Barbaro will linger for a while in Kennett-By Mike Jensen- Staff Writer

Posted on Tue, Jan. 09, 2007


From the Philadelphia Inquirer-01/09/2007
Although he's on "low-level medical care," the horse is not yet ready to be sent to Kentucky, his surgeon says.

By Mike Jensen, Inquirer Staff Writer

When the day comes that Barbaro leaves the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center - however soon that day may be - it will be with the blessing of the surgeon who treated him.

"I wouldn't send him unless I thought it was safe to send him," Dean Richardson said yesterday at the Kennett Square facility. "The thing for people to keep in mind: At some point, the management we've done with him is something that can readily be done in a more normal environment for a horse. The intensive-care unit at New Bolton Center is not a completely normal environment for a horse."

The ability to give the Kentucky Derby winner intensive medical care at New Bolton is obvious.

"But," Richardson said, "if he's to the point where he's on fairly low-level medical care - which he already is, really - and that the major issues are going to relate to his left hind foot, and those are going to be extremely chronic and capable of being dealt with by veterinarians in Kentucky, then I would feel that at the point, if everyone's in agreement, we'll probably move the horse."

Richardson also made it clear that no celebrations should be held the day Barbaro leaves Chester County, that it isn't necessarily an indication of a change in his overall prognosis. After 71/2 months caring for the horse, the surgeon still uses the same phrase in every conversation: "Not out of the woods yet." He elaborated on that yesterday, making it clear that the laminitis that cropped up in Barbaro's left rear hoof last July, causing Richardson to surgically remove 80 percent of the hoof, still could be Barbaro's downfall.

"Part of it has grown almost to the bottom, pretty much," Richardson said. "The lateral part, the outside part of the hoof wall, is almost all the way to the bottom. But the inside part of the hoof has probably a tenth of that. It's really slow. It's very disparate between the different parts of the foot, and that's going to be a real problem for us."

Can the inside grow all the way back?

"It is definitely possible," Richardson said. "It is [also] possible that we will never get his foot all the way correct."

Can the horse live without its being perfectly correct?

"Yeah, but it's also possible that it could be a limiting factor and end up in his demise," Richardson said. "It's possible. He is not out of the woods yet. He is not. He is not good enough yet."

Scott Morrison, an equine podiatry specialist at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., made his second visit to see Barbaro at New Bolton on Wednesday and applied a cast to the left hoof.

"There are a lot of subtle things involved in treating this type of laminitis, and one of them is making sure that you have the alignment of the coffin bone correct," Richardson said. "And it's almost impossible to do without having something relatively rigid that's encasing his foot, so when Scott Morrison came up, that's what he did. It's basically a cast that holds his foot very firmly, but then on the outside of the cast, there's an actual horseshoe that is glued onto the cast, but at a certain angle so that we can get him back at the correct angle."

Richardson wouldn't be surprised if a left hind cast, changed regularly, were part of Barbaro's care for the next year, because of the slow growth in the one portion of the hoof.

Morrison also was brought in "because, when the horse moves, and obviously he's likely to move to Lexington, Ky.," Richardson said, "we need to have made a smooth transition to someone who is going to handle that left hind foot."

As for Barbaro's right hind leg, which suffered the catastrophic fractures in the May 20 Preakness Stakes, Richardson said of the hitch in his gait, which surprised some non-medical outsiders who saw it on videotape, "I'd like him to be moving better, but people have to understand it's still early, he still has a lot more that he can improve on that leg. The way he's moving right now, it doesn't mean that's the way he'll move the rest of his life.

"He's got a little bit of a hypermetric [exaggerated] gait. That's probably associated with some of the feedback loops between the leg and the spinal cord. We think that's what's going on. You see that with horses that have injuries in their lower leg that heal perfectly, then they'll start snatching their leg up like that without really acting like it's hurting. Horses that are painful, really painful, tend to move in a very different fashion... . Plus, he was in a cast for like five months. There's lots of reasons for him to have an abnormal motion to his gait. I think that will improve over time, but again, I don't know that for sure."

Without being asked, Richardson brought up another reason besides comfort for Barbaro to be in the heart of Kentucky's horse country.

"He's not comfortable enough right now certainly to breed a mare," Richardson said. "But the idea is, hopefully, he will continue to get more comfortable and eventually be able to breed a mare."

Contact staff writer Mike Jensen at 215-854-4489 or mjensen@phillynews.com