In human medicine, the “battlefield effect” refers to innovations by wartime medics and surgeons that eventually trickle down to ordinary people in emergency rooms across the country. A similar benefit to horses is expected from the Barbaro case. Equine surgeons at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center were among the first to make use of a “locking compression plate,” a system of plates and screws that holds pieces of bone together, when they repaired Barbaro’s extensive fractures; it had previously been a technique for long-bone breaks in humans. And the intense national interest in the New Bolton Center’s specialized rehab tools—like a “horse raft” that kept Barbaro suspended in a heated recovery pool, taking weight off his fragile limbs—generated almost $1.2 million in donations for equipment and research.
Most of the other procedures done on the 4-year-old colt were established techniques, from “regional perfusions” that delivered high concentrations of antibiotics to specific tissues, to hoof surgeries that lessened pain from laminitis. “These are things that are not brand new, but every horse you gain some information from,” says Dr. Alan Ruggles, an orthopedics specialist at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Kentucky. “The frequency with which they were applied, and the intensity of the treatment—that’s probably unique to Barbaro.” The extraordinary efforts were working—a stunning reversal for a horse many assumed would be euthanized immediately after the Preakness—until the laminitis returned in force. Barbaro’s pain was becoming unmanageable, and owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson decided to put the colt down at 10:30 Monday morning.
After such a high-profile course of treatment, future owners of thoroughbreds with catastrophic injuries will be more likely to ask vets for a miracle. “I think more owners will attempt to do this,” says Dr. Nathaniel White, a surgeon at the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Va. In some cases, advanced medicine practiced on Barbaro will save them. In others, it will only prolong the inevitable. Is the extraordinary effort and cost worth it? “We have the ability to do it now, but it’s up to the owner,” White says. “These decisions are sometimes economic”—while Barbaro’s treatment was expensive, he stood to generate millions in stud fees—“and other times it’s based on what the person cares about the horse. It’s an individual decision in each case, and I think that it needs to be left at that.”
“Barbaro’s legacy doesn’t end with him being euthanized,” Ruggles says. “It inspires people, the general public, to be interested in things of this nature, it points out how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. It’s obviously a tragic outcome, but there have been a lot of positives for veterinary medicine in general, and horse surgery specifically.”
