Barbaro Watch.

The New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvania is unlike any veterinary hospital in the world.

Key to it--and to Barbaro's case--is the recovery pool:

It was the ideal place to take Barbaro because it is one of only three places in the world with a recovery pool for large animals. And its 31-year-old recovery pool, featuring a rubber raft, is unique compared with those in California and Switzerland.

"It [the pool] potentially could have made or broken the case," said Sweeney, referring to Barbaro. "He has the most precarious of fractures," she said, requiring repairs that could be "easily undone by traditional recovery."

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Normally, horses coming out of anesthesia after surgery are lying down in a recovery room. As they wake up, they must struggle to their feet, a dicey maneuver on freshly repaired ankles and legs. Moreover, a postoperative horse may be confused and thrash about in the recovery room, further jeopardizing the surgeon's work.

But in New Bolton's C. Mahlon Kline Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Center, an orthopedic surgical patient like Barbaro is lifted from the operating table in a sling suspended from a ceiling monorail system that can handle patients typically weighing 1,000 pounds. From there, the animal is conveyed to the nearby room containing the recovery pool, a bright blue circle of heated water, some 20 feet deep.

There, the animal is lowered into a black rubber raft with four long sleeves enclosing the legs. Once the raft is inflated, the horse remains floating there, typically for one or two hours, with nurses sitting close beside it. Thus, when the patient awakens, there is nothing hard anywhere near an injured leg, no matter how much it tries to thrash about.

"The frequency of its use has to justify its existence. The good news from a horse's point of view is that we don't have that many catastrophic injuries," said Sweeney of the pool. "But, if you don't have it, no patient will have the opportunity, and it could make the difference."