While it is certainly sad that Kentucky Derby winning horse "Barbaro" was euthanized on Monday after complications from a gruesome breakdown at last year's Preakness horse race (something which I have problems with as well).

According to the Associated Press, a series of ailments — including laminitis in the left rear hoof, an abscess in the right rear hoof, as well as new laminitis in both front feet — proved too much for the horse. Barbaro battled in his ICU stall for eight months. The 4-year-old colt underwent several procedures and was fitted with fiberglass casts. He spent time in a sling to ease pressure on his legs, had pins inserted and was fitted at the end with an external brace. These were all extraordinary measures for a horse with such injuries.

Now I know there are too many people in the world who have way too much time and have a pretty screwed up view of things when they leave "cards and goodies" for the horse. You see this all the time, a kind of false sense of emotion seemingly brought on by such ridiculous shows as "Extreme Home Makeover" where ABC-TV finds a family with the most heart rending story and gets them to to humiliate themselves with big tears come to national TV, much to the delight of the show's sponsors like Sears.

Well-wishers young and old showed up at the New Bolton Center with cards, flowers, gifts, goodies and even religious medals for the champ, and thousands of e-mails poured into the hospital's Web site just for him.

"I just can't explain why everyone is so caught up in this horse," Roy Jackson, who owned the colt with his wife, Gretchen, has said time and again. "Everything is so negative now in the world, people love animals and I think they just happen to latch onto him."

Devoted fans even wrote Christmas carols for him, sent a wreath made of baby organic carrots and gave him a Christmas stocking.