with John Eisenberg

Harper. 202 pp. $25.95

In addition to his own inspiring life story, Prado offers his unique perspective on Barbaro's eye-opening triumph in the 2006 Kentucky Derby and the unfortunate events of the Preakness Stakes two weeks later.

Prado's affection for Barbaro rings true. The jockey's occasional visits to the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center to visit Barbaro after the colt broke down at the Preakness weren't made to generate public sympathy. Most of the time, nobody knew Prado was in Kennett Square.

My Guy Barbaro gets the details right, probably because ghostwriter John Eisenberg, a former Baltimore Sun columnist, has written several highly regarded books on the sport.

Even before Barbaro came into his life, Prado had a story worth telling. The son of a racetrack laborer in Lima, Peru - "a foot soldier, not a general'' - Prado tells of how his family struggled to put food on the table, with 10 children to feed. Their one-room house was as "simple and flimsy as a child's Lego creation.'' Everyone slept in bunk beds in the middle of the room. "We joked that we slept so closely together that we surely had the same dreams.''

Prado couldn't stay away from the racetrack, and credits his older brother Anibal with showing him the ropes. Anibal Prado became a journeyman jockey based at Delaware Park and later Philadelphia Park, while Edgar rose to stardom.

But Barbaro is the star of this story. Prado explains that he first saw Barbaro while riding another horse in the Laurel Futurity, and quickly expressed his interest in riding him in future races. Prado writes that he believed Barbaro was destined always to run on grass, as the colt had in his first three races - not that he objected to switching to dirt and taking a run at the Kentucky Derby.

Although Barbaro was undefeated in his five previous races, his 6½-length victory in the Kentucky Derby, the greatest Derby-winning margin in six decades, stamped the horse as a star. Prado's account of the race relates that after Barbaro made a big move to take the lead, " . . . he stalled. Looking back, you can see he was startled. He had been running hard and focusing on the horses in front of him, and suddenly, they were gone. His reaction was, 'Whoa, where'd everyone go?' "

Prado explains that he only had to show Barbaro his stick and the horse took off again. "The sensation was unlike any I had ever felt on a horse,'' Prado writes, comparing the burst of acceleration to going from zero to 60 in a car in seconds.

Prado adds even more detail to Preakness Day, and even wonders whether the time spent on the turf course, where the Preakness horses were saddled, confused Barbaro, getting him excited because he thought he was going to run on the grass again.

Prado also goes through the events surrounding Barbaro's premature departure from the starting gate in that fateful race. When another horse, Diabolical, balked at getting into the gate, the assistant starters opened the front to make him more comfortable. Once Diabolical was in, the crew shut both the door behind him and the one in front. Hearing the second click, Barbaro kicked out, breaking through his own gate even though the race hadn't begun.

Horses that break prematurely rarely run a good race, Prado writes, and he was hoping the veterinarian who inspected Barbaro would see something wrong and order him scratched from the race. But Barbaro seemed fine, his eyes "bright and alive. He couldn't wait to run," Prado writes.

However, when the race started, Barbaro wasn't the same. "He was dragging - and I was immediately on alert.'' After 100 yards, the jockey felt his horse weaken, "almost as if he had absorbed a punch and been knocked off balance.'' It wasn't obvious to Prado that Barbaro was breaking down, but the signs were troubling enough that he pulled him up. Only then did he look down and see that Barbaro was running on three legs, still anxious to race.

The remaining 75 pages of the book deal with the rest of the saga, from Barbaro's trip to New Bolton to his euthanization eight months later. It's sad and familiar territory, but Prado was correct to think that plenty of people would be interested in his insider's perspective.