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Originally Posted by Danzig
this is no ones fault. it's part of racing. george could have had the same thing happen had he run in the mile.
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I think this is very true- I think it's human nature, when something awful happens to a completely innocent party, to try to find someone or something to blame- within minutes of Barbaro's breakdown, people were screaming about the inhumanity of the Triple Crown- the same series of races Curlin and Hard Spun ran in and went on to run 1-2 in the Classic yesterday.
St. Liam was retired to stud and suffered a catastrophic injury on the way back to his paddock. If he'd been raced one more year would he still be here? If Sunday Silence hadn't been moved to Japan would he have not developed laminitis? If Ruffian had run against the boys would there have been no Match Race? If Swale had been galloped five minutes earlier or later would he have not had a heart attack?
I'm not intending to criticize those who are angry- I just think that bad things happen sometimes for no reason at all. And I think that's scary and frustrating because it's unfair and so we look for someone, something, to blame, so we can feel angry and not sad. Because grief hurts. A lot.
I think the owners, in this case, did what many of us want owners to do- be sportsmen- they brought back to the races a superstar horse who wasn't succeeding at stud and put him in a very challenging spot in that last race, rather than looking for a soft berth. It's terrible it ended the way it did. But I don't think it was the mud or the spot or bringing him back or anything other than bad luck.
(Which is not to let the owners off the hook for retiring HRE in GW's place, or for rushing GW off to stud in the first place, but that's a whole different issue). RIP, Gorgeous George, and my condolences and sympathy to all of your connections.