Scoop’s Views

Kentucky Derby champion Barbaro was finally given his just reward today: he was euthanized.

The horse, a champion in many ways, was finally allowed to end his struggle.

In the Preakness Stakes in May 2006, Barbaro fractured several bones in his right leg, including his his cannon, sesamoid, and long pastern bones, but also dislocated his ankle joint.

Following his accident, Barbaro was rushed to New Bolton Center, receiving a police escort, no less. Not many animals, let alone horses, get a police escort.

According to the surgeon who tended to him the day after his injury, Dean Richardson, chief of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary Hospital, New Bolton Center, Barbaro had suffered the most extensive damage he had ever seen. Richardson said the Barbaro’s initial surgery lasted six hours. Since then, the horse has had numerous surgical procedures.

Last week, according to reports, Barbaro developed an abscess in his right hind foot. According to his owners, surgery did not ease Barbaro’s pain.

Barbaro was three-years-old, had won his first six career starts, and had a strong following, with all the people hanging onto hopes — and their tickets — that he would come in, even by a nose, as the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed, which achieved that status back in 1978. Barbaro’s downfall was the result of one misstep at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.

The accident appeared to occur a few strides into the middle jewel of the Triple Crown. His jockey at the time was Edgar Prado.

After putting the horse down, one of his owners, Roy Jackson, was quoted as saying:

“We just reached a point where it was going to be difficult for him to go on without pain. It was the right decision; it was the right thing to do. We said all along if there was a situation where it would become more difficult for him, then it would be time.

Perhaps now Barbaro will get to nay and chase the fillies.