Barbaro's tragic Preakness

The once-a-year race goers really did not understand what they were seeing. The racing lifers knew instantly.

Barely 300 yards into Saturday's Preakness at Pimlico, the Kentucky Derby winner's life was on the line. Very quickly, just about everybody in the record crowd of 118,402, or at least those who could see the area just beyond the finish line, knew. Barbaro was there, three of his legs firmly in the ground, his right hind leg just sort of hanging there. The horse ambulance, the one with the giant red cross, rolled down the homestretch just after the Preakness field.

Barbaro was in some trouble seconds into the race. The unbeaten colt, always right with the leaders in his races, was being outrun from the inside and the outside. His stride was not machine-like. Before you could even wonder how Barbaro would come from behind so many horses and what exactly this might mean, Barbaro 's jockey, Edgar Prado, heard a sound he knew was ominous and was trying to slow down Barbaro.

With an animal that can go from 0 to 35 mph in a few seconds, a championship-caliber horse that was crying to run, Prado's task was just about impossible. Humans don't go very fast and can slow up instantly when they feel pain. Horses often try to run from the pain.

Barbaro 's injury occurred just before the finish line. As the field took off around the first turn on its way to the finish line for a second time, Prado got Barbaro slowed down perhaps 20 yards past the finish line, right in front of the giant crowd in front of the clubhouse.

Barbaro 's trainer, Michael Matz, was down the box-seat stairs and out to the track in an instant. Barbaro 's exercise rider, Peter Brette, was already there. The colt's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, were by Barbaro 's side in moments.

A splint was applied to stabilize the damaged limb, but the damage was catastrophic. A canvas sheet went up to shield the fans' view.

Every time Barbaro had put the injured leg on the ground while Prado was urging him to stop running, it got worse, three fractures above, around and below the ankle. If this was just about any other horse, the decision to euthanize the animal would have been made immediately. But this was Barbaro , winner of the Derby by the largest margin in 60 years, a horse so popular that nearly $7 million was bet on him to win as post time approached, a horse with residual stud value of perhaps $30 million and an animal with the aura and ability of a potential Triple Crown winner.

This was a horse that would be given a chance at survival.

Striking out with the injured leg and obviously frightened, Barbaro was loaded into the van. As the van turned to head back down the homestretch, Preakness winner Bernardini passed it on his way to the winner's circle. The van turned just before the Preakness starting gate and went up the same path Barbaro had walked down on his way to the track just 30 minutes before.

Back to Stall 40, reserved for the Derby winner, the exact stall where Smarty Jones was housed 2 years ago. The colt was stabilized and the leg heavily bandaged as a plan was being formulated to escape Pimlico at the exact moment all those people were pouring into the streets surrounding the old track. They wanted to get Barbaro to the New Bolton Center in Kennett Square.

Security was trying to clear the area around Barbaro 's stall. Sirens were wailing just beyond the tree line. The Pimlico Stakes Barn, normally riotous right after the Preakness, was eerily quiet as the Jacksons stood by their colt's stall, a day that began with such promise deteriorating by the minute.

This was Ruffian (1975) and Go For Wand (1990). This was a horse that people inside and outside racing had fallen for. This was a nightmare.

Motorcycle cops started revving their engines. Barbaro limped back into the van. Brette got into his SUV with Matz riding shotgun. Just after leaving the barn area, Matz jumped out of the car and sprinted for the van, wanting to give the driver some instruction. His suit coat and tie long discarded, Matz was wearing a blue jacket that had the words "Finish Line" on the back. It was an hour after the Preakness began.

Bernardini had been just as explosive in the Preakness as Barbaro had been in the Derby. By the numbers, Bernardini actually had run faster, earning a Beyer speed figure of 117 as opposed to Barbaro 's 111 in the Derby, a difference of about 2 lengths. It would have been some horse race.

Only this was an 80-mile race that started with the van and the SUV trying to dodge the fans stumbling down Rogers Avenue with coolers, grocery carts and what was left of their sobriety. With the police clearing the way, the van rolled down Northern Parkway, headed north on Interstate 83, east on I-695 and north on I-95.

Meanwhile, the Jacksons were escorted to the track's administrative offices. Gretchen Jackson was smiling bravely. Her husband looked how everybody felt - stunned. Before leaving the track, Gretchen graciously spent a few moments sharing some of her emotions and giving an update.

"Right now, all we can do is pray that he makes it," she said. "You don't expect this. You expect getting beaten. You can't expect this."

The Jacksons were sent on their way by Pimlico management, accompanied by two Baltimore City policemen. Before they left, they were given a basket of gifts. They ended up on a small bus jammed with other people. The bus was stuck in a traffic jam to end all traffic jams and moved about a foot in 10 minutes.

Thankfully, the Jacksons' horse was moving right along. The van rolled over the Millard E. Tydings Memorial Bridge, which spans the Susquehanna River, and got off at Exit 93 just past the Maryland tolls, heading northwest on Route 275 and then Route 276 on the way to Route 1. It was north on Route 1 for 4 miles to the Pennsylvania line, where the escort peeled off and headed back to Baltimore.

There was no escort in Pennsylvania, but the way was clear for Barbaro - past the Mason-Dixon Line, past New London, where Brette lives, off at the Toughkenamon-London Grove Exit, left on Newark Road and then a right on West Street Road, the same Street Road the Jacksons live on in West Grove. The van arrived at New Bolton at 9 p.m. The entrance to the large animal hospital is exactly 3.3 miles from the entrance to the Jacksons' Lael Farm. And their horse was safe in a stall, preparing for the day after the day just about everybody thought he would win the Preakness.