LouLife

Somehow, between appearances and interviews, with the rapid-fire click of cameras and the voice of a hundred fans ringing in his ears, someone at Lima’s Hipodromo de Monterrico told Edgar Prado the news. He stood there, disbelieving, because it seemed so unfathomable — yet composed, because he knew it had been inevitable. Barbaro had been euthanized.

It was not the way Prado’s visit to Peruwas supposed to end. He had gone to Limato ride in a competition of South American jockeys, had been given a hero’s welcome by fans and horsemen and members of the media. Meanwhile, far away in Pennsylvania, the horse he loved was quickly losing his battle for survival. And so, after nine months of hope and tears, the same destiny that once brought the jockey and the big bay colt together had finally torn them apart.

Edgar Prado speaks in small print. His words are barely noteworthy, his opinions often understated. She ran a nice race, he will say after riding an impressive winner. She’s a good filly.

He is the kind of man you expect to find on a lonely putting green or peaceful riverbank, far away from the spotlight of celebrity. By reporters who have attempted to explain his professional image he has been labeled “unemotional,” “undemonstrative” and “unattached,” all descriptions he embraced comfortably, at ease with the silence and with his impenetrable armor, until last year. 

Last year, on the first day of the first month, Prado mounted Royand Gretchen Jackson’s three-year-old colt Barbaro for the first time. The horse and rider flew over Calder’s turf course to win the Tropical Park Derby effortlessly, by 3? lengths, and just like that the quiet rider found his voice. He was enthusiastic, animated, using words he’d rarely uttered in the past. He felt, he told reporters, as if he could have been anywhere in the field and Barbaro still would have won.

Prado and Barbaro clean and in front at the top of the stretch.

Still, racing is a small world and Prado is one of the top riders, and by the time 2006 rolled around, the two had formed an amiable business relationship so that after their Jan. 1 victory, when Prado requested the opportunity to ride Barbaro again, Matz gladly agreed. They were, after all, a fitting trio — a colt full of potential, a trainer on the verge of a breakthrough and a jockey in search of the horse who would take his career to the highest level.

Edgar Prado is two months away from turning 40, but he looks younger because of the jet-black hair that tends to droop over his bronzed forehead, and also because he stands only 5 feet 3 inches tall. His handshake, like his stature, is disarming; you expect meekness, but the grip contains surprising strength. That, in fact, could be said about Prado’s entire persona — although he appears unassuming, a confident energy ripples along beneath the surface.

Prado’s Derbysmile turned to painful concern when Barbaro broke down in the Preakness.

By 1984, less than a year after his first victory, Prado was Peru’s leading jockey — but that wasn’t good enough; he wanted to become a leader in the U.S.He spent every spare moment watching videos of North American riders, developing his technique as grainy images of Bill Shoemaker and Angel Cordero Jr. flickered across his television screen. He switched his whip from one hand to the other until the leather became a blur and the air around him quivered with motion, he exercised with a vengeance to find the balance between lightweight and fitness that many of his colleagues struggled to attain, and in 1985, fresh off the great success in his native country, he came to the United States.

“I knew he was talented,” said Manuel Azpurua, a Peruvian trainer who met Prado when he first arrived in Florida. “Great riders are born to understand the horse, and Prado had that gift. He was honest, and almost too kind. “If you want to be a great rider, think only of yourself in the saddle,” I told him. “When you’re in a race you have no friends.”

Just 18 years old and alone in a strange country, Prado knew little English. He also missed his family. The first of his parents’ children to leave home, he depended on his mother’s support to keep him strong. “It’s hard when your kids leave home,” he said, “especially when they have to go, not around the corner, but to a different country. My mother was heartbroken, but she never complained. She was my inspiration.”

Zenaida Prado pushed her son forward, from his first North American win at Miami’s Calder Race Course in 1986 to his trek to the East Coast in 1988. She watched as he boosted his career on Maryland’s modest circuit, mastering English and amassing riding titles, including three years as the winningest jockey in North America. winning trainers over with his confident style. She cheered him on in 1999, when he moved his tack to the New Yorkcircuit, and in 2000, when he rode in his first Kentucky Derby — and finished 17th. 

