Barbaro News.

On Thursday, Dr. Richardson had an online chat with Blood Horse readers:

Pasadena, CA:
I understand that every effort was made to save Barbaro, and am no way trying to find fault. The question I can't seem to reconcile in my own mind is how Barbaro's status could change so quickly, from talk of discharging him in early January to his death on Jan. 29. What was the turning point (or was there a single turning point)?

Richardson:
The biggest problem is that he began to get more sore on his laminitic left hind foot. That occurred even though he had been fairly stable on it for several months. This is NOT unusual, however. All of us who work on this type of case have seen one be comfortable for months to years and then suddenly have a crisis. In Barbaro’s case, when he became lame on the left hind, he badly overloaded the right hind limb. The latter, as you know, was healed but not perfect. The result of the overload on the right hind leg was that he developed a severe subsolar abscess on that foot. We tried to protect the RH foot by placing him in transfixation pins. This allowed him to bear full weight again on the RH but it wasn’t enough to offset the development of laminitis in both front feet. I have described it as a deck of cards falling and still find that to be an apt analogy.