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Barbaro was euthanized.
And, look, you can be sad about this if you want. But all I'm saying is this:
The AP obituary of Barbaro, as reported by cnn.com: 1778 words.
cnn.com's obituary of Rosa Parks: 970 words.
It's sad. But he was just a racehorse.
And, look, you can be sad about this if you want. But all I'm saying is this:
The AP obituary of Barbaro, as reported by cnn.com: 1778 words.
cnn.com's obituary of Rosa Parks: 970 words.
It's sad. But he was just a racehorse.
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And yes, he was just a horse . . . but I'm still heartbroken. Seeing an animal suffer always breaks my heart. And I probably would've accepted this a lot more easily if he'd been put down when he first broke his leg so many months ago . . . the euthanization now is just a painful reminder of everything that poor animal endured up to this point and it kills me a little bit inside when something so beautiful and so helpless is reduced to such conditions.
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I agree, Rosa Parks probably should have been longer but Barbaro's story was well worth this tribute., if not for the horse himself, for his owners, doctors and thousands of well wishers and fans.
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I understand the financial reasons behind wanting to salvage him, given his potential value as a stud, but the continued insistance by the Jacksons that, no really, they're doing it for the horse! got old really, really quickly. The prognosis was poor to begin with, and once he foundered, there really wasn't any chance of going on.
I'm actually curious about the decision to go ahead with the surgeries after the initial consult at New Bolton. I strongly suspect that the decision didn't lie much with the owners, but with the company that carried the insurance on the horse. To receive payment on a claim from an equine full-loss-of-use/mortality policy, you have to 'make every reasonable effort' to mitigate damages. With what was very possibly over $50 million on the line for the insurance company, it's very possible that they insisted on the surgeries as long as there was some sort of hope.
As veterinary medical practices have improved in leaps and bounds over the last couple decades, what would have been (and should have been, in my opinion) an on-track euthanasia has become something there's some sort of vague hope of recovering from, and equine insurers are more and more loathe to pay out on a claim without massive efforts being made, especially after taking huge hits to the wallet with incidents that have proven to be insurance fraud (e.g. Alydar's groom being convicted of breaking the horse's leg to cash in on the $36.5 million insurance policy that was carried on him, at a time when the farm was facing bankruptcy).
The only thing I'm sad about with regards to Barbaro is that they didn't do right by the horse and euthanise him immediately following the incident, or again, after he foundered. He shouldn't have had to suffer for closing on a year before they finally put him down.
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With horses, it's really the complete opposite. People don't seem to stop and think about it -- these are 1,000+ pound animals, supported by four hooves the size of lunch plates, with legs only a few inches in circumference. There's effectively no musculature in the legs below the gaskin, which makes breaks particularly dangerous. The presence of muscle mass means the presence of a significant, usually redundant source of blood flow. There are no such redundancies in a horse's leg -- everything below the forearm or gaskin is just bone, blood vessel, and sinewy tissue/cartiledge/tendon/etc.
Racehorses are particularly prone to fatal breaks because of the speed at which these breaks occur. You're infinitely more likely to have massive, uncorrectable damage when the entire weight of the horse is being supported by one leg at a time while moving over 30 mph. These aren't horses that take a bad step out in pasture, then immediately hobble around three-legged -- it's effectively impossible for a horse to immediately cease use of an injured leg at those speeds -- they'd usually flip end over end if they try, especially with foreleg injuries. Go For Wand in the '90 Distaff and Pine Island in the '06 Distaff come immediately to mind.
