KENNETT SQUARE, Pa. – Barbaro’s surgeon did not try to sugarcoat anything Monday, using the words “very significant setback.”
“I think we’re in for tough times right now,” Dean Richardson, chief of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, said Monday afternoon. “I think we’re going to have some tough days ahead. I’m being realistic about this. When a horse has a setback like this, it’s a problem.”
After Barbaro’s temperature spiked to 102 degrees Saturday and the Kentucky Derby winner showed signs of discomfort, Richardson performed surgery that evening. Monday was a better day for the horse, the surgeon said.
“Right now, he’s happier, has a normal heart rate, normal temperature,” Richardson said, speaking to reporters at the Kennett Square facility. “He’s eating like crazy – making lots of manure. He looks pretty happy today. Now, we have to see how he responds to everything that’s going on.”
On Saturday, the doctor had been pretty sure there was significant infection in the horse’s right hind leg, and found it in his pastern joint. During the three-hour surgery that night, Richardson cleaned out the joint, then had some more tricky repair work to do: He had put in 27 screws during Barbaro’s May 21 surgery after the colt suffered catastrophic fractures during the Preakness Stakes.
Monday, the horse had a sixth cast put on, his fourth cast replacement in the last week. Richardson put a shorter cast on, like the previous ones Barbaro had been wearing. The doctor had put on a longer cast, covering Barbaro’s entire leg, Saturday night. That cast was designed to protect him better as he woke up.
“He’s a tough horse . . . a big, strong horse that’s kind of aggressive, so we put him in a full-length cast,” Richardson said. “It’s a more protective cast, but it’s also much more cumbersome for a horse to wear. They panic a lot of times because they feel they can’t move their legs. He really didn’t like it very much.”
“As a consequence, we spent most of the night trying to get him back standing comfortably. We literally worked on him for close to 15 hours (including the surgery) before he was back in his stall.”
Since X-rays indicate that Barbaro’s fractures are healing well, Richardson removed the long, 16-hole titanium plate from the leg Saturday and replaced it with a three-hole plate and a four-hole plate, including a longer screw between the plates in the pastern joint.
That is the crucial area of concern now, Richardson said.
“We’re trying to fuse that joint,” Richardson said. “It’s not fused. The only way it’s going to become comfortable is if it becomes solid. . . . These kinds of cases tend to be all or none. You’ve got to get the horse comfortable. He’s not there right now. . . . If we can’t get him comfortable, it’s going to be a difficult problem.”
Despite his concerns, Richardson made it clear that he was not thinking about this being near the end of any medical road, and there has not been any discussion of such a thing with Barbaro’s owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, who visit daily.
“No, no, that’s implying that we’re close to quitting,” Richardson said. “We’re not at that stage. That never was even brought up as even close to a topic of conversation. . . . There’s no question this is a setback, and we’re going to try and address the problems.”
Richardson said the cast changes and removal of bent screws earlier last week did not set off any major alarm bells. Late in the week, the horse had a low-grade elevation in his temperature, he said. By Friday, it was a full-blown fever. And the doctors monitoring him could see that Barbaro was not comfortable.
Monday, the doctors also found an abscess in Barbaro’s left hind foot, his good foot, and drained it.
“Hopefully, that will make him feel better,” Richardson said.
Monday’s cast change represented a positive milestone because doctors were able to do it without full anesthesia, just a local sedative, with Barbaro in a sling. The doctors worked for several hours Sunday morning getting the horse used to being in the sling. He had not been willing to do it for an earlier cast change several weeks ago.
“It finally worked,” Richardson said. “He finally got used to it.”
After Barbaro’s initial surgery, Richardson called the colt’s survival “a coin flip.” The surgeon improved those odds slightly in the weeks afterward. Monday, he did not put a number on any long-term prognosis.
“I consider it a very significant setback, mainly because we went six weeks without any real problems,” Richardson said. “Now we’ve got problems.”
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