Somber thoughts…

I was watching live when Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby last May. I was at work that afternoon, but one of the shelter guests and I watched the race on TV. A couple of weeks later when the Preakness was run, I was too busy to turn on the race, but I saw the news later on. I was glad I wasn’t watching. The shelter guest later on said to me, “did you see what happened to that race horse? We were watching when he won the Derby.” We almost couldn’t believe it.

I followed all the news stories about Barbaro’s injuries and treatment, and I knew it wasn’t looking good. I kept on hoping, but I doubted that Barbaro would recover fully enough even to retire quietly. I was still very sad to read of his passing on Monday.

We’re inspired by the determination and courage that animals often show in the face of critical injuries and illness. But we sometimes forget that their experience is different from ours. They persevere because they cannot imagine how much worse things could get. They cannot foresee, and fear, pain or debility or death. They live only in the moment. To them, no matter how bad things are now, life can only improve from here–because all their experience up to now has taught them that. They have no knowledge of the last breath. This is the gift of the gods to them.

In contrast to them, our own bitter knowledge of what can and will come to us all is, perhaps, our curse. This may be, in the truest sense, the meaning of The Fall.

I saw this moving essay today, from USA Today:

Barbaro’s final finish line

Tue Jan 30, 8:28 AM ET

With all of the human dramas unfolding these days, it might strike some as odd that so many people around the world care so deeply about the life and death of a horse.

But Barbaro, the thoroughbred who was put down Monday after an eight-month struggle for survival, was no ordinary horse. And his fight for life was no small deal, precisely because it provided people with something to root for, unashamedly and unreservedly, in a world where such causes are sometimes hard to find.

The story of Barbaro was not one of nuance, shades of gray or differing perspectives. It was one of a champion horse who shattered his right hind leg during last May’s Preakness Stakes, at the very moment he was expected to race to glory. He provided great hope and, ultimately, great grief. His tale was tragedy in its purest form.

Barbaro’s enormous promise was evident at last spring’s Kentucky Derby, the first of the three Triple Crown races, which he won by the biggest margin in almost 60 years. By the time of the Preakness, he was seen as potentially one of the greatest ever.

But it was in defeat that he captured the nation’s imagination. His cruel injury was so severe that, a decade or two ago, he almost immediately would have been euthanized. He benefited from the best of care at the University of Pennsylvania. He also benefited from owners who put aside cost and did all they could to save him. Although that effort ultimately failed, Barbaro’s fighting spirit and uphill battle against the odds made a war-torn nation feel better about itself, much as the underdog racehorse Seabiscuit did during the Great Depression.

Barbaro’s injury has already led to some rethinking of the surfaces at horse tracks to try to minimize future accidents. Although he did not achieve the victories of other greats like Secretariat and Seattle Slew, he showed himself a champion of a different sort, one that struck a chord with people around the world.

That so much effort and emotion was invested in a single animal’s fate reflects a desire to cling to a sense of humanity in a world where the inhuman too often prevails.