An astonished crowd watched as jockey Edgar Prado leaned into Barbaro's shoulder, the colt lurching on three legs, his righthind leg destroyed by a bad step.
On Saturday, veterinarians at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center surgically implanted a device at the base of his righthind leg to take weight off an abscess there.
He survived major surgery on his shattered righthind leg in May only to develop laminitis, a painful and often fatal inflammation in his left hind foot in July, a direct result of standing on that foot while the right leg healed.
Both legs seemed to heal slowly through the fall, but a few weeks ago, Barbaro began experiencing more pain in his left hind foot, which caused him to put more weight on his right, which in turn developed the abscess.