Farewell, Barbaro.
I’ve been loosely following the story of Barbaro, the famed racehorse who won the Kentucky Derby and was favored to win the Triple Crown until he shattered three bones in his hind leg during the Preakness last May in Baltimore.
The news of his euthanization on Monday makes me so sad, in addition to raising a lot of questions: Was it humane to keep him alive this long? Was it ethical to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the best veterinary medicine possible when millions of Americans lack basic medical care? Is it ethical to race horses in the first place? We use animals for our own benefit on a daily basis. At what point – if at all – does our control and training of animals for our own benefit become unethical? And why is an animal’s life perceived as worth so much less than a human’s when in so many instances, humans are the most barbaric, vulgar beings in existence?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know that had Barbaro been my horse and I had the means to do so, I probably would have taken the same measures to try to save his life. The human/animal bond is an incredible thing.
From a New York Times editorial:
Humans are not especially good at noticing horses, but Barbaro was easy to notice. And if his life caused us to pay attention to the possibilities of all horses, his death should cause us to pay attention to the tragedy inherent in the end of so many horses. Barbaro’s death was tragic not because it was measured against the races he might have won or even against the effort to save his life. It was tragic because of what every horse is.
You would have to look a long, long time to find a dishonest or cruel horse. And the odds are that if you did find one, it was made cruel or dishonest by the company it kept with humans. It is no exaggeration to say that nearly every horse — Barbaro included — is pure of heart. Some are faster, some slower. Some wind up in the winner’s circle. But they should all evoke in us the generosity of conscience — a human quality, after all — that was expended in the effort to save this one horse.
The same can be said for dogs. There are no bad pets, only bad owners.