May 18, 2007 5 min read

BALTIMORE (AP) – The scene will be familiar enough, maybe too much so. When the gate bursts open to start the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, the horse charging out of the No. 6 post will be a handsome bay colt. Only this time, it won’t be Barbaro, even if it might seem that way. After all, images of last year’s race are still superimposed on the minds of many.

“No way you don’t see Barbaro coming out of that starting gate, coming down that track,” said Scott Palmer, a veterinarian who rushed to Barbaro’s side when the Kentucky Derby winner pulled up seconds after the start, his right rear leg flaring out grotesquely.

“I think everyone is going to take a deep breath and say, ‘Let’s hope everybody comes home safe,”‘ he said.

Barbaro’s owners, trainer and jockey will be back at Pimlico Race Course looking for closure following a year of highs, lows and, finally, heartbreak when the colt was euthanized Jan. 29.

“I’ve had people come up and ask me if I’ll be a little more nervous before this year’s Preakness,” Pimlico president Lou Raffetto said. “I tell them I worry about the start of every race, the Preakness specifically.”

Thoughts of Barbaro weighed heavily on the mind of James Tafel, who owns Street Sense, the favorite to win the Preakness and set up a run at the Triple Crown.

“Accidents happen, and I’ve thought about Barbaro many times,” Tafel said. “I don’t think it’s going to affect this running at all. I hope not.”

Barbaro was honored two weeks ago at Churchill Downs, where his brilliant 61/2-length victory was replayed on video. At Pimlico, it will be difficult for many to look at the wide strip of dirt in front of the grandstand without visualizing the breakdown.

Barbaro bolted from the gate early that day, and jockey Edgar Prado guided him back around for a restart. This time, the colt broke cleanly with the rest of the field. But just a few hundred yards into the race, Barbaro veered sideways while eight rivals passed him. With the horse still trying to run on three legs, Prado jumped off and steadied his mount as best he could.

One misstep had left Barbaro with a shattered leg.

“People were crying, screaming, yelling, it shook up everybody,” Palmer recalled. “The race? People weren’t even watching it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Owners Gretchen and Roy Jackson will, of course, have different roles this year. They will present the winner’s trophy for the newly named Barbaro Stakes, a race on the Preakness undercard.

“I’m just focusing on the good part,” Gretchen Jackson said. “I’m sure there’s going to be some sad feelings inside of me. There has to be. But I’m going to try and override them.

“So much good did come out of him, you can’t dwell on that other stuff. You just have to keep marching.”

She could end up handing the trophy to Barbaro’s trainer, Michael Matz, who will try to win the race with Chelokee, his best 3-year-old colt this year.

That he’ll be thinking of Barbaro is a given.

“It will be in the back of my mind, and it probably will be with everybody else,” said Matz, who hadn’t set foot at Pimlico since Barbaro’s breakdown. “It’s a different time, you’ve got to go on. There’s not much you can do about it. The track didn’t do anything bad. It was just an accident that happened.”

Prado, last year’s Eclipse Award winner as the nation’s top rider, is out to win the Preakness aboard long-shot C P West.

“The memories will come back, but I will concentrate the best I can on getting the job done,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair to ride another horse and think of Barbaro. He gave me the greatest victory of my career, and I will never forget him. But you have to move on.”

Not everyone has.

“I don’t think the average fan has turned the page,” Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas said. “That’s a very beautiful story and a tragic one in many ways also.

“Barbaro brought a lot of focus and attention from the lay person – the little girl in Des Moines, Iowa, who never followed the races suddenly started following them. The only thing that would have been better is we took it to the Hollywood ending and got the horse to live.”

Again, it points out a lot of things we go through, and it points out the top and bottom of the game.”

The Maryland Jockey Club honored Prado and Dean Richardson, the chief surgeon who treated Barbaro at New Bolton Center at Kennett Square, Pa., with a special award of merit Thursday.

“The bottom line is I think a lot of good came out of the story,” Richardson said.

Some examples of that good:

_Millions of dollars have been raised for research on laminitis, the deadly hoof disease that ultimately compounded Barbaro’s problems and led to his demise.

_There’s a pending Senate bill to eliminate horse slaughter in the United States.

_Several racetracks have installed synthetic racing surfaces and are noticing a reductions in breakdowns.

_Barbaro-inspired Web sites have brought together racing fans concerned about horse care.

Recalling last year’s dreadful day, Gretchen Jackson said she has one lasting image of Barbaro – when he was being taken off the track in an ambulance.

“He was sort of looking out the window, you could see his head looking at everybody,” she said. “He still was so incredibly strong. And he’s looking at the grandstand, looking at the crowd. He was looking down, he was with it. … He was looking out there like ‘I could do this.’ That’s the part that makes me sad. He tried so hard.”