The internet for a horse

So, my friends at Deadspin have gotten themselves in a bit of an online turf war that I need to mention. See, for months one of the running jokes has been examining the messages posted to the "Get Well Barbaro" board and a) critiquing the need to write messages to a horse and b) post their own messages of varying degrees of taste in an effort to get them past the poor soul whose job it is to read what middle aged women write to a horse. As you can expect, this can only end poorly.

I'm not kidding about the Barbaro message board. For over six months now, people have been pouring out their heart and soul in sending their positive energies to the healing of a horse. In one sense, this is a very noble and kind thing to do. On the other hand, it is the most sad and bizarre act I've seen on the internet and that is saying something. First of all, Barbaro doesn't know how to read. If he did, then I would be all for doing everything possible to save his life. I mean, we were all very protective of Mr. Ed and I see no difference in this case. Second, the entire reason this extreme effort has been put forth to save Barbaro's life has nothing (or at least very little) to do with the love for the horse. It is more about making it possible for him to start knocking hooves with some other mares and earn his keep. And finally, what about Bernadini, who actually won the Preakness and gets no respect whatsoever?

Obviously, this gives my friends at Deadspin ample amounts of ammunition to attack the board in their usual manner of ascerbic wit, Chris Berman references, and questioning where was Mamula in all of this. So we now have a war between the heartfelt middle aged matriarchs and the darkly cynical sports fans. My money is on the cynical because you should never start a fight with people who feel that having nothing left to lose is a birthright. Also, they're at least trying to be funny while the people writing "Grow Hoof Grow" are hilarious in a more meta sense.

What does this all mean in the end? People can get really uptight about the feelings of an animal that cost me on a ten dollar trifecta.

(Oh, and the pointy headed Jedi actually has a name? I really need to read up on my expanded universe before I get laughed out of the next ComicCon.)