Barbaro

Only 3 and half years old, Barbaro the thoroughbred colt clearly stood out from any competition on the racing field, blowing away the other horses in almost every race he ran in. In the 2006 Kentucky Derby, he beat the place horse by over six lengths, an amazing victory for both the horse and his jockey. The future seemed bright for this youngster, and he became the darling of the horse-racing circuit.

At Preakness, however, this was all to come crashing down, as the horse made a false start, hitting the starting gate early, and then stumbling soon after, breaking his right hind leg in more than 20 places. The jockey, Edgar Prado, helped hold the horse up until medical and track staff could get onto the field to lead Barbaro back to his stall.

Horses are fast, strong…and yet quite fragile. A broken leg, especially with the cannon bones being smashed, typically leads to a fast death, and most race horses are put down when they are injured this badly. Barbaro, however, was so important to the public that the animal was transported to the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, to undergo radical treatment by Dr. Dean Richardson.

Hours of surgery managed to place steel plates and rods into the horse’s leg, so he could maintain even balance on all four , but just wasn’t enough to keep Barbaro from favoring his other legs, which soon became overstressed, and began to fail. The pain must have been excruciating, and on January 29^th of 2007, he was euthanized under orders from his owners, who couldn’t stand to see their horse in so much agony.

Barbaro will be remembered, not only as a great racing horse, but also as an animal that brought awareness to the veterinary community as to the possibilities of injury recovery in horses.