What a beatifully and tastefully done photo essay by Barbara Livingston in the Blood Horse (see VirginiaBred’ s post just a few above mine). Every time I clicked “next” I was afraid that the next image might be of his accident, but not a chance. Just 20 striking photos of a beatiful, athletic, champion American Throughbred. Gave me goosebumps. Kudos Ms. Livingston, Blood Horse, and VABred, thanks for sharing!
Thank you VB…what a great Christmas Day story about Barbaro. Sounds like he must really be a handful at times! I sure would be too if I’d been through all he’s been through this year :yes: .
Update 1241: Barbaro remains comfortable (thursday afternoon). I know, I visited. It was an impromptu visit. I was planning to hang another poster on the outside fence line and meet Sabina Pierce, to get a couple of photographs of the fence line and have lunch. One thing led to another and I visited Barbaro briefly. It was the first time I had seen him with Dr. Richardson in attendance (as well as Tom, the Jackson’s farm manager). It was a short visit, but great nonetheless. I helped out a little with Tom, and then stayed and chatted with Beth, who I had seen before but not someone I had met. I am not sure what Beth’s official role / position is at New Bolton, but one of her tasks is to muck out Barbaro’s stall. This is not an easy task given how deeply bedded the stall is for Barbaro. It is also somewhat of a mix of straw and shavings. Anyway, it was fun to learn more about another of Barbaro’s care providers and fun to hang out with Barbaro, if only briefly. I did feed him some baby carrots and an apple or two. Thanks, Alex
Friday Morning ~
Update 1242: End of year honors will soon be known, here is another sports writer’s opinion: This Cat is Horse of Year. I think many of his picks are picks people here might agree with (3yo: Barbaro; 2yo NoBiz; Older female: Round Pond; Turf Male: Showing Up etc. etc.) His picks would give trainer Michael Matz two winners and the Jackson’s two winners, I would suspect that would make them trainer and owner winners too!
Jerry Green provides his Most memorable sports moments of 2006. Barbaro’s journey coming in at number two. Ironically his number one pick (Zidane in the World Cup final) took place during a low point in Barbaro’s journey.
Today’s Barbaro update will again likely be late in the day.
Thanks, Alex.
Update 1243: Here is the video created by Penn that was sent to media outlets last week: Barbaro video walking: December 20th.
Could you explain (as a non vet why the joints fused when from the x rays it looked like only the long bones were broken? ( for example… if you glue the breaks in a split door the hinges aren’t frozen…what happened?)
Happy new year to you Bobby! Team Barbaro is still rooting for you, big guy!:sadsmile:
Thanks to VB and Alex!
Update 1244: Here is the current view of the fence line outside New Bolton: New Bolton Fence Line: Dec 28.
Another Fan of Barbaro has a letter published on horse slaughter: Letter: Horse slaughter ban good for beef farmers.
I thought this was a nice review of horse racing in 2006 in the US: Seasons of 2006.
Thanks, Alex.
To remind you of his accident, I have taken the following from an article called Understanding Barbaro’s Injury by T.O.Whenham, of Doc’s Sports Picks.
"Barbaro has injured his right hind leg. The injury, which is actually four separate injuries, happened in several steps. The first injury, which was likely the result of a bad step, was a condylar fracture of the cannon bone. The cannon bone is the long bone right below the hock, which is basically the knee in the hind leg. It�s not quite accurate, but essentially the cannon bone is like our shin. A fracture in this bone is fairly common and not particularly serious. Many horses come back from a fractured cannon bone and return to the track.
When the cannon bone broke it made a sound so loud that not only Barbaro�s jockey Edgar Prado heard it, but Alex Solis on Brother Derek reportedly did, too. Prado immediately knew what was wrong and tried to stop his horse. Unfortunately, that took a couple hundred yards to do. There are a couple of potential reasons for that. First, since the cannon bone injury happened near the start of the race, Barbaro was full of adrenaline. That means that he would have no interest in leaving the race. The adrenaline would likely have stopped him from feeling that he was injured. If he did feel the injury, his own nervous system could have worked against him. A horse�s first reaction when it senses trouble is flight. Therefore, if he felt pain, his response would be to run away from it. Either way, Edgar Prado handled the situation brilliantly and likely gave Barbaro any chance he does have.
Regardless of how it happened, the fact is that the extra distance he ran caused three more injuries. The most serious was a fracture of the long pastern bone, or fist phalanx. That�s one of two bones between the cannon bone and the bones of the hoof. In a horse the size of Barbaro, that bone is likely about 4-6 inches long. It didn�t just break cleanly, it shattered. It broke into more than 20 pieces. The ankle, or fetlock joint, which joins the cannon bone to the long pastern, was also dislocated. Finally, the sesamoid, a bone behind the ankle, was also broken. The bright spot, if there was one, is that the bones did not break the skin. If they had, infection would have been very likely and chances for survival would be very dim."
To read the complete article, please go to:
http://www.osga.com/artman/publish/printer_4202.shtml
Update 1245: I just spoke to Tom, the Jackson’s farm manager, who visited (as usual) this afternoon (friday). Barbaro remains comfortable.
Thanks, Alex.
VB and Alex, thanks for all the updates and articles. Gotta agree with those that name Barbaro as Horse of the Year! 
Candles are the best I’ve ever seen them (and I see them a couple of times a day) - they are currently at 2738 from 29 countries!
So it is the dislocation that calcified and fused the joints or did they screw a pin through it to stabilize it.?
Both.
