Barbaro Update: 27
updates are now here.
Update 342: Another comfortable night last night for Barbaro (saturday night). Peter just visited Bobby to report the news, and said that Bobby looked good. Peter's tone was relatively upbeat!
A nice article in the UK Observer: The final furlong rehashes the Barbaro story. A good resource for those wanting to get a good handle on the entire set of events. You might also pick up one or two additional insights.
Thanks Heather for the lovely basket delivered to our barn by Kennett Florist. The goodies have been eagerly distributed between our barn and Michael Matz's barn. Much appreciated. A belated thanks to Brandi for the popcorn. Sorry to say that stayed in our barn! As I was in the barn this morning (Tim called me to tell me there was a basket of goodies etc.) I got a chance to see Red Aspen. She looks good after her race yesterday, but tired. I also ran into Sheila Barndollar, who has been instrumental in putting together the raffle for a Mustang for Mike Rea. The drawing is tomorrow at Delaware Park, after the fourth race I think. Tim and I are planning on going. I hope to win! Lets hope Mike continues his good progress.
Update 341: Its great Michael is spending a couple of days at Saratoga (I think he is returning monday) as he has enabled more media coverage for Bobby. This Times Union article: Barbaro touches a heart includes some of the same interview covered by the Racing Form article in update 340. Here are a couple of excerpts that are new:
"I have just never been around a horse that has been so popular," Matz said. "Even outside of the racing community ... I took the kids to a Phillies game a while back and we were just sitting in the stands watching a ballgame on a Saturday afternoon. Three people I didn't know just came up and asked how the horse was doing."
and
"It would have been nice to see Barbaro run against Bernardini," Matz said quietly. "It would have been good for racing. But I'm not going to be sour. How can I be sour. The horse has done a lot for me. Now we are going to try and do as much as we can for him."
I had dinner at the Brette's last night. They gave me a win picture from the Tropical Park Derby (How cool is that ?) I asked Peter how he looks, given all the concern of no recent pictures. Peter said while he has dropped a little weight (inevitable) his coat looks great (shiny) and his eye is bright, two very good signs he is doing well. We talked about many Barbaro things. I asked about the Florida Derby, and the stretch dual. Peter considered that was the making of the transition from boy to man for the horse. He said Edgar told him afterwards that it was very easy (despite what we were seeing). He did gallop out very strongly. Peter is visiting this morning, so will get an update after that visit.
Update 340: No update yet for sunday, but I will likely know something by mid morning. In the meantime here are a couple of articles, one old and one new. The new one, from the Daily Racing Form, is essentially an interview with Michael Matz from yesterday in Saratoga: Matz keeping an eye on Barbaro. Michael relayed how the last few weeks have been:
"At one point I thought I was going to win the Triple Crown with this horse, next time I was sort of resigned to the fact maybe it wasn't supposed to be and he's going to come through this and be a great stallion," Matz said. "Then, when this other thing happened, I sort of resigned myself that they were going to put him down. Next morning I go and look, there he is bright-eyed. Every time I had myself resigned to something that was going to happen it never did. I don't think physically I was getting tired, emotionally I never knew what to expect."
He was also asked about Bernadini yesterday:
"I'm anxious to see the race," Matz said. "Bernardini's a real nice horse. It sure would have been nice to see them run against each other; that's never going to happen."
Matz was asked if part of him was rooting for Bernardini to lose so that his chances of unseating Barbaro as 3-year-old champion would diminish.
"Right now, I'm more worried about saving his life instead of whether he's 3-year-old champion," he said.
The second article, which I don't think I had seen, is about Peter Brette, some of his background etc: Exercise rider Brette on journey of a lifetime with Barbaro. Obviously this is an old article, and the journey has taken major turns since the article was written. The final piece of the article is poignant:
At mid-afternoon on Derby Day, a good friend of Brette's from Ireland strolled up to the barn to greet the horse and rider.
"She gazed into his eyes for a while," Brette said. "Then she turned to me and said: 'He's an old soul. He's been here before.'"
Update 339: Barbaro had another comfortable day (saturday). Had dinner with Peter and Kim. Other interesting factoids:
Messenger was a racehorse, I think trained by Michael, but not very fast. I think he may have had a stakes winning sibling.
Bobby, Barbaro's nickname, is such because Nicholas, Peter and Kim's son, could not say "Barbaro" ... he is quite young.
I also wanted to note that a couple of people have noted sons and daughters of Dynamformer as half bothers / sisters to Bobby. We do not actually consider a thoroughbred a sibling (or half sibling) unless they are out of the same dam. Thus Bobby's siblings are Holy Ground (four year old half brother) Man of Havana (two year old half brother), and his weanling full brother, yet unnamed.
Thanks for the clarification on siblings Alex.
Debra,WI
Posted by: Debra, WI at July 30, 2006 2:12 AM