Pulse: 60-Second Critic: Memoir: My Guy Barbaro

Does Prado’s account of Barbaro really gallop its way into our hearts?

My Guy Barbaro
By Edgar Prado with John Eisenberg
HarperCollins; $25.95

Anyone who loves horses loved Barbaro. The Thoroughbred, so dominating in the 2006 Kentucky Derby, enchanted fans, animal lovers, and grown-up horse-y girls like me, turning us from wide-eyed to stunned to hopeful to grief-stricken. He did the same to his jockey, Edgar Prado, author of this, one of a half-dozen recently released Barbaro books. There’s no denying that Prado’s connection to the horse is exceptional and earnest, but his simplistic account, helped along by sports columnist Eisenberg, is more A Very Young Rider than Tuesdays with Morrie. Racing trivia, statistics, niceties and clichés get in the way of what a book about a man and a horse — especially this horse — is supposed to do: spark your interest, quicken your pulse, and break your heart. Just like Barbaro. C+