If you’ve been to London, you’ve probably seen Battersea Power Station. The massive brick structure with its four distinctive chimneys (or smoke stacks, as we Americans usually call them) sits directly across the Thames from the exclusive borough of Chelsea.

Yesterday, my wife and I got to have close-up look around the London landmark, and I’m glad we did.

At the start of our tour, the view across the property to the power station.

Construction on the power station began in 1929. It began generating in 1935, and was continuously expanded and upgraded right through World War II until the final chimney was added in 1955. In any context, it’s an extraordinary building. Turbine Hall A was panelled with Italian marble. An auxiliary control room was done in stainless steel. It’s one of the largest brick structures in Europe.

It stopped generating in 1983. And despite two redevelopment plans, it has site idle ever since. Well, maybe idle is too strong a word. Each of the two failed redevelopment plans did some work on the structure — mostly demolition. The roof over central boiler house was removed. Large pieces of the walls have been taken out. Heaps of spoil adorn the site.

In short, Battersea Power Station is today more ruin than destination, but it is still an astonishing building deserving of restoration.

Turbine Hall A is but one example of the power station’s sad condition.

The folks from Treasury Holdings have a plan. Purposefully embracing the ironic, they are planning to convert the power station and the surrounding property into a massive, modern multi-use complex that will be one of the most environmentally friendly in the world. You can get all of the details here, but suffice for me to say that I was blown away.

The developer’s model showing the power station and surrounding area after redevelopment.

It’s the Treasury Holdings redevelopment proposal that opened the power station’s grounds to visitors. You see, the developer is working hard to attract support for their plans, and must undertake a public consultation as a part of their efforts to win planning approval.

The grounds are open to visitors on each Saturday during July and August., and as a result, thousands of Londoners who come to check out the landmark building are also being exposed — and solicited for feedback — about the redevelopment proposal.

It’s brilliant. The building is amazing. And thanks to Treasury Holdings for going to considerable expense to allow people to see it.

For what’s it worth, from my review of the redevelopment proposal, I hope it goes forward. It looks extraordinary. And it will give future Londoners the chance to not just see, but also to enjoy the famous power station.

UPDATE: You can see all of my photos here.

Michael Vick was a criminal. But his dogs were just dogs.

Today, many of them are living happy lives with new masters thanks to an awfully smart move by U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson.

Hudson ordered Vick to pony up about $1 million for his dogs’ care. And as a result, many have been retrained and are now living with experienced foster families around the country. A few are at a sanctuary in Utah. But only two have been euthanized.

The Washington Post has all the details. And if you’re a dog lover, it’s worth reading it all.

The contrast was almost too much to take.

On Saturday, Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby in commanding fashion, defying mountains of history by winning from the twenty hole and overcoming a lack of experience that many commentators said was insurmountable. If it wasn’t for the tragedy that befell second place finisher Eight Belles in the moments after she crossed the finish line, America would be buzzing today about the possibility of the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.

But the images of Eight Belles after she suffered the fatal fractures of both front legs will be seared into American memories, just as the images of Barbaro breaking down at the Preakness have been.

Much has already been written about Eight Belles’ injury, some of it particularly outrageous. But it’s clear now more than 24 hours after the race that horse racing has a serious problem.

According to Washington Post columnist Andy Beyer, who has covered horse racing for decades, it’s common knowledge within racing circles that horses have become more and more fragile as breeders have chosen speed over soundness and stamina. Indeed, Beyer himself has written about it many times.

But after two tragedies in two years in the only races that most Americans watch, it’s now common knowledge in every household, and it will dominate the discussion over the coming weeks as Big Brown pursues the Triple Crown. Some will insist that synthetic track is the answer. Others will attack the sport as inhumane.

The reality is that very little can be done.

In the days after Barbaro’s injury, I wrote that, “Barbaro’s devastating injury prompts a question: with the risks so high for man and horse, why do it at all?

