Remembering Barbaro

Matz soldiers on with Barbaro gone
By JAY PRIVMAN - Posted 1/30/07

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. - Horse training requires working seven days a week, but Tuesday was not a typical work day for Michael Matz. He had to do what he always does, coordinate grooms and hot walkers and exercise riders and assistants to get his 67 horses to and from the track at the Palm Meadows training center. But this was the first day since Barbaro, the colt Matz trained to win last year's Kentucky Derby, was euthanized.

Barbaro: A pedigree for all surfaces
By LAUREN STICH - Posted 1/30/07

LAS VEGAS - As I started to write the fifth installment of the 2007 freshman stallion report, I received the tragic news regarding Barbaro's death. Of course, it is sheer speculation whether Barbaro would have becomes racing's 12th Triple Crown winner, but talent-wise - and pedigree-wise - he had a better chance than any 3-year-old in recent history.

Barbaro and what might have been
By ANDREW BEYER - Posted 1/29/07

Unlike movies and books about the sport, real-life horse racing does not often produce stories with happy and satisfying endings. Modern Thoroughbreds are so fragile that people who spend their lives around the animals always brace themselves for the worst of outcomes.

Innovative treatment prolonged Barbaro's life
By GLENYE CAIN OAKFORD - Posted 1/29/07

The injuries that Barbaro sustained in the Preakness Stakes were catastrophic - multiple fractures that shattered the bones in the lower part of his right hind leg. For most horses, such a breakdown would have been immediately fatal because complex injuries more often than not prompt owners and veterinarians to euthanize a horse rather than pay for expensive treatments that can last for months with a poor prognosis.

Best care wasn't good enough
By JAY HOVDEY - Posted 1/29/07

Above and beyond his skill as an equine surgeon, it is to the everlasting credit of Dr. Dean Richardson that at no point during the last eight months did he lead anyone to believe that the Barbaro story was going to turn out all right.