A New Take on Barbaro's Derby Performance

I am working on another article for Penn which means I am spending a lot of time on campus, in the library and occasionally, in the bookstore. The other day on one of my forays through the animal section, I happened upon a new book entitled The Dog By the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath by Erika Ritter. To be honest, the title caught my eye but so did the sub-title, Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships.

The Canadian author is fascinated by our paradoxical relationship to animals: how it is that we can kill what we claim to love, for one, all captured in the themes of the ages-old story about the dog left to guard a baby's cradle by well intentioned parents. While they are away, a servant enters the room and discovers the dog splattered with blood, the cradle overturned and the child missing. When the parents return, the father immediately slays the dog. Only then do they turn the cradle over, discover the child, unharmed, sleeping peacefully and a venomous snake, dead and bloodied, flung into the corner by the loyal dog.

How quick we are to blame those animals we love and trust! And how we assuage that guilt by elevating some members of their species to a privileged existence. Interesting conundrum to be sure, and one that I feel is embodied in our relationship to race horses in particular.

While Ritter does not pick up that exact trail, she does explore the Barbaro phenomenon in some depth and I was pleased to see that she even touched on the "hero" concept. She goes on to explore the Eight Belles tragedy as well as Big Brown's failed campaign for the Triple Crown. Both of these horses, in her opinion, were exploited by their ability to run on, as she puts it "hard turf track for a living."

First of all, there is the problem of her terminology. None of the Triple Crown races are contested on turf tracks so she is inaccurate in her choice of words. What I believe she meant to say was hard dirt tracks and a careful editor should have picked that up. But there is another hypothesis that she posits that I hadn't considered: that Barbaro's "spectacular Derby performance very likely contributed to the fracture that not only hobbled him in the Preakness two weeks later, but led to his death."

Does she mean to suggest that if Barbaro had won the Derby less convincingly he might not have broken down in the Preakness? Or that the races are run too close together? Or that horses should not run fast at all? Or that they just shouldn't run fast on dirt surfaces?

Anyone who watches the replay of Barbaro's Kentucky Derby victory will see a horse being hand ridden down the stretch, pulling away of his own volition. Remember that when Gretchen Jackson led him into the winner's circle, she noted that he wasn't even damp--hadn't broken a sweat. The whole event was like a romp in the park for him, she has mentioned.

I don't think Ritter should be so sure of her claim that Barbaro's Derby performance was at the root of his Preakness breakdown without scientific proof of such. And of course, that is impossible. But short of x-raying every race horse after every race, we have no way of knowing whether breakdowns are cumulative, structural or just plain bad luck. My guess is that it is a little bit of each.

Ritter has ventured into murky areas where controversy reigns and while I am delighted that she gives the Barbaro phenomenon the scholarly attention it deserves, I don't feel she has the racing knowledge to make unsubstantiated claims.