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#1
03-16-2007, 07:08 AM
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The Onion on Barbaro...
Please, don't be offended...it's only The Onion...
Conspiracy Theorists Insist Barbaro Still Alive March 15, 2007 | Onion Sports WEST GROVE, PA—Rumors and speculation that beloved racehorse Barbaro faked his own death last January in order to start a new life out of the public eye are beginning to surface among equine conspiracy theorists, who refuse to believe the horse would allow himself to be euthanized due to a broken right hind leg and laminitis of the left hoof.  Amateur video captures a brown horse, which some say resembles Barbaro, grazing in a field outside Missoula, MT. "Barbaro lives," said Raleigh, NC resident and longtime fan Keith Greer, gesturing to the wall of his apartment he has papered with grainy black-and-white images of a horse he identifies as a healthy, fully recovered Barbaro. "These photographs were taken in Maryland on Feb. 11, 2007—precisely two weeks after Barbaro's supposed 'death.' Countless eyewitnesses in the area reported seeing a mysterious horse of Barbaro's size, coloration, and stature galloping freely about the corral with what each one described as a 'joyful gait, save for a suspicious limp in the right hind leg.'" "This all adds up to one thing: Barbaro is still alive," Greer added. "That was a wax horse in that coffin." Although most conspiracy theorists agree that Barbaro faked his death, his motives in doing so remain disputed. Some say he fled from increased media attention, while many claim Barbaro feared that he would never be able to live up to his own larger-than-life legend upon his recovery. Still other theories suggest that Barbaro ran off with an unidentified mare to start a family; that he is now roaming the countryside in disguise, mentoring and training troubled colts; and that he was attempting to dodge multiple death threats he received from a deranged Brother Derek fan. "We do know several things," Greer said, poring over heavily notated New Bolton Veterinary Clinic medical documents. "We know that Barbaro went into the recovery pool Jan. 28 at 5:40 p.m. We know he ate corn and oats at 8:10 p.m. And we are told he was 'euthanized' at 10:30 a.m. the next morning. But! What happened during those 15 hours for which we have no records?" Ever since the hoax rumors began circulating, hundreds of "Barbaro sightings" have come pouring in from around the nation, as grieving fans report seeing the horse everywhere from a secluded farm in Montana to the Iron Horse Stables in Arkansas to grazing in the backyard of 92-year-old racing enthusiast Ethel Vernon's Knoxville, TN home. Still others in Kentucky say they are woken from sleep on moonless nights by Barbaro's distinctive hoofbeats as he canters the streets outside Churchill Downs, reliving his former glory. "I was driving near Saratoga Springs the other day, alone, when out of my passenger window I saw Barbaro galloping across an open field," said Davis Hammersly, who was in the crowd at the 2006 Preakness when Barbaro suffered his career-ending injury. "At first I thought I was seeing things, but I'm sure it was him. Same long face, same brown coat, same mane, tail and everything." "You don't forget a horse like Barbaro," Hammersly added. "I was at a little eighth-mile track outside of Bakersfield when a big brown 3-year-old won by nine lengths despite a hitch in his gait," said career horseplayer David Carnell. "Won big, too. I thought I'd found the next Barbaro. But the more I think about it, there's no way it was anyone else but Barbaro himself." "I saw Barbaro in the parking lot at the mall," said 11-year-old New Hampshire resident Kimberly Drexel. "He was hiding behind a big car. I went to tell my mom, but then he was gone." Many believers have begun searching for "clues" left behind by the former Kentucky Derby winner, with many agreeing that Barbaro's alleged method of death—euthanasia—provides the most striking evidence that his death was a hoax. "How are we being led to believe that Barbaro—who fought so valiantly through all those injuries for eight months—suddenly just 'gave up' and allowed himself to be euthanized?" said Harry Matheson, author of The Barbaro Conundrum. "Barbaro would never die like that, and everybody knows it, and it's ludicrous to think that we would simply accept that he did." On Tuesday, University of Pennsylvania criminologists, acting on a public petition, entered photos of Barbaro taken at the New Bolton Clinic only hours before his death into special face-aging software to determine what Barbaro would look like after two months. Results showed a remarkably similar-looking horse with a slightly longer mane. Matheson has documented several other clues, including a leg cast found outside the home of Barbaro's trainer Michael Matz, his sire Dynaformer's continuing silence concerning the incident, and—perhaps most peculiar—the fact that just one day after his alleged death, a brown horse with a slight limp boarded a double-decker cattle trailer in Pennsylvania under the assumed name of "Serendipitous," an alias Barbaro reportedly used several times when checking into stables on the road. "A surveillance camera at Lael Stables in West Grove, PA captured a brief image of a horse entering Barbaro's childhood stall at midnight on March 5, 2007," Matheson said as the two-second clip played on a continuous loop behind him. "The next day, there were fresh hoofprints in the mud, and the hay had been strewn about. He clearly came back for something. But what?" Despite the legions of fans who now believe Barbaro is alive and well somewhere in the U.S., others within the horse-racing community are quick to dismiss the theory, claiming that Barbaro was in fact assassinated after the Kentucky Derby, that the horse who raced in his place at the Preakness was an imposter, and that Barbaro's injury was staged by the government as part of a massive cover-up to divert the nation's attention from crucial domestic issues and the war in Iraq. 
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#2
03-16-2007, 07:12 AM
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Very tough thing to joke about. Very tough.
