Barbaro Updates: 105
updates are now here.
Update 853: Another comfortable day for Barbaro. I just spoke to Peter Brette, who had heard from Michael who had visited Barbaro earlier this afternoon.
Update 852: New Bolton's Barbaro update for today: Barbaro remains comfortable, continues to improve:
Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro continues to improve a week after his right hind leg cast change. "Barbaro is wearing his new cast comfortably and his vital signs and appetite remain excellent," said Dr. Dean W. Richardson, Chief of Surgery at Penn's George D. Widener Hospital.
Barbaro's left hind foot, which had a large portion of the hoof wall and sole removed because of severe laminitis, is gradually improving. "The hoof is growing slowly, but he has a long way to go, especially along the front of the hoof," said Dr. Richardson. "We still have many months of healing ahead of us. The foot will require meticulous care for a long time."
Barbaro remains in the Intensive Care Unit of the University of Pennsylvania's George D. Widener Hospital, where he is recovering from injuries suffered at the Preakness on May 20.
The next update will be posted on Tuesday, October 24, unless there is a significant change in Barbaro's condition.
I visited Sabina Pierce at about lunchtime. She had surgery yesterday, which I assume was a success. Her mom is with her. She is pretty groggy, but also in pretty good spirits. She should be out by the end of the week. I told her she had a lot of well wishers here, so she will get to appreciate that when she leaves the hospital. A short, but good, visit.
Update 851: Just spoke to Barclay Tagg, who is currently down in Ocala. I asked Barclay about both his stakes horses that ran at the weekend. He thought it was Showing Up's best race. He settled much better. He thought Nobiz Like ShoBiz was unlucky. He got compromised coming out of the gate, and ran a winning race. Both horses are doing well after their respective races, although they have not trained yet. Barclay usually gives horses three days off after a race and then jogs for a day. At the moment the two year old is being pointed for the Remsen, and Showing Up for the Hollywood Derby. The Breeders' Cup has not been completely ruled out for either horse, there is another week to go before they need to enter for the Breeders' Cup.
Funny Cide breezed 5/8ths this morning in a minute. He is scheduled to run in a New York bred stake race on saturday.
The Daily Racing Form had this article on the same topic from yesterday: Tagg considering BC for two.
Update 850: Barbaro continues to be popular in main stream media (more so than in racing media these days I think). This time it is the turn of the Washington Post: Diminished Body, Persevering Spirit. A must read, here are a few excerpts highlighting some of the staff at New Bolton:
DeFazio, 27, works the midnight to 5 a.m. shift at New Bolton every other week. She was scheduled to work that night. After the race ended, DeFazio took a nap -- missing further coverage of the tragedy on the evening newscasts -- then got ready for work. When she arrived at New Bolton at 10 p.m., she learned that the horse in her care would be Barbaro.
"When I got in and saw him, I was just awestruck," she said. "He looked like an athlete in his prime. I half wanted to cry and half was excited. You didn't know how to explain it: He's a horse -- one of our patients -- but he's Barbaro, and he won the Derby, and he's all over the news, and he's right in front of me, and I need to make sure he makes it through the night."
and
"It's kind of odd because we've gotten used to it now, but it's very surreal," said Liberty Getman, a third-year resident physician who fills in for Richardson when he is elsewhere. "You can't go anywhere wearing a New Bolton shirt. You can't go to the grocery store or anywhere without being stopped and asked how he is. When you leave here, it becomes more obvious."
and
Sweeney said. "No one wanted this tragedy to occur, but once it did occur an awful lot of good things happened."
And they continue to happen to Barbaro, the odds-defying patient who happens to be a star.
"I will be able to look back," McCafferty said, "and say to my children and grandchildren, 'I worked with Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner.' "
Update 849: Another comfortable night for Barbaro (monday night). I saw Michael Matz as I was heading up the horsepath on my second set on Rocky. Rocky was supposed to breeze this morning but the track was sealed in anticipation of a bucketload of rain. So, we jogged a mile and galloped a mile instead. I am just pulling Chappy out now for my third set.
Updated 7:40am tuesday morning
Update 848: Another great Barbaro article: His crowning success. It includes the following excerpts:
But it was Barbaro's attitude, his will to survive, that inspired them all to continue with treatment and with efforts to save him, Matz said. If Barbaro was still fighting, they would.
It was never about saving him to be a stallion, never about money. It was only about saving life, about saving what Richardson described as a "magnificent" creature.
and
The goal and hope, Jackson said, is to allow Barbaro to be a healthy normal horse again, so that he can survive without pain or discomfort. If he's ever able to be a stallion, "that would just be a bonus," he said.
And if not, well, he's already accomplished much, even without racing. Because of Barbaro, Jackson said, people are more sensitive to equine safety, more aware of the need for research into laminitis and other conditions. And because of Barbaro, thousands and thousands of people who never followed the sport suddenly found themselves investing their emotions in a racehorse's wellbeing.
Me first!
Posted by: Margaret at October 17, 2006 11:03 AM