Baltimore – The Preakness Stakes was supposed to be a walkover for Barbaro, the undefeated colt who had looked every bit the superhorse when winning the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago. Ever since the first Saturday in May, his name had been conjoined with the words “potential Triple Crown champion.”
Those hopes ended in the first sixteenth of a mile at Pimlico Race Course when Barbaro suffered potentially life-threatening fractures above and below his right hind ankle.
His jockey, Edgar Prado, felt the colt’s pain immediately; he slowed Barbaro gradually to a standstill in front of a clubhouse brimming with stunned onlookers.
“He took a bad step and I can’t tell you what happened,” Prado said. “I heard a noise about 100 yards into the race and pulled him right up.”
As the eight remaining horses disappeared into the first turn in a race eventually won by Bernardini by 5 1/4 lengths, the real drama was unfolding in the opening straightaway. Barbaro was holding his awkwardly bent leg aloft as an equine ambulance raced to his aid.
His trainer, Michael Matz, ran from the clubhouse to the racetrack as his assistant, Peter Brette, who was watching near the paddock, got to Barbaro and Prado first. Brette dissolved into a heartbreaking hug with Prado as veterinarians tried to comfort Barbaro, the strapping bay son of Dynaformer.
“There are some major hurdles here,” said Dr. Larry Bramlage, a renowned equine surgeon who was the on-call veterinarian for the American Association of Equine Practitioners. “This is a significant injury. His career is over. This is it for him as a racehorse. We’re trying to save him as a stallion.”
Barbaro broke the bone above the ankle first, according to Bramlage, who examined the X-rays. The break below the ankle occurred sometime in the next several yards, Bramlage said, because Barbaro was coursing with energy and adrenaline and wanted to keep running.
He likened the injury to a runner who twists his ankle but continues on and suffers more damage with every step. Bramlage credited Prado with acting swiftly, which could be critical to Barbaro’s survival.
He said horses have two small arteries in their legs, and there is a worry that blood flow to the lower limb may be impeded.
“That’s what you worry about as life-threatening,” Bramlage said. “Secondly, if this kind of injury happened to us, we’d be put up in bed for six weeks. But you can’t do that for a horse.”
Horses’ physiology and temperament are not designed for long stretches of inactivity. A horse with a severely injured leg will try to put weight on it, and its internal organs may not react properly. Prado was visibly shaken by the turn of the events. Only moments earlier, a seemingly rambunctious Barbaro had broken through the gate, delaying the start of the race.
“When he went to the gate, he was feeling super and I felt like he was in the best condition for this race,” Prado said. “He actually tried to buck me off a couple of times. He was feeling that good. He just touched the front of the gate and went right through it.”
Barbaro got 10 or so yards before being escorted by outriders back to his No. 6 position. He was checked by a track veterinarian and found to be uninjured.
Barbaro was the sixth horse to come to the Preakness undefeated, and Matz had planned a racing schedule to minimize the colt’s wear and tear in the hopes of becoming just the 12th Triple Crown champion and the first since Affirmed in 1978.
Matz had raced his colt only five times before the Derby, and gave the colt from five to eight weeks of rest between outings. He was unavailable for comment after the race. Barbaro was taken from the track by ambulance and with a police escort to the George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at the New Bolton Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
As soon as Barbaro can be stabilized, Bramlage said, equine surgeons will begin the hours-long process of trying to repair the colt’s leg.
Winning jockey Javier Castellano was puzzled when he turned for home and peeked under his arm and did not see Barbaro or Prado behind him.
Moments later, however, shortly before crossing the finish line far in front, Castellano finally laid eyes on them.
“I saw the jockey in the middle of the track,” Castellano said, seeing Prado, Barbaro and the equine ambulance still near the first turn. “It was really sad.”