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#3
03-16-2007, 07:39 AM
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Yeah, I didn't find this one as funny as I usually find the Onion's stuff. Though the line about the "deranged Brother Derek fan" did make me smile.
__________________
Gentlemen! We're burning daylight! Riders up! -Bill Murray
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#4
03-16-2007, 07:44 AM
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#6
03-16-2007, 07:58 AM
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Its about as funny as my mom dying.
Should have been left over at the onion
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#7
03-16-2007, 07:58 AM
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Though I notice this is the second Onion article that mentions Brother Derek. A Brother Derek fan on the staff? Or more likely, someone just thinks "Brother Derek" is a funny name. Which it kind of is.
__________________
Gentlemen! We're burning daylight! Riders up! -Bill Murray
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#8
03-16-2007, 08:02 AM
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Horse fans should just expect this kind of thing... don't take it too seriously, focus on the future. I think it's kind of a way of honoring Barbaro...he's so great that people would make themselves believe he's still alive!...I know the Jackson's probably wouldn't find it too funny, but, hey, it's pretty funny to me.
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#9
03-16-2007, 08:28 AM
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it's funny in the sense that some people think some people (or in this case, a horse)are so great that they can even defeat death--and i'm sure those are the ones the onion is trying to mock here. i'm sure barbaro would be proud to be included with the likes of elvis, jim morrison and dale earnhardt.
 strange tho that there have been no princess di sightings. yet.
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Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all. Abraham Lincoln
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#10
03-16-2007, 08:42 AM
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The one about his funeral was awesome.
Of course you're going to get all sorts of reactions, and some people won't be happy with you about finding anything about Barbaro to be entertaining. I'm not saying for everyone to get up and move on, but I'm saying that we're going to grow into some really stodgy people if we take every bit of satire as some real social commentary and let it get to us. I don't think the Iraq war is funny, but satire about the Iraq war is some of my favorite....because it's not actually making light of the fact that scores of people are dying over there. It's the point of satire, and much comedy, really. To take things that we shouldn't be laughing at and try to lighten them...because otherwise we become stale, jaded humans. I don't want that. So, thanks for posting this. Ever since I moved out of a place where they had paper copies of the Onion, I tend to not get on their site as often as I should.
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#11
03-16-2007, 09:00 AM
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i think it's pretty damn funny.
there comes a point when you have to smile about things. so i guess he is now the elvis of racing...coming to a truck stop near you.
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#12
03-16-2007, 09:03 AM
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I love Barbaro and The Onion. I find it funny and at the same time sad. Sad not because of the article per se, just remembering Barbaro.
Kinda strange that Barbaro gets more coverage in The Onion than in a lot of the major press. In one sense you have to give kudos to The Onion for keeping his name out there in their own quirky way. I love the amatuer video that has a circled horse that some say resembles Barbaro. 
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#13
03-16-2007, 09:11 AM
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nice and green everything was in late February in Montana, I guess they dont have winter there
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#14
03-16-2007, 12:07 PM
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Is thought it was pretty damn funny. I agree, you have to laugh about things like this or you will cry. And to be big enough to be mentioned in The Onion is an honor.
The 'face aging software' made me laugh, too... ALostTexan
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#15
03-16-2007, 04:09 PM
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We use humor to hide grief. I thought it was in some parts funny. I think we are still to close it to think it's great humor.
I live just north of Daytona, and when Dale Earnhart wrote his name on the wall, the locals took it pretty seriously. If the Onion were published here, and had done a similar story, not being any sort of NASCAR fan, I would have laughed my ass off. The #3 contingent would have torched the Onion building. Remember when the Challenger blew up? the jokes? 
__________________
"We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns. " ~ Tom Waits
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#16
03-16-2007, 06:08 PM
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I cannot believe that you compared the death of an animal you probably never saw in person to the passing of your own Mother. To make this more real, a story...My Dad passed away 70 hours before my wedding. We buried him the moring of my wedding. He'd been ill with severe Parkinson's and had told my brother months prior that he was planning on attending the wedding with my Mom, who had passed 1 1/2 years before. He told me he couldn't wait for my wedding and we arranged for him to have a place of prominence. My Dad and I were very close. For me, the only way to deal with it was to joke about it. That was Dad, always messing up my plans. That was Dad, stealing my thunder. That was Dad, center of attention with his giant personality. We still joke about it in my family. What else is there to do, mourn my wedding day? The stuff in the Onion is irreverent but the fact that Barbaro is still getting press there tells how much of a cultural icon he is/was. I'm surprised he wasn't named as a possible father of Anna Nicole's baby. Last edited by Linny : 03-16-2007 at 10:11 PM.
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#17
03-16-2007, 06:18 PM
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Linny--what a great post!!! A great story. Whatever life hands us, we do rise to the circumstances, even rise above them. And in doing so, we're able to remember far beyond those difficult times, to the times of joy, laughter, and love. Those, are with us, always.
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#18
03-16-2007, 08:04 PM
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New Member...first post.
The Onion article I thought was pure satire and not meant to be malicious. I used to frequent another forum where the remarks after Barbaro's death were beyond belief. Granted it was not a forum geared to horse racing,but I sure had my Irish up in the thread about Barbaro's death. There are some scary people out there . I have since abandoned that site and have sought refuge hear...a happier place where I can hopefully benefit from the wealth of knowledge about horses,horse racing,and handicapping. Hope you guys don't mind questions from rank amatuers.
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#20
03-16-2007, 08:07 PM
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