Walking a fine line at full throttle

The emotions back at the barn are always the same.
Sadness, set off by tears. Anger, abetted by bewilderment. A knot in the stomach the size of a fist.
And the people who pointed Barbaro squarely down the path toward a Triple Crown, the same people who lavished the best of everything on the big bay colt, were no exception. Nobody who watched the Preakness was.
A day later, as the scene shifted from Stall No. 40 at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore to a veterinary hospital in Kennett Square, Pa., topping the emotional mix was the fear that even the best of everything wouldn't be enough to save the Kentucky Derby winner's life.
Special circumstances
"You do not see this severe injury frequently," said Dr. Dean Richardson, chief of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center for Large Animals, "because the fact is most horses that suffer this typically are put down on the race track. This is rare."
Go For Wand stumbled to the dirt in the 1990 Breeders' Cup Distaff, threw her jockey and somehow staggered to the finish line. She was lowered to the track and euthanized on the spot, then buried in the infield at Saratoga Race Course the next day.
The list of horses who broke down competing in the Triple Crown series is studded with famous names and unforgettable images:
Union City in the 1993 Preakness, the Triple Crown's first fatal accident since Black Hills in the Belmont Stakes 34 years earlier; Preakness winner Prairie Bayou breaking down in the Belmont just three weeks later; a game Charismatic pulling up lame just past the finish line after placing third in the 1999 Belmont.
And those were unsettling echoes of perhaps the most devastating breakdown of all: Ruffian, the filly who crumpled on the backstretch in a 1975 match race against the colt Foolish Pleasure.
Less famous casualties
But it isn't just the biggest races that take casualties. More horses are foaled each year, the best thoroughbreds filling up the cards at the sport's glamorous, moneyed events, the not-so-greats running at grimy tracks for cheap purses.
A year ago, the crowd at Pimlico was treated to one of the most stirring accomplishments in sport. Ambushed by 50-1 shot Giacomo in the Kentucky Derby, Afleet Alex was chasing vindication at the Preakness when he stumbled at the top of the stretch. The colt's knees scraped the racetrack and his nose was close enough to disaster to stick out his tongue and lap up a mouthful.
Instead, Afleet Alex reared up, found his stride and won going away. His trainer, Tim Ritchey, who so loves the Pittsburgh Steelers that he sometimes wears one of their gray T-shirts under his suit and tie, dubbed it "the Immaculate Recovery."
But this Saturday, on a cool, clear afternoon perfect for a coronation, the crowd at Pimlico more than 100,000 strong -- and millions more looking in on TV -- witnessed one of racing's most disturbing realities.
Fine line
"Sad. Horrible. Hurt," is how trainer Bob Baffert, who has won the Derby three times and lost the final jewel of the Triple Crown races a heartbreaking four times, described the feeling Sunday. "It shows you the fine line a trainer has to walk.
"Timing is just one thing among lots of things that you have to get right, and it's different for just about every horse in your barn. Then one little misstep ... and something like this happens.
"People are going to say what they want, but I think it's just coincidence. If a foot hits wrong, they're going to turn an ankle. It's the same with football players, basketball players, take your pick. They're finely conditioned athletes, too, with all the skill in the world. But when they put a foot down wrong," Baffert concluded, "the result is the same."
Not exactly.
Thoroughbreds are athletes, and in some ways, like those in other sports. But they are pressed into service at an earlier stage of their development -- a 3-year-old horse is as high-strung as a teenager and about as physically mature -- and trained to run at full throttle.
Human parallel
When a horse puts a foot down, the imprint he leaves behind is about the same size as a normal human's shoe; but he does it at 40 mph, and at an average weight of 1,100 pounds, making it the stabilizing point for several times as much weight.
Trainer Michael Matz handled Barbaro with kid gloves; his horse was the first in 50 years to win the Derby after a five-week layoff. He peaked in time for the Derby, and now his greatest accomplishment would be simply to survive.
"Two weeks ago we were on such a high and this is our worst nightmare," Matz said Saturday night, after rushing to the veterinary hospital.
Anybody who saw him walk from the trackside to the barns at Pimlico earlier that afternoon understood the depth of feeling and the ache in his gut. Matz, after all, had rescued three kids from a plane crash nearly 17 years ago and he does not scare easily. But he was scared now.
"Hopefully, everything will go well with the operation," he added, "and we'll be able to save him."
Hopefully.
Because the last thing a sport too familiar with tragedy needs is more tears.
Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitkeap.org
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