Barbaro Museum Defeated After All

The news of the day: Local hero Barbaro, a horse who showed the world he could inspire Internet anger long after he finished everything on his bucket list, will no longer have a museum built in his honor.

His co-owner Gretchen Jackson says she is close to figuring out where Barbaro’s ashes will be buried. (She did not announce anything about a horse her and her husband Roy bred, George Washington, who was sent to stud before it was determined it couldn’t sire. The horse raced again and was destroyed after he broke down in the Breeders Cup.)

The museum idea is on ice right now, but there is going to be a big ol’ statue of Barbaro people will probably end up caring a lot about. If it’s life-size, could people get to pretend to ride Barbaro? Oh, man, that would be awesome! Barbaro is so much better in statue form.

Barbaro Messageboard Posters Surprisingly Self-Aware

From Laurie in Minnesota, on the Tim Woolley Racing Barbaro messagebaord:

I remember last summer I gave you guys a bit of a chuckle when I likened our “condition” to that of the charature that Richard Dreyfuss plays in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” Our families starring at us in disbelief as we carve images of Barbaro out of mashed potatoes…LOL. Being inexplicably drawn to something and have absolutley no idea how we came to be here, and everyone else around us thinks we are coo-coo.

Someone stated earlier this week that after months of wondering about this same thing, they just decided to relax and just go with it. Same with me. I cant explain it. I’m here and thats it.

Which brings me to an important point about something that happen to me in my grieving sessions yesterday evening. Like all of you, I am experiencing deep deep emotional pain. After watching Larry King, I was still extremely distraught. I was alone last night as my husband was at work. In my grief, I said to myself, “OKAY THAT’S IT….I’M DONE!! I just want to go back to my normal life …they way I was before I even knew Barbaro!. I am walking away from this..I just want to forget about all of this! Why did this happen to me??! WHY!!! Where is the lesson here? I am going to just fade away back to where I belong”.

Okay, it’s official. Barbaro is ruining peoples’ lives.

But, at least she’s gotten off the Barbaro wago… oh.

WOW huh? That’s me up there saying those things. I am a Barbaro Ambassador for the state of MN no less….Fortunantly I snapped myself back into reality and realized immediatley how selfish and immature this was..but the feelings cant be denied. I had to let myself work through them.

Yeah, I always thought it was pretty selfish to stop caring about a horse you saw run on TV once to make yourself feel much better.

In other news, they’re planning on building a museum in honor of Barbaro. (Well, and other local horses, too.) I can’t wait until my tax dollars pay for a building honoring a fucking horse that didn’t even win the Triple Crown.

Barbaro inspires idea for a museum [Inquirer]