Talk:Barbaro

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[edit] More info

This page needs a huge amount of information added. For instance, what colour was he? Was he a stallion or a gelding? There are innumerable amounts of info to be added. MorwenofLossarnarch 13:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


Who cares? Horserasing is just a glorified parlor game.


You must have some parlor.  :)


How about some more information about these 'super horses'? I find the mention of that topic quite fascinating. FarFromHomeFish 05:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

If you'd like to read up on some of the all-time great horses, this article is a good place to start. Note that it only covers thoroughbreds. There are a lot of fascinating stories. SubSeven 08:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

"Was he a stallion or a gelding?" - MorwenofLossarnarch

Since there is still the possibility of his being put out to stud, he obviously can't be a gelding.

[edit] News photo?

It would be good to have a photo of Barbaro/Prado just after the fracture... I haven't kept up with copyright issues. Are online newspaper photos still considered Fair Use? If so, I have a good one from the Baltimore Sun. JDG 19:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Right, Left

I don't know what vantage point the captions are referring to... but it was definitely his right leg that was injured.. but the arrow is pointing to his left, and the 2nd picture doesn't show him favoring that leg..

That's because he was still running Punk18

Actually, the arrow is pointing to his right leg. Since he is facing forward, the arrow is on the left. — TheKMantalk 21:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

He may be looking at the wrong horse. Barbaro is the one in back whose jockey has green sleeves.--Syd Henderson 23:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] life threatening injury?

Where is the life threat from a broken leg, other than blood loss? Is it different for horses than for humans? Also, why is it that other horses with comparable injuries are usually put down, while Barbaro was not? Is it because of the potential future stud fees? That seems cold. Phr (talk) 20:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Horses are fairly heavy animals, and cannot stand on three legs alone without causing injury to those legs. Also, horses are unable to lay down for long periods of time without causing internal injuries. Personally, I think Barbaro was spared euthanasia for several reasons: after the injury he was able to remain standing and calm, the injury occured on a nationally televised race, he was a Kentucky Derby winner, and yes, he was definitely worth keeping alive for the stud fees. — TheKMantalk 21:10, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Articles following the injury and the surgery (including those stating that his chances of survival following surgery were 50-50, which as far as I know is still true), have cited both the risk of internal injury (as TheKMan states), and more immediately, the risk of infection. The latter risk is somewhat reduced in Barbaro's case because his skin was not broken while at the race track, but even the incisions made in the "sterile" surgical environment pose a risk. I also read somewhere that due to the size of the animal, the amount of antibiotics needed to reduce the risk of infection would themselves pose a medical risk to the horse. Sadly, these magnificent animals are also very fragile because they cannot sit or lie down for extended periods, and therefore are very vulnerable when their legs are injured. 6SJ7 04:25, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I always wondered about this too -- horses were always being put down for broken legs but no one ever explained why. Recent news reports in the last couple of days have (finally) gone into detail regarding the two major problems. First, a horse's circulatory system apparently only functions properly when their weight is distributed on all four feet. Second, the additional weight on the compensating foot (in Barbaro's case, the left one) can cause a very serious complication called laminitis which results in loss of the hoof and a great deal of pain. Bookgrrl 23:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
This is an outstanding "Explainer" article from Slate that does an excellent job answering this very question: [1] —Xanderer 16:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The cause?

Didn't the vets and race officials find out how Barbaro injured himself? I think I saw an article stating that they saw Brother Derek's front leg trip Barbaro up. Punk18

This idea that contact with Brother Derek led Barbaro to take the bad step that led to his breakdown is simply one person's theory. Given that, I think it gets far too much play in the article. At least, it should be noted that this is speculation by a single official. --JayareIL 06:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

69.228.34.119 17:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)The shift of "blame" for the accident to contact with Brother Derek seems an attempt of the Pimlico officials to dodge (rather spurious) allegations that the track vet did not really examine the horse after the false start. There is no footage that shows this alleged contact, no film with camera angles capable of showing such contact, and, most importantly, neither jockey thinks it happened either.

[edit] I just don't know sometimes

Today someone added a paragraph about Barbaro's latest setbacks, including the comment that he is still not "out of the woods", and ending with this sentence:

His appetite remains strong and he remains as active as he can under the circumstances, however, since his value as a stud remains tied to his ability to mount a female in a natural way, the healing of his leg is necessary for the owners to capitalize on this animal's post race career value.

--I thought that natural breeding wasn't used anymore, because of the risk to the stallion. Wouldn't they use artificial insemination? Or is that needed for the collection too. --Naelphin 15:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

In this breed, this is indeed a requirement. And natural breeding still occurs often, although less and less with the more valuable stallions. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 16:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I realize that Barbaro is "only" a horse and therefore not necessarily entitled to the same "sensitivity" as a human being, but in light of the fact that his life is still in danger, do we really need to be speculating on his future ability to "get it on" with female horses? Or perhaps more to the point, on his monetary value in the future? Can we see if he survives first? 6SJ7 20:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Barbaro watch

We do not need the day-by-day report. Let us sum up what happened immedidately after the injury and *sigh*, the up-to-day status. This has far too newsy a feel to it. We do not know if this vigil we are keeping a death watch or not.