The next year, Prado finished fourth. In 2002, he headed postward aboard the favorite, Harlan’s Holiday, a horse he thought for sure would give him that coveted victory. Zenaida was there, brought to Churchill Downs at her son’s request, because the only thing he wanted more than a Derby victory was to have her in the winner’s circle when he accepted the roses.

Prado holding Peru’s flag at the 2006 Breeders’ Cup opening ceremonies.

Following the initial shock, Prado sought a solution. As he worried over his mother’s condition, knowing that medical practices in the United States were years ahead of Peruvian treatments, he decided to bring her to Florida. Then he discovered that Zenaida’s 10-year visa had expired earlier that year. Efforts to have the visa renewed were stymied by red tape; neither Prado nor his lawyer could expedite the process. By January of 2006 it was too late.

“My mother was 76 years old,” Prado said. “I worked on bringing her back and they just kept saying no.”

On January 19th the jockey received news of his mother’s death. The next morning when the mailman made the daily delivery, he walked down to pick up the envelopes. Tucked in among bills and advertisements was an official package with a government seal. It was a sheaf of approval papers from the immigration department, authorizing Zenaida’s return to the U.S.

On April 29, 2003, outside Nicholasville, Ky., a Dynaformer-bred young mare named La Ville Rouge went into labor. She was small and lightly built, and the size of the foal within her led to a difficult delivery. At 3 a.m. in barn four of 254-acre Springmint Farm, two horsemen took a firm hold on two well-shaped hooves that were protruding from the mare’s uterus and Bill Sanborn (who leased the property) pulled a gangly bay colt into the world. From the start, Sanborn remembered, the horse looked — and acted — like a champion.

“He was the easiest horse you’ve ever been around in your life, from day one,” Sanborn said. “It wasn’t anything we did; it was just him.”

Even as a yearling the big colt seemed to understand his greatness. Briefly confined to his stall due to a minor leg injury, he would stand and reach his head out into the stable aisle, fixing his calm amber gaze on visitors as they walked past. He never bit his handlers, never reared up, never got rambunctious, never got fractious.

The Jacksonsnamed Barbaro after a foxhound in a family painting, and in September 2004 Sanborn shipped the colt south to Florida. There, the horsemen at Stevens Thoroughbreds put him through an eight-month racing prep program. Throughout his early training, John Stevens said, the colt demonstrated his superior intelligence. “He was very easy to handle, easy to progress with,” Stevens said. “The way he handled everything you asked him to do made your job easy. For horses, training is an educational process, and they’re just like people — some are more talented than others. That was obviously his case.”

By April 2005 Barbaro was ready to reach the next level. Stevens sent him to FairHillTrainingCenterin Maryland, where former Olympic equestrian Michael Matz ran a modest training operation. There, the big bay colt continued to impress everyone around him. He was like a Rolls Royce, said assistant trainer Peter Brette, who was also the colt’s exercise rider. He floated over the ground with perfect balance, an effortless stride and a crystal-clear mind.

Six months later, Barbaro made the first start of his career at DelawareParkunder local rider Jose Caraballo. They won by 8? lengths. The next month they won the Laurel Futurity by just a half-length less. Both races were on the turf, but with the colt’s impressive ability, Matz began to think of trying the dirt. He shipped Barbaro back to Florida, and after winning one more turf race, the Tropical Park Derby with Prado in the saddle, Matz and his colt took the plunge. True to form, Barbaro responded brilliantly. And Prado, with his quiet riding style and polished professionalism, made the perfect passenger.    

They won the Holy Bull at Gulfstream on February 4, running through the slop in Barbaro’s first attempt off the grass. On April 1 they won the Florida Derby over a fast track. In both races — in spite of late-closing competitors — the colt cruised home under wraps. The headlines sung his praises (“Barbaro breathes fire!”) and enthusiastic newsmen even went so far as to dub him “the most exciting prospect for this year’s Triple Crown.” That was when an idea began to form in Prado’s mind — that perhaps his seventh Derbycould belong to Zenaida anyhow, could be won in her honor by the horse who was improving with every race.

On May 6 at 6 p.m., an assistant starter grasped Barbaro’s bridle and led him into the gate at Churchill Downs. Prado looked through the narrow front of stall number eight, fixing his eyes on the road destiny had prepared for him. Then the gates opened and the horses broke together, as if harnessed by a single thread.

