Edgar Prado, who rode the legendary colt Barbaro, is the best rider in the Américas

	Jockey Edgar Prado. Bill Frakes/SI

There was the crowning moment for Edgar Prado: recognition of his high standing in a fiercely competitive and dangerous trade. On the night of Jan. 22, at an opulent Beverly Hills hotel, Prado was awarded a 2006 Eclipse Award as the outstanding jockey in thoroughbred horse racing. He was draped in a black tuxedo, and at 5'3" tall, he towered over the ancient sport.

On this occasion Prado, 39, might have dwelled on the long road that -- like many other riders -- he had traveled to success and wealth: from sharing one bedroom with 10 siblings outside his native Lima, Peru, to scratching out a minimal living in South Florida, to winning races in Maryland and Massachusetts before ascending to racing's major leagues. He might have felt validation that night in Beverly Hills, but instead he felt sadness and guilt.

Five weeks after the presentation Prado sat in the jockeys' quarters at Gulfstream Park in Florida, his hair drenched from a weight-reducing session in the hot box, his taut body wrapped in a brown bathrobe. The feelings had not abated. "I didn't win the Eclipse Award," he said. "Barbaro won the Eclipse Award."

This was the paradox for Prado, one that he will feel every time he looks at the Eclipse trophy in his Florida home. He had been very good in 2006, riding horses to nearly $20 million in purses (second in the nation to Garrett Gomez). But it was his relationship with Barbaro that set Prado apart this year. Together they went into the Kentucky Derby unbeaten and won by a commanding 61D 2 lengths, the Derby's widest winning margin in six decades. "Oh, my God, what kind of horse is this?" Prado asked out loud afterward. Triple Crown whispers, already loud, grew much louder.

Two weeks after Kentucky the picture was entirely different. Prado stood fighting back tears on the sandy loam at the Pimlico race track in Maryland after Barbaro had broken down in the first strides of the Preakness Stakes, his right hind leg shattered at the ankle. In the hours and days following the race, veterinarians would praise Prado for expeditiously bringing Barbaro to a stop and trying to calm him, actions that helped give the horse a chance at survival. Barbaro lived eight months after the Preakness, engaging in a courageous fight that touched fans far beyond the horse racing world. Ravaged by laminitis -- the same degenerative hoof condition that caused the death of the great Secretariat in 1989 -- in his three unbroken limbs, Barbaro was euthanized on the morning of Jan. 29.

"I was completely devastated when I heard the news," says Prado. "He could have been one of the greatest horses ever, but he never got the chance to prove it."