A text from a Tweet. A news alert. The kind you don’t want. Medina Spirit suffered a sudden death after working five furlongs…
I texted, ‘Wow’ in response. That’s it. The worst wow.
We were just finishing from training Lemonade Thursday and Saranac on a brisk December morning when my phone vibrated, I read it, cringed, shook my head…just when you didn’t think it could get any worse. The long, sad story of the 2021 Kentucky Derby turned into the short, sad story of the Kentucky Derby winner. A likable, respectable horse, a bystander in a car crash, Medina Spirit was gone. Poof. That fast.
The sport limps along, another black mark on a beleaguered game. How many can it take? How many can it endure?
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