“…and here comes Barbaro. The undefeated Barbaro comes up on the outside and he takes the lead as the field turns for home in the Kentucky Derby. Barbaro turns it on… they’re coming to the finish and it is all Barbaro in a SUBLIME performance—he runs away from them all and he has saved something left for the Preakness. Barbaro wins by seven…This was a no doubt about it winner…” (2006 Derby announcer call)
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They called him a superhorse—another Secretariat, Citation, or Seattle Slew. He was perfect in every sense of the word. Beautiful and talented, Barbaro had it all, and he was undefeated in five starts prior to his annihilation of the 2006 Kentucky Derby field. Barbaro began his short but spectacular career by winning a maiden allowance race a Delaware Park on October 4, 2005. From there, he demolished foes in the Laurel Futurity on November 19, 2005, then, on New Year’s Day, January 1, 2006, he won his three year old debut, the Tropical Park Derby (G III). Barbaro still had much to prove before he would run for the Roses. He had never started on dirt, and his connections (trainer Michael Matz, Owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson) felt he was good enough to give it a shot. That was probably one of the best decisions they have ever made, or will ever make perhaps with the exception of the decision to breed La Ville Rouge to Dynaformer. On April 29, 2003, the great Barbaro came into the world because of that decision.
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Barbaro’s first dirt start, the Grade III Holy Bull Stakes on February 4, 2006 at Gulfstream Park, was run over a very muddy track that year, but it didn’t faze the valiant colt that America would soon come to love. He won it easily, and the race became the perfect stepping stone for what he would accomplish just less than a month later, on April 1, 2006, in the Florida Derby. Barbaro came from post 10, which at Gulfstream, is a very bad thing. After a wide trip, the big bay still had enough in him to extend fully and defeat an impressive Sharp Humor. Now five for five, two for two on dirt, Barbaro was ready for the Big Derby.
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On May 6, 2006, Barbaro made history in what can only be described as a phenomenal performance in the 132nd Kentucky Derby. It was a race that will never be forgotten. I watched in awe as the horse I backed for the race, a horse I had liked long before the majority, ran home to glory that day, and made it look easy. After a six and a half length victory (one of the longest in Kentucky Derby history), people began to whisper, telling of perhaps a twelfth Triple Crown Winner. And who can blame them? The sport was searching desperately for its latest hero, and here he was. Barbaro looked every bit capable of pulling off the nearly impossible—the feat that has very closely eluded more horses than have accomplished it—the Triple Crown. But Barbaro’s triumph would end only two weeks later, and he would become another one of those that could have been.
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He was the favorite for the May 20th Preakness Stakes, but nothing went right for him that day. He acted up when Michael Matz put the saddle on him. He broke prematurely from the starting gate, a mistake that may have cost him that race if he’d gotten to run the whole trip. The force of the magnets that hold the doors of the starting gates shut is very strong, and it takes a great deal of effort to break through them. On the second try, they all broke clean. Of course, we all know that Barbaro didn’t get very far. One Wrong Step—that was all it took, and the dream was dashed, shattered with his leg that afternoon. Barbaro stood off to the side, calmly like the champion that he was, and allowed the track veterinarian to tend to him. He suffered through pain as a deserving champion, Bernardini, taking his place in history, won the Preakness Stakes. Bernardini went on to do much greater things as a three year old—he won the Travers Stakes (G1), the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1), and was second to Invasor in the Breeder’s Cup Classic (G1). Bernardini is a son of AP Indy, who is by Seattle Slew out of a Secretariat mare, Weekend Surprise.
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The Preakness Stakes had repercussions that even the most pessimistic of people could not imagine. Barbaro shattered his right hind leg; he broke it in approximately twenty places. Surgery to reconstruct the leg was a success of sorts—even though the twenty three pins that were inserted held the leg together nicely to allow it to heal, Barbaro would always have a “hitch in his giddy-up,” as Dr. Dean Richards of the New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvania said. The leg was disfigured, but in time the horse would walk along with a terrible limp, but no pain. It was the awful hoof disease Laminitis that finally got the best of Barbaro. He struggled with the infection for most of his time in the hospital, and finally, on January 29, 2007, the Laminitis got to all four of his feet, and Barbaro could no longer stand comfortably. He was euthanized.
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Barbaro had received and overwhelming amount of public support while attempting to recover. People all across America sent him treats, pictures, banners, and even email. His Kentucky Derby efforts haunted the minds of the Eclipse Award panel as they made the decisions regarding the 2006 awards. Just before his death, Barbaro had been runner up for the Eclipse Award Three Year Old Champion behind Bernardini, and only outvoted on by Invasor for 2006 Horse of the Year.
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Barbaro had survived eight months of the best and most intensive treatment that America had to offer in the summer and fall of 2006, and that alone is more than most horses have the stamina to endure. But Barbaro should be remembered for what he accomplished on the track. He was perfect in six starts, and although the seventh killed him, nothing can ever be taken away from what he did. The 2006 Kentucky Derby was an incredibly impressive performance—a single moment that became the line of demarcation between Barbaro and the nineteen talented three year olds that could not catch him in the Run for the Roses. His lifetime record was 7-6-0-0, and his earnings, $2,302,200, a very impressive number for only running six and one half times. Barbaro left many questions unanswered, however. No one will ever know just how good he was, or would have continued to be. He could have been the hero that horseracing has been seeking now for 30 years. Or he could have been an impressive Derby winner who faced his first defeat under less tragic conditions in one of the other two Triple Crown races. He could have been another close call like Smarty Jones, Silver Charm or Real Quiet. Anything can happen in horseracing, and Barbaro could still have been victim to bad luck had it not been for the ill fate that he suffered. One thing is for sure: he definitely will not be just another name etched on the old Churchill Downs grandstand—not just another Derby winner to be forgotten over the years. The horse left hoofprints on the hearts of racing fans all over America, and even though the limit to Barbaro’s greatness will forever remain a mystery, he will be remembered.
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They called him a superhorse, but now, we’ll never know.
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