Barbaro makes it through surgery

The day after was so different two weeks ago. Barbaro had just won the Kentucky Derby and was quietly munching on grass outside Barn 42 at Churchill Downs as his trainer, Michael Matz, talked about the runaway 6 1/2-length victory that had made Barbaro the newest hope for thoroughbred racing.

It was Barbaro's show.

Yesterday, a day after the Preakness Stakes, the second race in the Triple Crown, it again was Barbaro's show. But for a much different, more somber reason.

Instead of basking in another victory, Barbaro was nowhere near the Preakness stable area at Pimlico yesterday. Instead, he was 75 miles north at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center for Large Animals in Kennett Square, Pa., undergoing a surgical procedure to repair three fractures to his right hind leg that would hopefully save his life.

Barbaro made it through the procedure, but his survival is far from assured because of the possibility of infection or other setbacks. Dr. Dean Richardson, chief of surgery at New Bolton, said Barbaro's pastern bone was shattered in ''20-plus pieces," and the bones were put in place to fuse the joint by inserting a plate and 23 screws.

The New Bolton Center, which is about 10 miles from the farm of Barbaro's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, is regarded as one of the top facilities in the country for handling significant injuries to horses.

Yet, as the surgery, which began at 1 p.m., continued through the day, the only certainty was that Barbaro's racing career was over and that there was no Triple Crown winner for the 28th consecutive year, the longest dry spell in racing history.

Finally, after more than four hours of surgery, during which Barbaro was anesthetized, and after an almost two-hour procedure in which he was put in a sling and lowered into a swimming pool so he would not kick and reinjure himself as he woke up, Barbaro was lifted from the water and set down, the immediate crisis over.

''They did a great job," said Matz. ''To see him standing there and eating oats was just great. I feel at least he has a chance."

All the concern was the result of the injury Barbaro suffered in the first 100 yards of Saturday's 131st running of the Preakness, a race won by 12-1 shot Bernardini, whose victory was almost an afterthought.

So dominant was Barbaro's presence before, during, and after the Preakness, that Bernardini was well on his way back to his Belmont Park home early yesterday morning instead of soaking in the aura of a being a Triple Crown race winner for the first time.

Barbaro's injury set the glum tone that hung over Pimlico, and all of racing yesterday. Another beaten contender (for the second straight time), Brother Derek, headed back to California. He will not be making the trip East to the Belmont in three weeks.

Bernardini's trainer, Tom Albertrani, said he would discuss his horse's Belmont plans with owner Sheik Mohammed of Dubai in the next few days, but Albertrani's reaction to the Preakness win was muted.

''I was very excited on the way Bernardini won the race," he said. ''But I know how it feels to go through an ordeal like that. I feel bad for the connections of Barbaro. That's something that you never want to see."

The pessimism was widespread. At the New Bolton Center, Richardson talked of the severity of the injury and how rare it was to perform this type of operation.

''You do not see this severe injury frequently because, the fact is, most horses that suffer this typically are put down on the track," he said. ''It's about as bad it could be."

After the surgery, though, Richardson, like Matz, had more smiles than frowns. ''He's a genuine athlete," said Richardson with a laugh as he explained the procedure and how Barbaro would be closely monitored over the next few days and months.

''He woke up just like any human athlete. But he's standing, and he even jumped up and down a few times."

Richardson later said Barbaro ''practically jogged back to the stall," and seemed ''extremely comfortable in the leg." But he also warned the horse's survival was ''a coin toss," and told Reuters in a phone interview that ''this horse is nowhere close to being out of the woods."

In the 1999 Belmont, Charismatic pulled up with a fractured ankle, but still finished third.

Charismatic's injury wasn't as serious as Barbaro's, but the hope is Barbaro follows Charismatic's path by recovering and being put out to stud.

Material from the Associated Press and other wire services was used in this report.