Barbaro “Officially 51%”
It’s been more than a week since Barbaro had surgery on the hind leg he shattered in the Preakness and the colt couldn’t be doing better, Dr. Dean Richardson said this afternoon:
Richardson, who said the colt’s chances for recovery were 50-50 last week, felt good enough about Barbaro’s progress to joke today that his chances were “now officially 51%,” and said, “Seriously, every day that goes by is a big day.”
Jockey Edgar Prado paid a visit to Barbaro at the New Bolton Center today. “I’m still heartbroken, and I will be for a long time, but I definitely feel a lot better after seeing him,” Prado said after.
There has been no shortage of theories advanced to explain Barbaro’s injury, most centering on the gate incident, since the Preakness, but Pimlico officials think they know what really happened: After studying video of the race, at times frame-by-frame, track president Lou Raffetto said that he is 80% certain that Brother Derek’s right front foot hit Barbaro’s right hind foot only a few yards into the race, forcing Barbaro’s leg to twist. “It’s a timing thing,” Raffetto said. “It’s incredible that it should happen like that. But that’s what appears to have happened.”
Jockey Alex Solis, aboard Brother Derek, isn’t buying that explanation: “There’s no way he could have struck Barbaro; I would have felt it,” said Solis. “We were close behind him, but not that close. Getting that close to him and going that speed, if I had struck him I would have gone down.”