“But the answer is simple, and it’s a fundamental element of being for these fine horses. Thoroughbreds are born to run. If they weren’t racing each other around the track, they’d be racing each other around the pasture. Running is their nature, coded into every fiber of their being by their DNA.”

Nothing about thoroughbred DNA has changed in the last two years. Great horses are still born to run, just as Eight Belles was.

And if you don’t believe me, consider her performance in the Derby. In the parlance of handicappers, she was clearly second best, dusting the third place horse by nearly 3 lengths, and coming in behind only Big Brown. By doing so, Eight Belles belies any suggestion that she ought not to have been in the race at all. She dueled with the boys, and bested all save one.

So we are left, as ever, with a simple choice. Do we celebrate these animals and their special gifts? Or do we take extreme measures and return them to their pastures and stalls?

I don’t believe we can protect them from their own nature. Great horses will run. There is no sin in watching them do so.

But we can and should do everything in our power to make it as safe as possible. If synthetic surfaces reduce injuries, every track should follow Keeneland’s lead and install them. If there’s more than can be done, the industry should do it. Our pleasure shouldn’t come at these beautiful creatures’ expense.

Needless to say, there has been a tremendous amount of coverage on this. I submit a few must-read items for your consideration:

The indispensable Andy Beyer’s post-race column. Keep checking back on his index page here in the coming days. For my money, when it comes to horse racing, there’s no better or more insightful commentator.

The normally annoying Sally Jenkins wrote a good column that really makes my point better than I can.

Superb on-going coverage from the New York Times’ horse racing blog, The Rail.

Sadness and defensiveness from local Kentucky columnists.

Not long ago, Newsweek editor Jon Meachum asked a class at Columbia Journalism School if any of the students read Timeor Newsweek. The answer, from all of the 100 students, was “no.”

By comparison, a student said that he reads The Economist magazine. Meachum was displeased, and lamented that his magazine did more original reporting, while he contended The Economist offered mostly analysis.

Let me preface this by saying that while I was in Turkey, I loved the Economist. It was the one English-language magazine that I could count on finding, every Monday at the Sheraton Hotel gift shop or D&R books, and that could tell me what was going on back home. (My National Reviews, Weekly Standards, New Republics and Atlantics kept arriving in bunches, usually months after publication.)

And when you’re hard up for fresh reading material while sitting at the Ankara Starbucks, you end up reading the Economist cover to cover, and you find yourself learning a lot that you not only didn’t know, but didn’t think to wonder about. Topics like the right-wing twins who ruled Poland, one as President, the other as Prime Minister. The dynamics of the tribes in Somalia, and which ones were jihadist and which ones weren’t. Zapatero’s foolish outreach to ETA in Spain. The latest power grab by Putin. The internal dynamics of the British Labour Party and the slow, steady rise of David Cameron’s Conservatives. Reviews of books that wouldn’t be hitting American bookshelves for another six months. The exchange rate of the dollar to every major world currency, every week. Mrs. CampaignSpot and I would periodically joke to each other how well-versed we were getting on minutia about far-flung corners of the world — “Honey, can you believe the exchange rate in Bostwana these days?”

The point being that because the Economist seemed to have a small bureau or a stringer in every country in the globe, they always spotlighted news that was completely uncovered by most other media. (Their coverage of Turkey was probably among the best in the English language.) Some folks might be saying that they don’t need to know the political dynamics of other countries, but the Economist writers seemed to know that their mission was to make it interesting, to explain why, for example, violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan was important (i.e., oil pipelines and proximity to Russia, Georgia, Turkey and Iran).

There’s probably a lot of readers of this blog who will say, “I don’t read Newsweek because it’s liberal!” But it’s not just liberal; it’s boring liberalism, very predictable Democratic talking points. (Time’s not much different.) In Newsweek’s pages, the Republican party is always on the verge of cracking up. Democrats are putting their old mistakes behind, and their fresh faces are always shaking up the system. President Bush is always under fire. Pick your Democratic leader - Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Pelosi, Harold Ford - they’ve all gotten their generally glowing profiles.

