Update

- Thanks to Alex at Tim Woolley Racing for keeping us posted. He actually has the big trade sites scooped with this report:

Barbaro is now in the recovery pool (7:40 pm). He has a bone plate fusing his ankle and pastern and a caste has been placed over this. Dr. Richardson described the surgery as one of the toughest he has performed. He is awakening from anesthesea in the pool, and once he completely comes around, he will be transported via sling back to his stall later this evening (it usually takes an hour from when they are placed in the pool to when they are able to return to their stall.)

[UPDATE: Dr Richardson is conducting a press conference now on ESPN, and the news sounds as good as it could be at this time. "At this very moment, he's extremely comfortable in the leg. He practically jogged back to his stall....Right now, he's very happy. He's eating. Things right now are good, but I've been doing this too long to know that day 1 is the end of things." He also said that the horse had good blood supply throughout; that was one of the first concerns that was expressed.

Dr. Richardson spoke of the hurdles that lie ahead, explaining that Barbaro is "very, very susceptible to many other problems, including infection at the site because of the severity of the injury and the amount of metal that's put in the leg to fix it." He also discussed the possibility of laminits in his good foot, which can develop if he's not comfortable in the injured limb. He said that the pastern bone was shattered into around 20 pieces.]