Ah, Barbaro...we hardly knew ye.....

Sometimes I start a blog with all intention of finishing it quickly and posting it in a timely manner, especially when I’m commenting on a current newsworthy topic. But, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and this blog is a few months late once again.


Ahhhh, Barbaro, we hardly knew ye……

Recently, the American Sheeple were saddened by the euthanizing of beloved Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. To hear the newsies say it, the entire nation as a whole mourns the January 29th death of a beloved sporting icon, a courageous fighter who finally succumbed to his traumatic injuries.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? It’s all about money.

Yes, he was a fast, beautiful, graceful animal. He won the Kentucky Derby and was poised to possibly win the entire Triple Crown. And more so, he was going to make a number of people ungodly filthy rich. Once he was injured on May 20th 2006, that gravy train derailed. If he had recovered, Barbaro would have been worth about 30 million dollars. That’s prize money up front, and stud fees for the rest of his natural life. Thoroughbreds, unlike other animals, cannot be bred through artificial insemination; the rules to their particular sport dictate that only natural mating may produce a thoroughbred horse. So, run a few times in a circle, get paid to screw the rest of your life….30 million bucks worth? Hey, not a bad deal. Even Ron Jeremy envies that deal.

Of course, there was insurance. LOTS of insurance. There was not only death coverage, but stud insurance too in case he was incapacitated and could no longer mount a mare to breed. So, the owners still got paid; just not as much as had he lived. But I’m willing to bet they were pulling his weasel every day he was in that vet office, freezing his skeet to sell…he might not have sired any immediate thoroughbred offspring but how many spurious fuckers are out there willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for black-market underground breeding stock?

He spent several months in lavish doctors’ care at a recovery facility in Pennsylvania, with thousands of people showing their love by shipping him crates of apples and carrots as treats. Are you fucking kidding me? Spending scads of money to ship perishable produce to a horse…a fucking horse, people……a horse who was already getting better medical care than 90% of Americans. And these are the same people who wouldn’t even think to send a leftover packet of Arby’s horseradish sauce to starving people in Darfur, but they send apples to a 30-million-dollar jumped-up pack animal.

In a sinister coincidence, Barbaro’s jockey at the time of his accident, Edgar Prado, was riding the British-owned horse Funfair at the 2005 Breeder’s Cup a year before the Barbaro incident. At the start of the race, Funfair broke a hind leg in much the same way Barbaro did, and it was so badly torn up that the horse was killed right on the track. How many more millions of rich hoity-toity dollars must be lost before this man is stopped?