By comparison, I came across this essay in an Economist from a few weeks ago, about what the toys made in Europe (primarily Lego and Playmobil) say about European values.

On the other hand, Europeans are not as pacifist as they are sometimes portrayed, nor even as anti-gun. Playmobil policemen are armed to the teeth, and have big dogs for chasing Playmobil bank-robbers (who sport stubbly chins beneath their smiles). In the adult world, many Europeans are duly happy to send armed paramilitary police to be peacekeepers, but are fretful about sending their troops into combat.

Yet go farther back in history and violence triggers little concern. There are Playmobil knights and barbarians, pirates and Roman legionaries, all wielding lethal weapons. Europeans can even live with American military toys, if they are old enough: there are Playmobil cowboys from the Wild West, and soldiers from both sides in the American civil war.

The difference is philosophical, says Mrs Schauer. There are no more knights and pirates, so their combat is a “resolved story”. Modern war is “really horror”. That is echoed by Gabi Neubauer, a librarian buying toys in Nuremberg. She suggests that “it is more honourable to fight with a sword, somehow.” Not all explanations are as high-faluting. Asked why Playmobil makes any tiny toy guns at all, Mrs Schauer admits “otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be accepted by boys.”

Now, the article addresses European views on guns, crime, race, etc. But it never hits you over the head of what you’re supposed to think about the fact that European kids rarely play with toy soldiers. You can think it’s part of building a nonviolent society, or you could say it reflects that Europeans no longer pay their armed forces the respect they deserve.

One, you would never see an essay in Time or Newsweek examining what a society’s toys say about its values — that’s too out of the box, too esoteric and abstract when the public, in the eyes of liberal editors, needs to know why Eliot Spitzer’s fall is a tragedy, or how the Democrats will quickly come together behind their nominee. Second, if you did, a Time or Newsweek columnist would not be content to simply draw the ties between European toys and their social views; they would have to tell us whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, and whether or not your children should play with G.I. Joe and Transformers and war toys.

Meachum brags about his magazine’s correspondents in Iraq. Their coverage is fine and noble, but does it really stand out from any other organization’s reporting from Iraq? After a while, the coverage turns into endless versions of “another bomb went off today.” Contrast that to the long-form you-are-there style of Michael Yon.

By the way - I’ve found the Economist’s coverage of the U.S. presidential race hit and miss. (Yeah, they’re a competitor, and so I’ll always be a bit nitpicky about what they’re writing.) But I think the contrast is that Newsweek is offering a product similar to Time and U.S. News and World Report and most daily newspapers, and more than a few political blogs, while the Economist does a pretty good job of giving you something unique every week… Picking an example from the most recent issue, that other European countries, particularly Poland, are jealous of a deal worked out between the Czech Republic and the U.S., where Czech citizens seeking to visit America can now apply for a visa waiver online. Both countries are possible sites for a U.S. missile defense system, and the speculation is that we’re using the visa waivers system as a bargaining chip. Much craftier dealmaking and diplomacy than I’ve come to expect from the State Department in this administration.

Somehow I don’t suspect I’ll be reading that from Eleanor Clift next week.

Marshall: After only two weeks in Europe, I’ve already learned that with the Financial Times and the BBC, the Economist is among the two or three most important and influential publications in Europe. And like you, Jim, I’m already and addict. Why? Because it’s interesting and thoughtful and, even though the stories aren’t longer than what you see in Time or Newsweek, Economist stories have real depth.

That used to be the role that newsmags in the states tried to fill — adding depth to the big stories you were reading about in the papers, and taking the time to write enterprise stories for which few newspapers could find the resources or the space. Unfortunately, like so many other media outlets, the newsmags in the U.S. have gone the McPaper route: lots of flash, graphics and big photos, writing simplified to the eighth grade level, and a general aversion towards risk. Instead, they slap “sex” on their covers, fill the feature pages with big, scary stories about the latest overblown study on cancer or nutrition, and expect us to pay $3.95 a copy at the newsstand.