As it turned out, Prado only had to stay in the saddle when his mount stumbled. The colt easily regained his balance to claim a position just behind the frontrunners, and he galloped along at an easy pace. By the time they hit the half-mile pole, the race, for all practical purposes, was over. As the leaders tired coming into the far turn, Barbaro’s smooth strides lengthened and he moved to the head of the field. That churning mass of pounding horseflesh and whipping riders thundered around the final turn with Prado on top, sitting chilly as Barbaro lengthened the gap with every stride. Then the jockey looked back and realized the rest of the field was laboring far behind them in the dusty melee that was the stretch run. The wire was before them and they hit it, in jockey parlance, “like a wall,” and Prado stood up in the stirrups and everything went blank.

It was an aerial feeling, as if he were floating through the sun-soaked evening in slow motion — shocked, yet overcome with exhilaration. The world revolved in flashes of action and emotion. He could hear the roar of the crowd outside, but his heart was quiet as he reached down to give the colt a pat on the shoulder.

“A lot was running through my mind,” he said. “I was thankful that I was there at the moment, thankful for my career and the opportunities I’d had. Nothing could have happened if I didn’t have a good foundation. It all paid off that day.”

Pulling up, the jockey felt a tinge of sadness when he thought of how it would have been to have his mother present. Speaking to NBC while an outrider guided his return to the winner’s circle, he dedicated the race to Zenaida. Then he pointed down to his horse and basked in the thrill of 150,000 voices chanting Barbaro’s name.

After Barbaro’s 6?-length win, the largest margin of victory since Assault’s 1946 Derbyrun, talk again sprang to the Triple Crown — that hallowed combination of Derby, Preakness and Belmontwins not accomplished since Affirmed’s sweep of the three in 1978. Every year, racing pundits dreamed of what a Triple Crown winner could do to revitalize the sport, and every year the brilliant three-year-old stars faded before they reached that goal. This year, Prado thought, would be different. 

“I believed we could win the Triple Crown,” he said. “I wasn’t overconfident; like I always say, you never know what tomorrow will bring. Still, I thought, maybe this is the one. Maybe I can help provide what people have been wanting for so long.”

“Off his Derbywin, Barbaro looked indestructible,” said Prado’s fellow rider, Richard Migliore. “We all thought, this is the horse we’ve been waiting for! There wasn’t a single chink in his armor; he was a smart, sound, phenomenal package, and he was sparking an energy in the industry that we desperately needed at the time.”

On May 20th, Prado and Barbaro went postward at odds of 1-2 in a field of nine Preakness contenders. Barbaro pranced to the gate as if he knew how much the fans loved him, even throwing out a few good-natured bucks as he was loaded into the sixth stall. But before the field was released, a slight noise triggered the colt’s high-strung reaction and he barreled through the gate alone. Hauling on the reins, Prado managed to pull up with the help of an outrider. They were loaded back into the gate, with the jockeys catching up fine fistfuls of mane in anticipation of the break. Then it came, and they were off.

Many sounds, or segments of sound, filter through a rider’s consciousness during the first vital seconds of a race. Prado has learned to tune out most of them — the shrill clang of the bell, the clash of metal as the gates slam open, the high-pitched tone of his own shouts and those of his fellow riders — but there is still one sound that can strike terror in his heart. An ominous crack, like the impact of a wooden bat against a ball, it is a sign of breaking bone that spells surefire disaster for horse and rider . . . and it split through the thundering hooves as the field left the gate behind them that evening. 

Riding behind Barbaro, Richard Migliore, aboard Greeley’s Legacy, heard the snap. He watched in horror as Barbaro floundered across the track, lifting his right hind leg high in the air. Aboard the colt, Prado felt a change in the action, a painful hesitation. Suddenly, he didn’t care about the Preakness; he didn’t worry about second-guessing or missing their shot at the Triple Crown. He simply stood in the irons and pulled his struggling mount out of the race.

Barbaro slowed and skittered sideways, leg dangling. Prado slid to the ground. He thrust a hand against his mount’s muscled chest, as if to still the shock waves that were coursing through the colt’s body. The rest of the field galloped on without them.

