Not sure why but this made me feel awful

Yeah, I know, there are PEOPLE being killed every day, and in the larger sphere of things, this is pretty damned insignificant. But for some strange reason, I felt kicked in the gut when I read this:

Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was euthanized Monday after complications from his gruesome breakdown at last year's Preakness, ending an eight-month ordeal that prompted an outpouring of support across the country.

"We just reached a point where it was going to be difficult for him to go on without pain," co-owner Roy Jackson said. "It was the right decision, it was the right thing to do. We said all along if there was a situation where it would become more difficult for him then it would be time."

A series of ailments, including laminitis in the left rear hoof and a recent abscess in the right rear hoof, proved too much for the gallant colt.

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.

He suffered a significant setback over the weekend, and surgery was required to insert two steel pins in a bone — one of three shattered in the Preakness but now healthy — to eliminate all weight bearing on the ailing right rear foot.

The procedure Saturday was a risky one, because it transferred more weight to the leg while the foot rests on the ground bearing no weight.

The leg was on the mend until the abscess began causing discomfort last week. Until then, the major concern was Barbaro's left rear leg, which developed laminitis in July, and 80 percent of the hoof was removed.

Richardson said Monday morning that Barbaro did not have a good night.

I don't even LIKE horses.

I guess it's because those of us who have had pets have at one time or another had to endure that terrible dilemma of judging when the animal we love has been through enough. And when someone else goes through that, it brings back all the pain we've had in our lives making similar decisions. The loss of a beloved pet or animal companion of any kind, whether through death or another reason, is sharper than those who are not animal people can understand. The pain of this couple making the correct, if painful choice to return a cat they had adopted to its desperate original owner is palpable.

I'm still not sure why Barbaro became the mascot of a nation. Perhaps we wanted to believe in a happy ending because it meant we didn't have to confront the sick waste and Darwinian brutality of horse racing. Perhaps it was because he seemed to WANT to fight back and be the one horse that makes it. Whatever the reason, an entire nation affixed its own emotional baggage to this one horse, and when he was unable to come through for us, it feels like a personal loss.