I can get the inch deep news from cable, or YouTube, or the first page of Yahoo. So when it comes to print media, I want more, not less. More depth. More thoughtfulness. More stories about a wider range of subjects from a broader range of locales. More quality journalism.

The Economist delivers. And it’s thriving. Why can’t other major print outlets get the joke.

Cam: I’m beginning to think that my idea of taking the week before Christmas as vacation is the worst idea of 2007. I originally planned on going to Arkansas to help my mother move, but had to scuttle that idea hours before I was supposed to board a plane. Now I’ve been home all week, and I think it’s fair to say I’m going a little stir-crazy.

But surely there are worse ideas this year. Jamie-Lynn Spears thinking “Oh, he’ll pull out”, for instance. Hillary Clinton’s Christmas commercial. The mortgage bailout. Democrat leadership deciding to go after Rush Limbaugh for his “lack of support for the troops”. Alan Keyes getting an invite to the Iowa debate. The CNN debates in general. The Steinbrenners and their treatment of Joe Torre. Mike Gundy’s “I am a man! I’m 40!” comments. The list goes on and on.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, because it’s really hard to pick ONE bad idea. But how about Hollywood’s desire to make a successful anti-war film. We’ve seen the results. You could release a movie called “Bucky Takes a Dump” (featuring a talking cat and the wacky adventures with his litter box) and it would be more successful than Hollywood’s anti-war films have been this year. Yet we all know how well Hollywood listens to their audience, so I’m guessing 2008 will be filled with more of the same.

Jim: That’s an awesome nomination, Cam. Dang, it seems like there’s always more good nominees for the worst categories than the best categories. I think I’m going to go with the Earliest Primaries Ever and the Earliest-Starting Campaigns Ever. I’m with Karl Rove in his assessment.

Candidates start early because they think it will give them a leg up. I think we can now declare that the early bird does not always get the key worm endorsement. Ask Vilsack, Tommy Thompson, Jim Gilmore, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo… and Duncan Hunter, you’re overdue. Fred Thompson hasn’t run a fantastic campaign, but he’s more viable than quite a few other candidates who started a lot earlier. I salute his one-man struggle to return some semblence of order to this chaotic system.

The states have moved up their primaries in a Sisyphian effort to become more relevant, and have, in all likelihood, reinforced how important Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina are. Time to trash this system. Two options I prefer - start in the smallest states, and work your way up to the biggest - so that the race is interesting all the way until the end; or simply do what the PGA does and start in the good-weather states.

Marshall: Although the idea was born in 2006, it didn’t actually come to fruition until 2007, so I’m naming Senator George Mitchell’s investigation of steroid use in baseball.

Commission Bud Selig, who presided over the entirity of the steroid era, hatched this loser, and for that, he ought to lose his job.

The Mitchell report revealed next to nothing of any consequence about steroid use in baseball. The only real evidence it offered were from steroid dealers who had an incentive to exagerate. The players implicated were given no chance to respond. And the report and the information in it are an embarrassment to the game.

And what did the game get in return?

Nothing. No greater clarity on the steroid era. No closure. No concerns put to rest.

As one commentator said last week, it was like baseball had a big pile of manure in the living room, and decided to clean it up with a leaf blower. They got a little out the door, to be sure, but most of it ended up on the walls.

Over at Bitter’s place, I saw this post about fatherhood and manhood. Apparently this is the subject of a piece in Time Magazine, but here’s the post that got me thinking.

“Masculinity has traditionally been associated with work and work-related success, with competition, power, prestige, dominance over women, restrictive emotionality. . . But a good parent needs to be expressive, patient, emotional, not money oriented. Basically, masculinity is bad for you.”

That comes from Time, btw, not the blog I just linked to. But the blogger responds in part by saying:

The problem with ideas like masculinity and manhood is not that they are bundles of bad behavior. The problem is that they’ve been hijacked by half-men. The droves of males we see advancing themselves in their careers by neglecting their children should not rightly be called real men. They are boys playing at the game of man. It is a man-boy who thinks money is his measure. It is a man-boy who works long hours so he can win the approval of his CEO. It is the man-boy who thinks he is something because he can get women to do his bidding.

