Let me rephrase...why does barbaro get all this attention for winning one major race?

Question

how does a horse get all this attention with the understanding of its suffering of unsuccessful surgeries, garnish all this attention ? Its news is put ahead of over 3000 military troops being killed. i dont understand . You guys are right!! I dont get it !! I would understand if barbaro won the triple crown!! There are other horses that won two thirds of the triple crown and there was no tribute for those horses. Whats the appeal for babaro? please explain? compared to other one race winning horses and explain why a horse deserves more attention than a u.s. troop that died in irag? i'm sure that soldier showed plenty of courage too. but i dont see cnn telling everybody where he/she is going to be buried?

Answer 1

Barbaro deserves the attention he got because he won the Kentucky Derby. The Derby is one of if of the biggest race in all of horse racing. Also, Barbaro won in impressive fashion, winning by 8 1/2 lengths. Many thought that he would win triple crown but that changed when he got hurt. So many people watched the Preakness Stakes and felt bad for him. His story touched the heart of many Americans

Answer 2

He won the race by  a wide margin and everyone was hoping for a triple crown

Answer 3

Its not the race itself, its the politics behind it,  their were alot of issues with horse racing and the animal humane society.  So the breeders decided to have compassion for their sport and the owners.  All politics.

Answer 4

I agree

For some reason people fell i love with this horse and I dont understand why. He was like a national old yeller and now we have CNN, ESPN and Fox showing him being killed.

Answer 5

First of all, it wasn't any old race.  He won the Kentucky Derby.  In the US, I think it's the most famous horse race.  There's the rest of the triple crown series and there's the Breeders Cup, but between them all, I think Americans are most familiar with the Kentucky Derby.

Second, he won it impressively.  He set an incredibly fast time (at least in the top 10 fastest times in the history of the race, although I can't remember exactly what place he's in) and he won by a huge margin (a margin that no one has won the Derby by for 60 years)... he made the race look easy and it's certainly not easy to beat 19 other horses going a mile and a quarter on the first saturday in may.  Given his undefeated record and his impressive win in the Derby, there was talk that Barbaro could win the entire Triple Crown.

But what made Barbaro really interesting was what happened to him in the Preakness.  People went into that race with such high expectations of the horse.  Then Barbaro added to the drama by breaking through the gate and forcing the other horses to wait while he loaded back in.  Then when the race finally started, Barbaro was out of it in the first 100 yards.  Very few people actually watched the rest of the Preakness... they were all drawn to Barbaro standing on 3 legs, watching all the other horses run by him.

Certainly there's other horses who have broken down before... and they don't gain a whole lot of attention.  Certainly even ones who broke their legs on national television in important races... depending on the horse, they might gain a little more attention.  Even quite famous horses who broke their legs in important races on national television... those horses gained quite a lot of attention (Go for Wand, Ruffian...).  But I don't think that we've ever had a famous horse break its legs in an important race on national television and then have that followed by 9 months of trying to save the horse.  Go For Wand had to be euthanized immediately, Ruffian was euthanized within 12 hours of the race.  With Barbaro, not only was he this famous horse that had this horrible thing happen to him in front of tons of people, he also had a 9 month journey.  People were intrigued by his initial injury, then every day they had to get up and check the news to see how the horse was doing.  It was more the quest for survival than anything else that made him a great news story.  Go For Wand and Ruffian were both huge news stories, but both died so suddenly that there was no journey to be attracted to.  With Barbaro, there wasn't just the tragedy in the Preakness... it wasn't just one event... it was months and there were many twists and turns.  At the Preakness, the question was will they try to save him.  Then the next day, how did the surgery go?  Then every day after that it was 'is he better,' 'is he worse'?  Then he got laminitis in the summer, then by december he was walking without a cast and we were thinking he'd get to go home for Christmas!  Then suddenly he was getting much worse and suddenly he was dead.  He was such a big news story and gets all the attention because he was there for 9 months and people could always check on how he was doing.

Why don't US troops get that much attention?  first of all, they do... i can't turn on the tv or computer without being reminded about the US troops in Iraq and how another group of them was killed today.  Second, there's too many US troops in Iraq... we don't have just one to be interested in... just like we don't hear about some $2000 claimer being euthanized... of all the horses and all the troops killed, we don't pay attention to it unless there's something that stands out about this one.  Barbaro's injury was much more high profile than claiming horses because Barbaro had won the Derby... if some famous person went and got injured in Iraq, it would certainly be a news story and get a lot of attention.  Third, since we hear about troops dying in Iraq all the time, it's white noise now... it's not new... it happens all the time... we don't pay attention to all the news stories about dying troops because it's boring to us now that it's so commonplace.  

Fourth, controversy!  Barbaro gave us all something to unite behind.  Whether you like horse racing or not, whether you were a fan of Barbaro or not, even if you belong to an organization that thinks horseracing is evil and want to do away with the sport... everyone together wanted that horse to survive.  The troops dying in Iraq are much more controversial... half the country doesn't even think the troops ought to be there... half the country wants to send more troops... it's not a feel good story... every time we hear about troops dying, we're reminded of the tension in our country and if you talk about it with someone you're liable to end up arguing about the subject.  With Barbaro, we can all agree that we want the horse to survive.

