Great horse, sad ending.

In a year with a bumper crop of 3-year old thoroughbreds, Barbaro was Triple-crown good. The heart-wrenching injury was tragic. Should Barbaro come out of this, I'll upgrade the story to 5 stars.

The even bigger story now is that the horse won six consecutive races, crashed and burned in his seventh and is now fighting for his life. It doesn't sound good for the horse who could have rose to any occasion. Complications from infection have set in and now he has lamenitis in his good hind leg from all the weight bearing. Horses just aren't good at surviving these kinds of injuries.

This was a big story, but I think the Preakness was even bigger. There was so much hype that Barbaro could be a Triple Crown horse, only to see him jump the gate, return to the start, and then pull up with a potentially life ending injury.