A real man, on the other hand, protects and provides for his family, and partners with his wife to train up his children in the way they should go. He isn’t necessarily gabby, but his children know in their souls that he loves them. He is patient and kind. He lays down his life for his family every day.

Fifty years ago, we all knew these things. Today, however, we are beset by a host of intellectuals who haven’t the sense to recognize that fewer and fewer males know how to become real men. The problem is not that masculinity is rotten. It is that so few men live up to it.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! This is why books like the “Dangerous Book for Boys” are so popular right now. Some of us recognize that our parents didn’t raise Generation X, they raised Generation Wuss.

But here’s the thing: you don’t get to be a man’s man by caring about being a man’s man. You don’t get there by reading Time freaking magazine say that masculinity is a bad thing. You get there by not caring. You don’t give a damn what the neighbors say, or whether or not your sister-in-law is going to cluck over your decisions. The only thing you care about is this:

“Is this the best thing for my family?”

Because being a man (once you’re a father) is all about your family. For the vast majority of us (Teddy Roosevelt not included), the legacy we will leave to the world is not our job, or our bank account. It’s our kids.

This doesn’t mean we drop everything in order to cater to the whims of our offspring… quite the opposite. If you’re lucky enough to be one of the few well-adjusted Americans that remain in this glorious Republic, you and I probably share some similar experiences from childhood.

- Our lives weren’t structured to every last minute of every last day. Sometimes we simply had to amuse ourselves.

- Our parents weren’t our friends. They were our mom and dad, and we clearly knew the difference. It was easier (and certainly more pleasurable) to imagine kissing our 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Wilcox than it was to imagine calling our mom or dad by their first name.

- We didn’t get our way. I don’t mean we didn’t get our way until we pouted for twenty minutes, or we didn’t get our way 20% of the time… I mean it was common for us to get told “No”, and that was the end of the discussion… unless we kept whining “please please please” and then we got punished for that.

- We knew our parents loved us. You don’t need a Ferrari on your 16th birthday to understand that. You need to be told, and you need to be shown. A hug and a kiss, an “I’m proud of you” or “You did a great job!” go a long freaking way.

We weren’t babied, we weren’t coddled, we had actual responsibilities and obligations even as kids. We weren’t abused, but bullshit wasn’t tolerated in large amounts. We were punished when we needed to be punished, and we got cool treats that were completely unexpected at times. And we turned out fine.

At least I think I did. Honestly, I really don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. I guess I’m secure enough in my manhood and fatherhood that I don’t ponder these things. The sad thing is, apparently enough Americans feel differently that Time Magazine devotes an entire article to this phenomenon.

You don’t need a self-help book to be a better man or a better dad (of course, I reserve the right to disavow this statement if I ever write such a book). Honestly, it’s not that freaking hard. “Is this the best thing for my family?” That’s all it takes. Well, that and the ability to answer that question without lying to yourself.

It’s a little hard to tell whether the offering at this site is legitimate or not, but either way, it’s a great idea. In short, someone is making chew toys for dogs in the shape of Michael Vick. I’m going to order one for Cody. Dogs get their metaphorical revenge. Though Jim’s suggestion at the end of this post is still pretty appealling, too.

When Hank Aaron hit number 715 over the left field fence at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium, he dropped the bat and jogged the bases, careful as always not to show-up the pitcher who had just surrendered the blast. Last night, when Barry Bonds whacked number 756 over the right center field fence into the bleachers at AT&T Park in San Francisco, he dropped his bat and lingered at the plate, arms raised, metaphorically spitting in the face of the baseball gods, just as he has for so long.

I am a baseball fan, and I have been all of my life. I also played baseball, through little league, high school and into college. Under different circumstances, I would have stayed up to all hours of the morning to watch Bonds break the record in a game that began at 10:15 p.m. here on the east coast. Last night, I caught his first at-bat — wherein he doubled to right center — and went to bed.