There are a few types of fracture that, even sustained at racing speeds, result in a salvageable horse. Condylar fractures, slab fractures of various sorts, and sesamoid fractures are the most common of survivable fractures. Even with a very simple fracture that's pinned in place by a single screw with a cast over the leg, you still run the (fairly high) risk of the horse foundering, which happened to Barbaro in July. The hooves of a horse are not designed to sustain the majority of the weight of their fore or hind end (depending on the location of the injured leg). Constant weight bearing on a single leg like that can lead to the swelling of the lining of the hoof, in between the outer wall and inner bits. It's incredibly painful -- just think of dropping 100lb or somesuch on your foot, while you're wearing tight, form-fitting shoes that you can't remove and won't let your foot swell naturally. It's also incredibly destructive to the integrity of the hoof as a whole -- that lining tries to swell, is compressed, blood vessels flowing into it get cut off, and it dies, resulting in the loss of the hoof itself (80% of it, in Barbaro's case).
It's a fatal sort of chain reaction that's almost impossible to circumvent once it starts. Once Barbaro founded in his near hind hoof, he'd have had to bear more weight on both of his forehooves to try to alleviate the pain in both his rear legs. This sets up the risk laminitis in one or both of the forehooves as well. Simple founder in one hoof or a 'simple' (e.g. sesamoid or condylar) fracture is often the end of the horse because of that domino effect, and most horses don't tolerate being in a sling, immobilised, or confined in general very well at all -- they're herd animals with a strong flight instinct. Over stressing them can lead to other potential fatal problems like severe colic, intestinal torsion, etc.
If anything, not only is it not cruel to put down a horse for a broken leg, in many cases, it's cruel -not- to do so. While I'm absolutely not in the animal rights camp, I'm a very, very big proponent of animal welfare. As humans responsible for the care and custody of any animals in our posession, it's up to us to ensure they don't suffer needlessly. I wish I could say that I believe that happened in the case of Barbaro, but hopefully what he endured did help educate the general public a bit.
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And I agree it was absurd, even not knowing that or the disparate word counts. It was "breaking news" today and was major front page knock hillary off the top of the website news. Just didn't seem proportional to me. It's not like even winning the Kentucky Derby is breaking news or super huge front page news (ordinarily) anyway.
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Horse racing isn't anywhere near as prominent as it was 50-75 years ago, when it was a (if not 'the') big headline sport. The big name races still have fairly decent viewership figures, but it's not anything like the past, and many small race tracks are turning to slots and video poker to offset their dwindling income from attendance and parimutuel wagering.
I can't say I'm upset that racing in general was getting some positive, widespread press during the time Barbaro was at New Bolton, since it's a sport I hold dear -- in high school, I worked morning gallops at Finger Lakes race track before I went off to school. But is the euthanising of one horse something that should be headline news on CNN? Hardly. Outside of racing circles, you rarely hear about the other great horses that have met their end in discomfort. Ferdinand, the 1986 KY Derby winner and another crowd favourite at the time was slaughtered for meat in Japan in 2002, and Exceller, another great horse who defeated other huge names of his time (Seattle Slew, Affirmed, etc) met the same fate in Sweden in '97. Really, though, the death of Barbaro has its place. I'd expect it to headline on the Daily Racing Form, the Bloodhorse, the Thoroughbred Times ... but not CNN.
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Also...wow. I had no idea you were so into horses (though I can't say I'm surprised). Thanks for all the info.
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It's not something I talk about most of the time nowadays, though I'll probably pick back up a bit when I get a couple horses again, now that we have room for them. I grew up with them, though mostly hunter/jumpers and some dressage, not racehorses. I galloped for a couple years out at Finger Lakes, but never did anything else in that vein.
The knee I've had three surgeries on so far was wrecked by a horse, actually. I was 13 or 14 at the time (don't remember if it was before or after my birthday), took a too-green horse through too tight a combination of jumps. He planted his forelegs and stopped at the second fence, then jumped it from a standstill. I was fine with the stopping, it was the going-again that got me -- I came off, he landed on my right leg, I rolled and ripped my knee apart, then he kicked me in the back of the head. Really, I was lucky to survive, but I was 14 and stupid and was back riding a few months after my knee reconstruction.
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--Jeff
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--Jeff
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