Again the world revolved in flashes of action and emotion; the trainer’s dash across the dirt, the tears of Roy and Gretchen Jackson. A groom rushed over to take the reins, and just like that, the jockey’s job was over. Reporters were clamoring for one quote — something, anything. Prado, shaken, could barely speak. As he walked back to the jockeys’ room, he had only one wish. He wanted to see Barbaro alive.

When Prado reached Pimlico’s backstretch, a police motorcade was ready to escort the injured colt to the Universityof Pennsylvania’s NewBoltonCenter, one of the best large-animal hospitals in the nation. The jockey watched as the colt was loaded onto another ambulance. His wife Lilliana and daughter Patricia joined him. They cried together.

At New Bolton, detailed X rays revealed multiple fractures throughout Barbaro’s right hind leg. One bone, near the colt’s ankle, had shattered into 20 pieces. Dr. Dean Richardson, the clinic’s head surgeon, supervised the leg’s stabilization. The prognosis was grim.

At 1:40 p.m. on Sunday, the very next day, with Barbaro undergoing a seven-hour surgery at NewBoltonCenter, a committed Prado donned a pair of royal-blue silks and stepped into the windy reality of BelmontPark. Updates on Barbaro’s situation came throughout the day, as Richardson’s surgical team pieced the mangled limb together with 23 screws and a piece of steel plate, but Prado tried to block thoughts of the colt from his mind. It was not until he returned to the jockeys’ room later, after riding several races (and winning two of them), that he actually paused to think about what he was doing. Then the pain hit him with a vengeance, because he realized he was going through the motions without finding pleasure in the results.

“I was tempted to quit riding,” he said. “I thought, I’ll go home to Peruand let this pass by. Then I thought, If I’m not doing anything, just sitting around, I’ll be thinking about it all the time. I didn’t want to give up; I wanted to keep trying. I had to go on with my life.”

So he did.

In August, in the middle of the madness, with veterinarians struggling to treat multiple facets of the colt’s injuries, Prado met with reporters at Saratoga Race Course. He perched on the edge of a park bench in the private courtyard behind the jockeys’ room to talk about his life and career, and, of course, about Barbaro. On his way to winning the Saratogariding title for a third time, he was still struggling to process the events of the previous months. He knew the “big horse” was no longer his, but sometimes he found himself wondering what might have been.

“When I see somebody win a big race, I say, man, I could have won that with my horse,” he said. He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his troubled eyes. “I have to remind myself that our run with Barbaro is in the past; it’s over.”

Prado had been back to visit Barbaro on multiple occasions. Twice he took his wife and children, once he went alone. As the big colt continued to heal, so did the jockey.

“It’s hard to find a good horse; it’s even harder to keep him,” he said. “Barbaro was more than just a good horse to me — he was special. Still, I have to move on, and I will move on. I’ve learned in my life that nobody else is going to try for you if you don’t have the will to do it yourself.”

In the months that would follow, Prado would watch as veterinarians worked to save Barbaro’s life. He would express excitement as the colt’s improvements inspired talk of moving him from the hospital. He would share his fears as setback after setback threatened, not one, but all four limbs. Then he would accept the sad reality, and racing fans would see the Prado they’d never seen before — the soulful, sorrowful man whose heart had been torn apart by his love for Barbaro.

But this was not that day, and there was still hope. Someone asked why, in spite of riding over 30,000 Thoroughbreds throughout the years, the jockey found himself so deeply connected to this one. He paused, then answered carefully, from his heart.

“There was something magical about Barbaro,” he said. “He had spirit, charisma, the quality that makes people respect and admire someone. That’s why the people fell in love — just like I fell in love — with him.”

That was when the reporters knew something good had come out of the colt’s tragic three-year-old campaign. For when he spoke of his love for Barbaro, the jockey smiled again. And this time his smile was real.

Editor’s note: On Jan. 22 of this year, Edgar Prado received racing’s highest honor, the Eclipse Award for outstanding jockey. Voters also bestowed Roy and Gretchen Jackson and Dr. Dean Richardson with a special Eclipse Award of Merit for their efforts to save Barbaro’s life. On Jan. 29, the undefeated Kentucky Derby winner was euthanized.