Bluegrassrivals

Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, who suffered multiple fractures soon after the start of the Preakness Stakes (gr. I), has been taken to the George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at the New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Penn., where it is expected that he will undergo surgery.

His injury is career-ending and life-threatening.

The transport from Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore to Pennsylvania was shown live on WBAL-TV.

The Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner stumbled and dropped behind the nine-horse Preakness field before being pulled up by jockey Edgar Prado in front of the clubhouse. Barbaro had broken through the gate before the race officially started.

According to Dr. Larry Bramlage, a prominent equine surgeon with the American Association of Equine Practitioners, Barbaro suffered a condylar fracture of the cannon bone in his right hind leg above the ankle. Below the ankle is a comminuted fracture (meaning it is in pieces) of the first phalanx (long pastern bone) and there is a piece off the sesamoid.

At New Bolton, Dr. Dean Richardson will be in charge, according to Bramlage.

Bramlage added that a major factor in the prognosis will be how much the colt's blood supply has been compromised by the injury.

"When he went to the gate, he was feeling super and I felt like he was in the best condition for this race," Prado said. "He actually tried to buck me off a couple of times. He was feeling that good. He just touched the front of the doors of the gate and went right through it.

"During the race, he took a bad step and I can't really tell you what happened. I heard a noise about 100 yards into the race and pulled him right up."

Gretchen Jackson, who bred and campaigned the colt with her husband Roy Jackson under the Lael Stables banner, said she was still in shock.

"We didn't expect this. You can expect being beaten," she said. "It looked like a bad fracture. We're hoping that they'll operate on him tomorrow. That's as much as we know."


http://www.ntra.com/content.aspx?type=news&id=17972

I actually cried watching it and thinking that they may have to put him down. I hope he can make it through all this.

It broke my heart when I seen Prado pull him up... i knew he was hurt bad when he was staying off his leg and you could tell how much pain he was in... I just hope he pulls through... it's awful to see any horse get hurt.. but one of the best to ever race just makes it worse

Barbaro is undergoing surgery right now

I hope everything goes alright. It was sickening to watch Barbaro get hurt like that. Keep us updated if you know anything

no need for a joke in this thread

He is still in surgery right now... they said his chances of recovering are about 50/50 but a lotof people think it should be lower than that... if the surgery goes well the next 2 months will determine if he will make it ... they aren't sure if the blood supply will be good enough to support the healing and he will have to behave well

KENNETT SQUARE, Pa. - Barbaro was in surgery for some seven hours Sunday to repair his severely injured right hind leg, during which the colt had 23 screws and a locking compression plate implanted into the leg.

The surgery, which was performed at the George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center by Dr. Dean Richardson, the hospital's chief of surgery, actually lasted a little more than four hours, although there also was considerable prep and recovery time. Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner who incurred the injury Saturday in the Preakness at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, was taken into surgery shortly after 12:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday and was standing on all four legs in a 14-foot by 14-foot stall in the hospital's intensive care unit as of 9 p.m.

Barbaro has been fitted with a specially made cast that allows the colt to bear weight on every limb. It extends from just below the hock and encloses the hoof.

"To be brutally honest, there's still enough chance for things going bad that he's still a coin toss, even after everything went well," Dr. Richardson said afterward at a media conference at the hospital.

Dr. Richardson, who led the six-person team that performed the surgery, said Barbaro would wear the cast for about "a week to 10 days," after which the colt will be reevaluated. Dr. Richardson said his most pressing concerns are about whether infection will set in or the colt will develop laminitis.

Barbaro suffered fractures to his cannon bone, sesamoids, and long pastern, and also suffered a dislocation of the fetlock joint. Dr. Richardson said the long pastern was broken into more than 20 pieces.

Before the surgery, Dr. Richardson said he rarely works on such severe injuries because the horse invariably would be euthanized at the track. "It is very unusual to have three catastrophic injuries all together," he said at the time. "I've never seen this exact fracture and I never tackled one before."

Afterward, Dr. Richardson described the surgery as "very difficult" but that Barbaro was a good patient. The colt's blood supply to his hoof is good, said Dr. Richardson, and after being lifted out of a swimming pool used for the post-operative segment of the surgical process, the colt "practically jogged back to his stall" in the IC unit with the new cast on his hind leg.

Barbaro, the 3-year-old Dynaformer colt who was the 1-2 Preakness favorite, broke down about 200 yards into the race. As a Preakness-record crowd of 118,402 watched in horror, jockey Edgar Prado was able to pull up the colt soon after the finish line. The race eventually was won by 12-1 shot Bernardini.

Michael Matz, who trained Barbaro for the Lael Stables of Roy and Gretchen Jackson, watched some of the surgery and attended the media conference afterward. "I feel much more relieved after I saw him walk to his stall than when I was loading him in the ambulance to come here," said Matz. "I feel that at least he has a chance, whereas last night I didn't know what was going to go on."

http://www.ntra.com/content.aspx?type=news&style=&id=17980