Year Later, Barbaro’s Doctor Looks Back, and Moves On

Dr. Dean W. Richardson with Barbaro at University of Pennsylvania's New
Bolton Center in July 2006. (By JERÉ LONGMAN)

KENNETT SQUARE, Pa., May 1 — A 3-year-old thoroughbred stood in the operating room Tuesday as Dr. Dean W. Richardson removed a bone chip from its lower left front leg. A nurse cradled the horse’s head and the surgical team members wore kneepads, as if laying carpet, as they knelt on the hard floor. The extricated bone fragment was the size of a fingernail clipping. In 15 minutes, the arthroscopic procedure was done.
“A typical, very minor racing injury,” Richardson said as he left the operating room here at the University of Pennsylvania’s George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals. “This horse will be back training in six to eight weeks.”
The surgery was “extremely routine,” Richardson said. “The complete other end of the spectrum from Barbaro.”
It has been nearly a year since Richardson watched the Preakness on a six-inch television while performing veterinary surgery near West Palm Beach, Fla., only to see Barbaro take a dreadful, shattering misstep early in the race. In an interview Tuesday, Richardson reflected on his treatment of the colt here at the New Bolton Center; on Barbaro’s greatness and spirit; and on the public outpouring for the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner, who was euthanized in January after a remarkable attempt to save his life.
“From a purely surgical perspective, it was extremely unsatisfying because he didn’t make it,” Richardson, 53, said of Barbaro. “Professionally, I think we did the best we could. I’m not at all embarrassed by anything that was done. Personally, I’m very sad that we didn’t save him. As a horseman, as someone who really wanted to save the horse, it’s extremely dissatisfying.”
On the other hand, he added: “Do I think we ended up doing some good things for the profession and the industry? Yes. The increased awareness of the issues of racetrack safety. People adopting horses. Even the awareness of a horse as an animal was increased. I think people became aware of the fact that sophisticated surgery can be done on horses. A lot of people knew that already; some didn’t.”
On Saturday, Richardson said, he will make every effort to watch the Kentucky Derby. He and his wife, Laura, own three thoroughbreds. Once, they participated in three-day equestrian events. Now, he said, they mostly ride for pleasure in the verdant, rolling countryside about 45 minutes southwest of Philadelphia.
“The whole reason I became a vet is because I love horses,” said Richardson, the son of a Navy captain who was a physician.
Last May 21, when Richardson flew back here from Florida to operate on Barbaro, he already knew from e-mailed radiographs that the colt’s right hind leg had splintered. The long pastern bone, also called the proximal phalanx and located between the fetlock and hoof, had broken into 20 pieces as if “someone put a bomb in it.” When he began surgery, Richardson was essentially confronted with a skeletal jigsaw puzzle.
“When you have a horse with bones in that many pieces, it’s kind of intimidating when you first start,” said Richardson, who can best be described as self-assured. “It doesn’t look like anything’s going to go back together.”
During five hours of surgery, 27 pins and a stainless steel plate were inserted to stabilize Barbaro’s right hind leg. Last July, veterinarians replaced the plate and some of the screws to treat an infection. The colt also developed laminitis in his left rear hoof, and eventually in both front feet. It is a painful, often fatal condition frequently caused by uneven weight distribution among a horse’s legs.
Any worthy surgeon regularly looks back and asks whether he could have done something differently at some juncture, Richardson said.
“Even if you don’t know for sure it would have made a difference, you better think about it, so next time you know where the potential pitfalls were,” Richardson said.
If confronted with a similarly complicated fracture, he said, he might do the original surgery in the pastern region slightly differently. This might involve extending the stainless steel plate farther in bracing the proximal phalanx to the middle phalanx bone, Richardson said.
Even so, he added, “I honestly don’t know if that would have made a difference,” and it could have exposed Barbaro to a greater chance of infection.
“No matter how you do it, there’s going to be a downside to the other way of doing it,” Richardson said.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company