When I woke this morning, and heard that Bonds had finally done it, I wasn’t elated. I wasn’t happy for Bonds or for baseball. Instead, I was sad and a little dispirited.

A great record, established by an epic hero who endured racism and death threats, had been broken by a spoiled, obnoxious cheater who has taken much from the game and given very little.

Indeed, last night, in the moments after Bonds broke his record, Hank Aaron cemented his superiority once and for all, delivering an eloquent, taped message of congratulations to Bonds in spite of his understandable disappointment at surrendering the record he fought so hard to establish.

This morning, I heard Bob Costas, one of the most insightful observers of baseball, describe Bonds as a tragic figure. Costas asserted that with only his natural talent, Bonds is one of the five or six greatest players to every play the game. But, Costas said, Bonds owes nearly all of his records — the single season home run mark, the record for career on base percentage, and the record for career home runs — to a period in the late 1990s when he took performance enhancing drugs.

Let there be no doubt. I believe — and America believes — that Barry Bonds took steroids. I would not be at all surprised to learn that he has continued taking HGH or some other substance not covered by baseball’s testing regime right through today. When Bonds sat in his post-game press conference last night, and stated flatly that his newly minted record, “is not tainted,” I am convinced that he is lying.

That said, I’m not a believer in asterisks. The asterisk that then-Commissioner Ford Frick ordered on Roger Maris’s single-season mark after the 1961 was and is one of the great injustices in the history of the game. The career home run record now belongs to Bonds. For me and legions of other baseball fans, it’s a reality that we may never fully accept. Going forward, I’ll be rooting for Alex Rodriguez to continue his extraordinary play and surpass Bonds in the coming years.

That’s because my beef with bonds doesn’t end with his cheating. It really only begins there. Bonds, you see, was raised in a great baseball family. His father was an All-Star and a great player in his own right. His godfather is Willie Mays, one of the two or three greatest all-around players ever. Bonds should have grown up with respect, if not reverence, for the traditions and history of the game. Perhaps he did. But at some point, in his own mind, Bonds became bigger than the game. He started routinely showing up pitchers. He became surely, stand-offish and rude to fans and reporters. And then he started to cheat.

In the film “Bull Durham“, perhaps the most insightful movie about baseball ever produced, veteran catcher Crash Davis tells promising young — but flawed — pitcher Nuke LaLoosh, “You don’t respect yourself, which is your problem. But you don’t respect the game, and that’s my problem.”

Bonds doesn’t respect the game. And that’s my problem.

Jim: Last night, during an On Tap off-line meeting, I noted to Marshall that I don’t follow baseball nearly as closely as I used to. When I was say, my preteen years and collecting baseball cards, I could probably name at least one player on every team; I suspect many Americans could: Wade Boggs, Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson, Cal Ripken, Mike Schmidt, Dale Murphy, Roger Clemens, Ozzie Smith, Doc Gooden, Tony Gwynn, Kirby Puckett, Nolan Ryan, that much-hyped rookie Ken Griffey Jr. … Today, I couldn’t name a player on a lot of teams. It feels like there just aren’t as many high-profile, charismatic, bona fide superstars as there used to be.

When a guy like Doc Gooden screwed up with drugs, he was only one star among many, and the rest of the big names kind of carried the reputation of baseball through any given scandal. Today, Bonds, warts and all, is still probably one of the biggest stars in baseball, one of the few names recognized nationwide. And there aren’t as many big superstars to keep the good name of the game alive as Bonds is giving the sport a black eye. (That’s not even mentioning the stars of the recent past who look a bit different because of steroid rumors - Mark McGuire, Jose Canseco, Brady Anderson.)

Who are baseball’s true superstars besides Bonds? A-Rod, Jeter… Is Big Papi the most high-profile Red Sock? Did any of last year’s St. Louis Cardinals or Detroit Tigers turn into the guys you see in every commercial or Wheaties box? (Pujols, I guess). Ichiro Suzuki? Baltimore still genuflects to the memory of Cal Ripken, and in Washington, we’re still waiting for a franchise-defining superstar to emerge.

