Update: Barbaro is out of surgery and standing in an intensive care stall at New Bolton. “Things right now are good,” said Dr. Dean Richardson. “He practically jogged back to his stall … He’s very comfortable right now.” The news is about as good as can be hoped for, but Richardson did caution that Barbaro still faces a challenging months-long recovery from his injuries. “To be brutally honest, there’s still enough chance for things going bad that it’s still a coin toss even though everything went well.”
Photos: Here’s one of Barbaro coming out of the recovery pool and another of him walking back to his stall. The image below shows the x-ray of Barbaro’s leg before surgery on the left; on the right is an x-ray of the leg after surgery:
Images courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania/New Bolton Center
Richardson put in a bone plate and 27 screws during surgery to reconstruct Barbaro’s leg. The x-ray showing his incredible work is not only amazing but testament to how much equine medicine had advanced in the past couple of decades.
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Surgery on Barbaro’s injured right hind leg began shortly after 12:30 today at the New Bolton Center and is expected to take at least three hours. “It’s a very complicated procedure,” said Dr. Dean Richardson. “We’ll be attempting to fuse the entire joint. I don’t want to give any prognosis for success until further review during the surgery.”
It was revealed this morning that the injuries Barbaro suffered in yesterday’s Preakness were more severe than initially reported: In addition to the cannon and pastern bone fractures, the colt also has a fractured sesamoid and his ankle was dislocated at the fetlock joint. Richardson called the damage “very, very serious,” and said that he had not worked on a horse before with such catastrophic injuries. “You do not see this severe injury frequently because the fact is most horses that suffer this typically are put down on the race track,” he said. “This is rare.”
The news might be grim, but its sounds as though Barbaro has so far been the perfect patient (“He was very brave and well behaved under the situation and was comfortable overnight“) and that he’s getting the best possible care. And, as the Blood-Horse reassuringly points outs, while the situation is dire, “broken legs aren’t death.”
After surgery, surgeons plan “to place the leg in a sling and place Barbaro on a raft on a pool before the horse emerges from anesthesia.” The pool is used to prevent a horse from reinjuring itself as it wakes from surgery. Here’s a short video that shows another New Bolton equine patient waking from leg surgery in the recovery pool and then walking to his stall in a cast.
Posted by JC in Horses on 05/21/2006 @ 2:30 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
One bad step. That’s all it takes. Triple Crown dreams disappear in an instant, replaced by one wish: “Let’s just hope Barbaro lives.”
The Derby winner was pulled up on the stretch in front of the Pimlico grandstand shortly after the start of Preakness with an injured right hind leg. “During the race, he took a bad step and I can’t really tell you what happened,” said jockey Edgar Prado. “I heard a noise about a 100 yards into the race and pulled him right up.” The noise was the sound of a catastrophic injury:
According to Dr. Larry Bramlage, a prominent equine surgeon and On Call veterinarian for 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. He described it as a “two-phased” injury.
Barbaro was taken back to his stall in the Pimlico stakes barn. After he was sedated and stabilized, the colt was transferred to the New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where he’ll undergo surgery on Sunday. The injury is life-threatening.
More: “In the record crowd, an instant diagnosis could be made of 118,402 broken hearts“; “Startling injury at Preakness ends Barbaro’s quest“; “Preakness reminds us what’s really at stake.”
Photos: Barbaro is held by jockey Edgar Prado and a track assistant after being pulled up; Prado stands over the saddle taken off Barbaro; Bernardini approaches the finish line, running past the injured favorite; wearing a splint, Barbaro is loaded into the equine ambulance.
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The lightly raced Bernardini, in only his fourth start and his first around two turns, won the Preakness by 5 1/4 lengths. “I knew at the three-eighths pole this horse would win,” said jockey Javier Castellano. ”I had plenty of horse and the two horses in front of me [Sweetnorthernsaint and Brother Derek] started tiring. At the quarter pole, when I asked him, he took off.” Bernardini ran “a phenomenal race” to earn a 113 Beyer speed figure. Sweetnorthernsaint was second, Hemingway’s Key third.
Posted by JC in Triple Crown on 05/21/2006 @ 12:00 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
2007 Preakness post positions are on the homepage: Click here
The Preakness field, with jockeys and morning line:
| 1 |
Like Now |
Garrett Gomez |
12-1 |
| 2 |
Platinum Couple |
Jose Espinoza |
50-1 |
| 3 |
Hemingway’s Key |
Jeremy Rose |
30-1 |
| 4 |
Greeley’s Legacy |
Richard Migliore |
20-1 |
| 5 |
Brother Derek |
Alex Solis |
3-1 |
| 6 |
Barbaro |
Edgar Prado |
Even |
| 7 |
Sweetnorthernsaint |
Kent Desormeaux |
4-1 |
| 8 |
Bernardini |
Javier Castellano |
8-1 |
| 9 |
Diabolical |
Ramon Dominguez |
30-1 |
Posted by JC in Triple Crown on 05/17/2006 @ 8:30 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