CNN only had one horse's burial to report... it was a famous horse and a big news story for many months and many people were attracted to the story.  CNN isn't going to report all of the burials of all the troops that die... it's burdensome enough that they have to every day report the number of people who died yesterday.  Unless it's someone special to the country, or special to you, it's not important enough for you to take notice.

Why exactly do you think Barbaro doesn't deserve the attention?  And why are you annoyed about hearing about his burial place?

Answer 6

Barbaro got the attention he did because people fell in love with him, and there was something about him and his human connections which appealed to people from all walks of life and every sort of background. His brave fight for life captured everyone's attention for awhile in 2006 and 2007- and it has had enormous benefits in terms of raising public awareness of the terrible disease that he died from, laminitis. Millions of dollars have now been raised for research into this horrible affliction, and the hope is that this will one day result in new treatments, and perhaps, a cure. Laminitis, ( or founder, as it is called by those of us in the horse business) is a MAJOR killer of horses, both here in the US, and worldwide. It's estimated that between 100,000 and 300,000 horses DIE from laminitis or its complications every year, just in the US alone. The great majority of these animals are not famous- in fact, in most cases, no one even knows their names, outside of the owner(s) involved. This doesn't mean that they are any less valuable or important, however, just because they are not famous.

I also believe that Barbaro got the attention he did because of his human connections. The Jacksons and the colt's trainer, Michael Matz, are unusual people in a lot of ways. This was the first time in anyone's memory, I think, that an attempt was made to save a valuable race horse for reasons other than stud fees. The colt's owners made it clear from the begining that they were trying to save him because they LOVED him, and for no other reason. They could have cared less about his potential future earnings in the breeding shed, because it was likely that there wouldn't have been any  of these anyway, because of his injury. The racing industry is just NOT USED to this kind of thinking- or to this kind of unselfish behavior. For most of the people in that business, the horses are seen as commodities and as money making machines, rather than the flesh and blood creatures they actually are, which is heartbreaking, at least for some of us. Then there was the heartwarming story of the colt's trainer, Matz, who is not only a 2 time Olympic silver medalist in his own right, but is also a genuine hero and lifesaver, as well as  someone who came from very humble beginings and then rose to the top of his profession through his own hard work and perseverence. Matz is not like the Nick Zitos, Bob Bafferts, Todd Pletchers, and D.Wayne Lukas's of the world, and he NEVER will be. Compared to these other people, Matz will always be considered to be small potatoes, despite the fact that he has had enormous success in his career and life. In short, he is a " little guy" if you will, and people in the racing business just aren't used to the idea that someone like that can come from nowhere and win at the highest levels, and beat these other big name people at their own game as easily as Matz and this colt did. That alone caught the eye of a lot of us who might otherwise not have paid any attention to this whole situation, because it rubbed some of us the wrong way. Remember the criticism of Matz's training methods which was in the press right before the Derby a couple years ago? People said he was wrong and crazy to let Barbaro have a month off after the colt won the Florida Derby that spring. After the colt won the Derby so commandingly, the critics SHUT UP, which they needed to do, and they have been quiet about it since then. That might not have happened the way it did had Barbaro been any other horse.

As for the horses who are members of what is sometimes called the 2/3 Club, there have been plenty of tributes paid to them over the years, and some of them have gone on to sire other horses like themselves, and a few, like the great Man O War, have sired a Triple Crown winner. These horses are remembered and honored all the time, just not in the news of the day. The reason a lot of soldiers who die in places like Iraq don't get the publicity is because of privacy laws and because their families often request this. I live near Dover AFB in Delaware, and there have been many, many nights when I have been woken by planes flying overhead at 2 in the morning ( last night, there was one that took off at 3:30 am) when they are either taking off or landing after going to Iraq and Afghanistan to pick up our war dead and bring them home for identification and burial. Do you know why those planes fly at that hour, instead of during the daylight? It's to avoid publicity, and keep the Air Force from having to deal with crowds of reporters who would otherwise bother the families of the deceased soldiers. The news networks, like CNN and Fox, normally will respect the families' wish for privacy, and this is why you seldom see burial or funeral plans for individual soldiers announced on them. It has nothing to do with who deserves the most attention, pal, and everything to do with respecting peoples' rights to privacy and confidentiality.  There are exceptions to this, of course, such as when someone like a 4 or 5 star general gets killed, but this doesn't happen very often.

Enough said.

Answer 7

didn't that happen a long time ago.

Answer 8

Barbaro gets that attention for the same reason Marilyn Monroe gets so much attention- they died young, having started out with so much promise. Had Monroe lived for another 4 decades, she would have just been another random blonde. Had Barbaro not died, he would have just been another horse who won a race.