Edgar Prado

It was an electrifying finish to the 2006, Kentucky Derby, as the undefeated 3-year-old Barbaro won the race by the largest margin of victory in over six decades. The jockey who guided Barbaro to victory that day was one of the world's best, the 38-year-old veteran Edgar Prado. But two weeks later tragedy struck. In the opening seconds of the Preakness, Barbaro went down with a catastrophic leg injury. Barbaro struggled for months, before finally having to be put down. Two years later, Prado wrote a love story, a book called M Guy Barbaro.  That's when I met him and his co-author, sports writer John Eisenberg.