Rest in Peace

So much for my prognostication skills. At 10: 00 this morning, Roy and Gretchen Jackson are the featured speakers at a Churchill Downs news conference. Although nothing is official until it happens, most presume the Jacksons will announce that Barbaro's final resting place will be the Kentucky Derby Museum, just outside the Churchill Downs race track and site of his thrilling 6 1/2 length victory in 2006. My hunch that it was the Kentucky Horse Park was wrong and in retrospect, the Jackson's decision, of course, makes all the sense in the world.

I have already told you that one year ago tomorrow, the day after Barbaro was euthanized, I spent the day at Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum, having previously scheduled my visit for research purposes. I will never forget the neon sign that scrolled outside the doors to the oval movie theater/reception area, the first exhibit you enter when you go through the museum. "Barbaro, thanks for the dream...." it read over and over in bright red letters.

Many people streamed into the museum with bouquets of flowers that they left at the feet of the statue that bore Barbaro's colors, as the reigning winner of the Derby and the movie that they showed in that oval theater repeated his thrilling victory on the half hour. I also toured the cemetery area just outside the Museum where other thoroughbred heroes are interred.

My guide, Tony Terry, the affable Director of PR at Churchill Downs who is in charge of staging what is arguably one of the biggest sporting events on the planet, told me that it was racing lore to bury the heads, hearts and hooves of thoroughbreds since those are their essence. Although Gretchen has admitted that she has been tempted many times to scatter some of Barbaro's ashes over the beautiful ground of Lael Farm, my guess is that the remains that will be interred at Churchill Downs, presumably at the foot of a statue of Barbaro, will be intact. The Jacksons are returning him to the site of his greatest victory, the feat for which he will be known for all time.

The front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer today carries a story about Barbaro's legacy that still lives on, a year after his death. It is a phenomenon made possible by the existence of Alex Brown's web site that continues to link the Fans of Barbaro together to do good deeds for horses everywhere. I have got to believe that it is an initiative that will be as hard to extinguish, as Barbaro's thrilling run down the stretch at Churchill Downs. "It's all Barbaro...." the announcer cried.

Yes it is. And as Roy Jackson said, "It still goes on."