If I had my druthers, I think it would be better if we imposed a rule on ourselves like: "No information that is less than 3 days old". In other words: no daily status. Such information is not going to survive in the long run so it is not encyclopedic. I will be sorry if the horse does not live out the month, BUT, we need to keep things in perspective that supposedly, "Wikipeida is not a newspaper." Except that our Main Page has an "In the News" section (which I have always thought is a bad idea because it encourages such short-term thinking).

If you ever looked at Source Watch, you will see that it is not very good prose because it often reduced down to just a string of quotes. Wikipedia is supposed to speak in its own authoritative voice and procse and provide supporting documentation via footnotes. -- 75.26.3.87 20:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

If there is one thing we should get rid of, it is all of this speculation. If the vet said one day that the horse's prognosis is bad and the next day the horse is doing fine, then the vet was maybe correct for that day, but in the long run, he was wrong. Tough luck. One of our jobs is to smooth out these ups and downs if there is any possibility that the vet was wrong. The vet is only human. Without a meter like a stock market ticker on the horse's prognosis, we have to chaulk up these dramatic press conferences to human error (and the limitations of technology and human ability) and move on. -- 75.26.3.87 20:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is supposed to report in its own authoritative voice. If info is learned after the fact, then just plow it back into the narrative, rather than all these silly quotes. -- 75.26.3.87 21:01, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Disagree, but too ill to go into all the reasons why... It's valuable to keep a running tally on events. Then someone will come along (as you just did) and have all the material to build a good, detailed synopsis. And in the meantime, everybody stays informed... You have to get used to the fact that Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. Not sure exactly what it is, but the old encyclopedia label is at this point just a convenient moniker. We're more like a MegaCompendium, a repository of nearly everything. That's our role and you may as well forget about fighting it... Your current version is short and to the point, yet so much is lost. I'm weighing whether to bring it back to the day-to-day format. JDG 01:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC) Added: Yes, I see that you did much more than dispense with the "Barbaro Watch". You blew away many interesting facts, statements and descriptions, I suppose under the banner of "conciseness". Well, now it's concise... and lifeless. We'll see how motivated I am tomorrow. JDG
What is the title of the article? It is about one animal. It not about the vet, or the trainer, or the owner or the jockey, or any of the other large cast of characters surrounding this beast. It is about Barbaro. You should quote zero people about this animal. Wikipedia should speak in its own voice. Otherwise, this place is just Oprah, Jerry Springer, game shows and the rest of the schlock you see on daytime TV. -- 64.175.41.243 12:09, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Er, the article about Mount Everest goes into considerable detail about people who have climbed it. It's not just about the mountain. An article about the U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek, that was purely about the ship and didn't mention Captain Kirk, would be pretty silly too. Phr (talk) 18:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] semi protection

Given the revert war/blanking from these IP's, I requested semi protection at WP:RPP. I hope that was appropriate. Phr (talk) 10:31, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The editor in question is Amorrow (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log), a banned editor with a history of editing despite of that. I have semiptotected the page because of that. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concern for Barbaro

Of course, someday we will have to change the tense of the verbs to past tense. Naturally, we all hope that Barbero does survive and that the editing of that section will be easy, but it seems we have a difficult wait ahead of us. AP reported two hours ago that Barbaro has good night, remains stable -- 64.175.41.243 17:49, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I hope no one minds that I added Your Host to this section. It might give people hope for Barbaro to know that another horse survived as severe an injury with even less of chance. I also thought it was appropriate to connect these two horses for anyone with an interest in the lives of race horses. Not only did Your Host make it, he sired Kelso! --Ki Longfellow 15:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concern for Barbaro

See folks? "Concern for Barbaro" is not encyclopedic. It is merely contemporary fluff — it does not stand the test of time. And the writing in that section was beautiful. But to any mind with the more mature judement than a 14-year-old girl, it was misguided. Thems the breaks. BTW: The good reports just keep on coming in: Barbaro has new growth in left hoof but NPOV sez: How nice, but so what? -- 64.175.41.143 12:22, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] first-person bit removed

Approximately 130 meters into the race, just before the sixteenth pole, there was accidental contact between Barbaro and opposing horse Brother Derek. Barbaro drifted out just as Brother Derek was closing the margin. Brother Derek extended his right front leg and, as can best be determined, it hit Barbaro's right hind. This apparently touched off the "bad step" leading to Barbaro's injury. Barbaro's head immediately reared up as he had sustained fractures above and below his right hind ankle. His right hind leg suddenly failed to support his weight.<insert ref here /> The preceding explanation has not been confirmed by anyone outside of Pimlico as far as I am aware. It is simply one of many possible explanations for what occured, and it is an explanation that most people have discounted.

Hi, emphasis is mine. I have removed the bold bit from the article, because of its style. If someone who's knowledgeable could rewrite it and add it back (or make the article more NPOV) please feel free to do so. Thank you. --Kjoonlee 17:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remove the Dog Food reference

Remove the Dog Food reference.

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