Barbaro's recovery off to a good start
KENNETT SQUARE, Pa. — Barbaro was just about perfect on the racetrack, and so far the Kentucky Derby winner has been behaving perfectly as a patient.
"He looked pretty bright, you can't ask for anything more," Barbaro's trainer Michael Matz said.
Barbaro was on his feet Monday in his stall, and that's a good sign a day after surgeons spent more than five hours pinning together the leg bones he shattered in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday.
"He's doing all the things a horse should do, including eating and nickering at the mares near him," Dr. Dean Richardson said.
Richardson and a team of assistants performed the surgery at the George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center.
The strapping 3-year-old colt seems to be adjusting well to his new life as a rehab patient. With a fiberglass cast on his right hind leg and a staff of veterinarians keeping a 24-hour watch, standing around is the best thing — the only thing — the stricken Barbaro can do.
"It's going as well as expected," said Dr. Corinne Sweeney, the executive hospital director. "He is standing on the leg and with the appropriate amount of weight on it."
Despite the good initial reports, doctors have guardedly given Barbaro a 50-50 chance for survival.
"While we are optimistic, we remain cautious about his prognosis and are watching for signs of infection at the surgical site, laminitis and other possible aftereffects of the surgery," Richardson in a statement on the hospital's Web site.
Laminitis is an often-fatal disease sometimes brought on by uneven weight balance.
The colt, accustomed to strong early morning gallops at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., is far, far removed from that routine. His daily regiment now consists of trying to stand comfortably and keeping his weight evenly distributed. It may take weeks, even months before Barbaro is able to do more.
Barbaro will spend his long recovery in the intensive care unit of this 650-acre center in the heart of Pennsylvania horse country.
His appetite has been fine and his vital signs are good, Sweeney said.
Barbaro was the odds-on favorite to remain undefeated and win the Preakness to set up a Triple Crown try in the Belmont Stakes. But a few hundred yards out of the starting gate, he took a bad step, his leg flared out grotesquely and he veered sideways before jockey Edgar Prado pulled the powerful colt to a halt.
Later that night, he was vanned to New Bolton and surgery lasted most of the afternoon on Sunday.
Barbaro sustained a broken cannon bone above the ankle, a broken sesamoid bone behind the ankle and a broken long pastern bone below the ankle. The fetlock joint — the ankle — was dislocated.
Richardson said the pastern bone was shattered in "20-plus pieces."
The bones were put in place to fuse the joint by inserting a plate and 23 screws to repair damage so severe that most horses wouldn't have survived it.
Horses are often euthanized after serious leg injuries because circulation problems and deadly diseases can arise if they are unable to distribute weight on all fours.
"I'm hoping for the best, I'm very optimistic," Matz said. "It's going to be a long time and we just have to take it day by day and keep our fingers crossed."
