Barbaro's pain, death echo disappointment of war

When Barbaro waltzed away from the field at last spring's Kentucky Derby, it had been 28 years since the nation anointed a Triple Crown winner. More than one horse had recently come close, taking the derby and the Preakness only to come up short in the Belmont Stakes. Racing fans were used to dashed hopes.

But Barbaro, a rangy bay colt who came into the derby undefeated, was the stuff of cautious dreams. At the finish, he led by 6 1/2 lengths, the greatest winning margin in 50 years. Intriguingly, his trainer was holding him to a light schedule. Would that be the difference, keeping this one horse fresh enough to prevail in the final, most grueling race?

The Preakness should have been a breeze. Barbaro was so eager he burst through the gate early. But after the second start it was only a few steps to the horrible sequence now inscribed in the national memory: the right hind hoof twisting, turning the leg J-shaped; the jockey leaping off, holding the stunned animal as, with all the delicacy of a ballerina, it pulled the leg aloft, prancing on three.

For most racehorses, a leg as badly shattered as Barbaro's would have spelled the end. Instead, Barbaro's owners tried everything to save him, investing thousands in the most advanced equine care money could buy. Cards and flowers poured in, along with more than a million dollars in donations for the Pennsylvania horse hospital where Barbaro convalesced.

Over eight months, periodic bulletins told of improvements. But even as one leg healed, another would begin to fail; most of a rear hoof had to be removed. Barbaro had laminitis, a painful condition that can emerge when a horse's weight is unevenly distributed. By late last month, it had invaded both front legs, even as problems continued with Barbaro's hind legs. Owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson euthanized the animal, making Barbaro, and Americans' grief for him, front-page news.

The same day, the Associated Press transmitted pictures of a dedication ceremony for a new veterans' rehabilitation center in San Antonio. One showed a long parade of limbless or otherwise injured men in uniform, each being pushed in a wheelchair by another soldier.

Though they did not make the photo, U.S. servicewomen have been maimed, as well. All together, more than 500 Americans have lost limbs since the start of the Iraq war. The number of U.S. wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan now totals more than 21,000. If illnesses and injuries from accidents are added in, the number of war-damaged Americans swells to more than 50,000. A tally of the Iraqi wounded would be vastly greater.