Bonds breaking the record hurts the image of baseball. Bonds breaking the record at a moment when there’s really nobody else to take away the spotlight is even worse.

Every now and then I suppose it is. Case in point:

Despite his staunch opposition to the National Rifle Association and U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, peace activist Paul Robinson conceded Monday that the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle is “pretty damn cool.”

…

Last week, a guilt-ridden Robinson bought a copy of Guns & Ammo containing an article titled “The Guns Of Black Hawk Down,” which prominently featured the Barrett.

“It’s a big gun, the Barrett,” said Robinson, leafing through the article. “It’s about five feet long and weighs almost 30 pounds. It fires the largest widely available cartridge in the world—a machine-gun bullet, really. It can empty a 10-round magazine as fast as you can pull the trigger. And thanks to its ingenious dual-chamber muzzle brake, gases are vented away, and the user feels no more recoil than you get with a 12-gauge shotgun. Not that anyone should know what the recoil feels like on any gun.”

You know, the funny thing is, I’ve interviewed several people who were ardently anti-gun… until they actually went out to the range.

If you own, train, or ride thoroughbred horses, that’s the first rule. Horses are wonderful animals. They have personalities. They have heart. They are born to run. But sometimes they get hurt or sick, and sometimes they die.

Unfortunately, America didn’t know the rule, and last spring, we fell in love with a horse called Barbaro. But we weren’t the first to fall. This extraordinary article in Vanity Fair recounts Barbaro’s story from the inside — through the eyes of the owners, trainers, doctors and jockeys who helped hone him into a Kentucky Derby champion, and then tried to save his life after his devastating injury at the Preakness.

The problem for Gretchen Jackson was she did fall in love with a horse. She fell in love with him because when he was in his element on the racecourse there were moments he ran with such joy and abandon that he actually flew, all four feet off the ground. She fell in love with him because of the way he soldiered on after he was tragically hurt in the Preakness Stakes in May 2006, his sense of self so intact that he bit one veterinarian smack on the butt and ran a masseuse out of the stall. She fell in love with him because of the gleam in his eyes, still bright, during those dark days in July 2006 when both his rear lower limbs became a medical nightmare, and she wrote in the private journal she kept:

It’s not good. Oh my God I am so concerned. Dear Lord we cannot let the bright light fade, flicker, die. We must conquer. Where are you God in my suffering? Are you holding my hands showing me full moons and breezy nights? Yes Lord, they are magnificent but my heart is looking at Barbaro. That is not the horse that won the derby.

She fell in love with him because of the way he was trying to communicate, Don’t give up on me yet. She fell in love with him because of the way he rallied after that. And then she fell in love with him because of the way he died.

Barbaro’s trainers fell in love too. And his doctors. And they gave Barbaro a level care far beyond what most horses could expect.

The Vanity Fair story includes a number of revelations, including the degree to which the media put a positive spin on Barbaro’s condition, even as he struggled.

But more amazing is the degree to which Barbaro made it clear that he wanted to live and how he demonstrated through his personality that he wanted his doctors to succeed. He reveled in the comforts of his owner and trainer. And he fought. Fought hard.

Some might say that this was all false perception. That Barbaro’s human companions were merely projecting, seeking out human behavior in an animal. But anyone who has been around animals knows better. You can see hope, illness and despair. You can see it in their eyes and in their demeanor.

Thoroughbred horses are the world’s greatest athletes. And just like human athletes, it’s often that intangible, “heart,” that makes the difference between winning and losing. There are dozens of accounts of horses running side by side, when one realizes it is beaten, and simply fades back. There are even accounts of horses, beaten in tight races, out dueled to the finish, who literally never recover.

Barbaro had heart. He was tough. And he was special. It’s a tragedy that his body couldn’t keep pace with that heart. He would have been a champion for the ages.