It's Hard

to say goodbye to a dying horse.

It just about kills me to read about him. His story isn't getting as big a play as Barbaro's although Lost in the Fog is one of the top racehorses in the country.

More:

Don Smith, the horse's veterinarian, estimated Lost in the Fog might live from four months to a year. However, Gilchrist indicated that the horse would be euthanized at home if he started to feel any pain.

Smith said a medical team at the UC-Davis Veterinarian Medical Teaching Hospital performed a laparoscopy into the abdomen on Friday morning. That test revealed two new tumors in addition to the cantaloupe-sized tumor found in his spleen Sunday. Smith said one of the tumors was about the size of an egg, but a football-sized tumor was found along the spine.

``That one is not one that could be removed surgically,'' he said.

And this:

Smith's revelation that the cancerous masses had likely been growing for at least four months, and, possibly as long as a year, provided an explanation.

"I have more respect for this horse than 70-75% of the people I deal with on a daily basis, it's going to be very tough for me," Gilchrist said. "The race that will probably always stand out in my mind, though, was the race that he ran at Churchill this year, which was probably three months ago. I think Dr. Smith would tell you that he had to be carrying some pretty good-sized tumors in him. And he still went out and got the job done, and it just makes me appreciate the horse so much more for everything he's done. To do what he did carrying what he had [growing] in him."