been no small amount of human (bettor?) outcry and second-guessing if that had happened – but to do so in the name of concern for the horse’s well-being seems to me the proper course of action. This isn’t hindsight – one could tell from his behavior leading up to the race that Barbaro was a little on edge and seemingly distracted – perhaps the injury he suffered was manifesting itself in some early way.

The sad truth about horse racing is that, as marvelous and exhilarating a sport as it is, and as beautiful and athletic as the horses are, they are young creatures still developing physically – highly trained and pampered, to be sure – but their bodies are still growing during a period of their lives where the demands of performance, endurance, and human expectation are pushing them to the max.

Sadly, it is not unusual for these beautiful creatures to break down, and to see it happen on national television, I suppose, reveals this darker side of the sport to a heck of alot more people than usual. All we can do is hope and pray for Barbaro’s recovery.

It is said that to win the Triple Crown is the most difficult thing to do in sport. Yesterday serves as just another example of why that might indeed be true.