It’s Kentucky Derby season so you know what that means: More remembrances of Barbaro.The New York Times’s has an interview with Barbaro’s jockey on the top of its website right now. The jockey also has a book out called, My Guy Barbaro.All of this is basically an excuse for me to link to Tim’s legendary remembrance of Barbaro titled, “A Million Little Pieces: The legend of Barbaro”:

Now is a time to remember and celebrate what this steed stood for: hope. Barbaro may have been euthanized, but his ideals still roam free.You know why Shadowfax could gallop so fast with Gandalf on his back? Because he was trying to catch up with Barbaro. The Ford Mustang GT500 has a 500-horsepower engine. But if you read the fine print, you’ll see that 500 horsepower is equal to roughly one Barbaro. You couldn’t feed Barbaro oats like every other horse. He would take a mouthful and spit it right back out. Barbaro ate only chocolate cake. People claim that Barbaro is Spanish for “badass.” The truth is the other way around: “badass” is English for Barbaro.Had he survived the treacherous care of his caretakers, Barbaro would be looking forward to a lifetime of studding with the choicest mares in all the land. He could have fathered more offspring than Brigham Young and Shawn Kemp combined, all without any of the entangling legal responsibilities. Let’s see Jack Bauer do that.

Publishing this column was, without a doubt, the single greatest accomplishment of my tenure as Viewpoints Editor.