The Kentucky Derby winner broke a leg in 3 places (one was shattered) out of the starting gate at the Preakness. He was taken to the veterinary college hospital, where he inderwent hours of surgery.
Vets said he helped himself by not thrashing about on the field.
He recovered from the surgery in which plates were inserted. However, vets give him only a 50-50 chance of surviving.
In past years, he would have been put down at the track.
Remember the sad story of Ruffian?
http://www.equinenet.org/heroes/ruffian.html
Angeline
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General discussion
Let's hope Barbaro recovers.
Discussion is locked
21 Posts
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...weight off of his legs for awhile, and he should be just fine....maybe not race, but reproduce and live a normal lifetime. The main reason the owners "put 'em down" is they don't want to spend the money to fix 'em up. Being very familiar with Texas A&M's Veterinarian School, they do things like this as a routine proceedure. But it does cost a few bucks. This horse put out all he had for his owners, while he could. Now it's the owners turn to put out for his horse.
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... after reading Angeline's Ruffian link, it seemed that the efforts to save the horse were probably more for the owner's benefit than for the horse's. I'll take your experiences/knowledge to heart that this isn't the case and Barbaro can live a comfortable life if he survives this.
Evie 
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if he can walk, let him live. I wonder if the stress of the kd was an influence.
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more broken legs than say, Quarter horses. What is particular sad is that in Texas 300 race horses lead to euthanasia during the past 5 years for the 5 Texas race tracks due to injuries. Don't have the figures for out of state tracks, like in Kentucky.
Let's hope Barbaro recovers like others have with a broken/fractured leg, and be retired to a life of good pastures & female companionship on occasion with numerous offsprings.
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Their birthdays are all January 1st if the foal was born in January or June. They are run as 2-year-olds which means that they start training at 18 months before their skeletons are fully formed. Most don't run after four or five.
Arabs are not allowed to race before four and racing twelve-year-olds is fairly common.
Diana
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"broken-in" at around 18 months, and that is the age we did, and so did our neighbors with Quarter horses, however we never trained them to race.
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Why breed an injury prone horse to produce offspring who may also then become injury prone? You are supposed to breed for quality.
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The other traits outweigh the possible chance that a leg bone will genetically cause the offspring to retire before a dozen or so races. Barbaro in training ran at full speed and had 6 previous undefeated races. His 6? length finish is the fifth largest lead in Derby history --the largest margin since 1946 winner 'Assault' won by eight lengths. He also became the sixth horse since 1915 to win the Derby while still unbeaten.
Barbaro's own sire, Dynaformex had a $100,000 stud fee. He may not get that much, but surely in the 5 figures regardless of his leg being fractured and a remote possibility of it being generic . Breeders are aware that thoroughbreds are seperate powerfully physical machines that travel at fast speeds on fragile legs. The racing record will favor most breeders, who have the big bucks to take a chance.
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His last words:
"A corpse is a corpse, of horse, of horse."
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Barbaro will recover and bring the owners in a whole lot of $'s, perhaps for the next 20 years.
Not worried about PETA. My Dad would take off his belt and give us kids a workout if any of the horses or cattle were mistreated. Besides horses, he had a nicknme for many of his cattle and taught us to frequently pet them.
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Roger
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com
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I turned 8 when it started. didn't tape any episodes. no consumer device available. and after going to roger's link she might have been trans-gender. I never knew the real name was 'wahama'. here's some more: #8 on m list
http://www.magicdragon.com/WESTtv.html#tvM
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the metal detectors every time he tries to get a seat on an airplane. Watching the replays was agonizing, sure hope the repairs are a success.
Rob
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