X-Ray In May
http://www.vet.upenn.edu/newsandevents/news/Barbaro/BARBARO7_HRes.jpg
X-Ray In November (after many of the screws had to be removed due to an infection)
http://www.vet.upenn.edu/newsandevents/news/Barbaro/73239Nov6LM.jpg
As you can see, there were a lot (:eek:)of pins in there to help the healing process. There was a lot of calcification that happened, too. I must say, that x-ray of his healed leg kind of reminds me of the Elephant Man… a good kind of Elephant Man-esque, though!
Even though I have followed this post since it started, I have never posted anything. I just never knew what to say. I now want to say thank you to VB, Alex, and everyone else for their tireless effort in this event. I still really do not know what to say. I just sit silently and look forward to the daily ritual of this post. I am not involved with the track, but I have a deep love for the TB. I know about thier heart and courage and every day when I look into my TBs eyes, I see that “look of eagles” that you often hear about. They all have it, wether they have raced or not. It is bred in them and I am so proud to share a part of my life with the most awesome breed around. Thank you again to everyone that has something to do with this post, and thank you to everyone who shares in my love of the Thoroughbred!
Saturday Morning ~
I liked this end of year article from the Daily Racing Form: 2006: The Way It Was. A good summary / survey of everything that was for horse racing in the US for 2006. Barbaro is a big focus, and you will note other events which we covered here throughout the year.
Thanks, Alex.
The Barbaro update will be later today, as usual.
Thank you gubbyz, for the very nice words.
Wow! I guess he won’t be sneaking through an airport metal detector now will he?
Update 1249: I just spoke to Tom, the Jackson’s farm manager, and Barbaro remains comfortable.
Here is another year-end wrap up of racing in the US: Barbaro’s injury, racetrack safety dot memorable 2006.
Thanks, Alex.
I didn’t see this article cited, but since it directly relates to the source of this thread, by and large, its worth reproducing here:
Blog becomes the source for Barbaro
By GLENYE CAIN - Daily Racing Form 12-29-06
LEXINGTON, Ky. - When Alex Brown launched a website for Fair Hill trainer Tim Woolley two years ago, he saw the project as a way to distribute stable information to clients and advertise Woolley’s business. But the site, www.timwoolleyracing.com, became something altogether different on May 21.
That was the day Barbaro, a Fair Hill resident, underwent surgery at the nearby University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center to repair multiple fractures in his right hind leg. Brown, a freelance exercise rider for Woolley at Fair Hill and an internet marketing instructor at the University of Delaware, suddenly found himself in the perfect position to provide updates and background information on Barbaro. In the months since, the website, which started as a small training establishment’s blog, has become an indispensable resource for Barbaro fans, and Brown, 42, also has become one of Barbaro’s caretakers.
Brown estimates that before the Barbaro watch began, the Tim Woolley website averaged about six hits a day. Then Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby and trainer Michael Matz prepared him for the Preakness by bringing him to Fair Hill, where Brown, galloping by every morning, had a perfect view of Barbaro’s training preparations. His Barbaro notes and Google ads advertising them helped build the traffic to about 120 hits a day by the Preakness. When Barbaro broke down in the race on May 20, Brown said: “I presumed that was it. Obviously, Barbaro was clearly in jeopardy. I didn’t want to continue the Web site stuff, because I didn’t want to be seen as exploiting the situation.”
But then Brown logged on to check the Woolley site’s traffic, and he found the beginning of a trend.
“I could see through the stats that we had a lot of people who were desperately seeking information about Barbaro,” he said. “We were getting a lot of traffic coming from Fair Hill’s site, and what I assumed was that people were Googling and going for anything they could find.”
When a Fair Hill veterinarian and friend called Brown at about 7:30 p.m. on May 21 to let him know Barbaro was out of surgery and in the recovery pool, Brown decided to post the update.
“We got 3,000 visits and the site crashed,” Brown said.
Needless to say, Brown got the site up and running again. Timwoolleyracing.com now provides daily updates on Barbaro’s recovery, and, after peaking at about 15,000 daily hits in the summer, the site now gets between 7,000 and 8,000 hits a day.
Brown posts the regular press releases the New Bolton Center issues and also provides links to other media coverage, giving the self-described “Barbaromaniacs” a clearinghouse of articles from around the nation and sometimes beyond. He’s also begun providing articles on everything from synthetic racing surfaces to the attempt to ban equine slaughter. Most important to his readers, though, are the first-person updates he provides from his own visits to New Bolton and the information he gleans from conversations with Barbaro’s co-owner Gretchen Jackson, trainer Matz, exercise rider Peter Brette, and surgeon Dr. Dean Richardson.
For Brown, the best thing to come from his experience as Barbaro’s webmaster is a chance to get to know Barbaro himself. Brown has visited Barbaro in New Bolton’s intensive care unit six times. Now that Matz and Brette are in Florida for the winter, Brown has been deputized to hand-walk and groom Barbaro when Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s farm manager is unable to do it.
“I love it,” Brown said. "On Christmas day, I had him outside for about 45 minutes, just me and him, hanging out. It was cool. I can’t deny it: I wouldn’t trade that for anything. The routine now when I go and help out is go into the ICU, clean him up - you know, groom him - and take him out for about 45 minutes, of which he’ll walk for five minutes and hand-graze the rest of the time. Then I bring him back in and groom him again, tidy him up. It’s brilliant.
“He has so much charisma and brilliance, you know you’re in the company of something special,” Brown said.
of airport security
[QUOTE=5;2102368]
Wow! I guess he won’t be sneaking through an airport metal detector now will he?[/QUOTE]
actually Barbaro and I both have an ankle full of screws and plates (my injury was about a month before his)
airports are no problem. not even a beep.
I guess the metal detector machines don’t pick up titanium!
