We all loved the longshot in Barbaro

What was it about Barbaro that grabbed us, that united this country's cynical sports fans? What was it about this champion-turned-longshot that made it so hard for us to let go of him?

After all, unless you were in the industry or were a serious student of the sport, the most you'd probably seen of him were the two minutes of his win last May in the Kentucky Derby, followed by those few tragic seconds two weeks later in the Preakness.

Barbaro ran only seven races, winning six. The seventh was his last.

As athletes go, he was a shooting star. Something bright and wondrous that we watched for just that instant of greatness.

But there was something about this horse -- this athlete -- that stuck with us. After he shattered three bones in his right-hind leg at the start of the Preakness, after he survived more than five hours of surgery the following day, it seemed as if the country watched over him.

He was showered with cards and flowers and prayers.

It was as if all of us shared the love and the grief with his owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, and his surgeon, Dr. Dean Richardson.

What was it about Barbaro?

It is too facile to compare him, as many have, to Seabiscuit, whose successes rallied the country during the Depression. I don't think this country's obsession with Barbaro's recovery had anything to do with somehow uniting a country deeply divided by an unpopular war.

The love for this horse was more visceral.

We watched the Preakness' unspeakable horror and we saw a champion's heart as he still tried to run even as his right-hind leg dangled like an empty coat sleeve.

We watched jockey Edgar Prado dramatically pulling on the reins, trying to overcome his grand horse's instinct to run and to somehow win.

This was the most gruesome thing we'd seen in sports since Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann broke his leg on "Monday Night Football" in 1985.

In those few seconds, in front of millions of casual race fans, Barbaro became much more than just another great Thoroughbred. He became more than a four-legged commodity we wager on.

He became heroic, mythic.

We saw a willingness to run, even when he knew he could no longer compete, and it was that champion's heart that captured our hearts. We saw something that was equally inspirational and heartbreaking. And many of us became inextricably attached to that horse in those horrifying moments.

His instincts wouldn't let him quit. And our instincts told us that an animal this magnificent and this courageous could beat the odds and recover from the kind of injury no horse is supposed to survive.

Barbaro, who was euthanized this week, became one of those water-

cooler subjects that galvanize sports fans. Can Peyton Manning win the big one? Will the Carmelo Anthony/Allen Iverson marriage last? Will Barbaro survive?

We rode the roller coaster with Dr. Richardson. We worried when the horse first developed laminitis.

We cheered when his surgeon announced he believed Barbaro had turned the corner and might be released from the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center to continue his recovery on a lush Kentucky farm.

But this always was a longshot, the only time in his brief career Barbaro was a longshot.

He was trying to survive the kind of injury that takes the life of most horses within hours.

"The only gratification I will get out of this is that this horse had eight, nine months of time, the vast majority of which he was a happy horse," an emotional Richardson said at a news conference.

Horse racing is a most dangerous game. A horse and his jockey put their lives in jeopardy every time they leave the starting gate. By comparison, the Indy 500 seems almost as risk-free as a hand of Texas Hold 'Em.

Barbaro lived to run. And even after he was hurt and his leg was sending screeching alarms to his brain, his heart told him to keep on running.

Barbaro never quit. That's why we fell so hard for him.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.