Life After Barbaro

The most recent issue of Penn Vet's magazine, Bellwether, might well be subtitled, Life After Barbaro. The cover story is all about testing for drugs in thoroughbreds; there is a story about advances in laminitis research and the "Campaign Spotlight" is about the new surgical suite at New Bolton, made possible, in part by contributions to the Barbaro Fund. Barbaro's legacy is truly enhancing numerous aspects of equine welfare.

Certainly Barbaro's injury, as well as Big Brown's boisterous trainer, have placed the topic of drugs in racing center stage. While Barbaro did not race under the influence of any performance enhancers, many horses do and suffer injuries as a result. Penn veterinarians, Dr. Larry Soma and Dr. Cornelius Uboh became the first in the world to develop a method for detecting blood-doping agents in horses by testing their plasma. According to the article, "previously only the antibodies caused by the drug--not the drug itself--were detectable in the blood."

It is a continuous race to keep up with what Dr. Soma call, "basement chemists" and devise tests to detect their designer drug cocktails, but the welfare of the horse is ultimately at stake. Using plasma instead of urine is a cleaner test, especially for anabolic steroids.

Clearly their work has made a difference, especially in Pennsylvania where all horses must now compete anabolic-steroid-free. "We did some screening in 2005 and 60 percent of the horses running in Pennsylvania had anabolic steroid in them," says Soma. In the first two months of 2008, by contrast, 98.8 percent of the samples were negative.

The Laminitis Institute at Penn Vet is also enjoying renown, especially since Chris Pollit, BVSc, Ph.D. from the University of Queensland in Australia was tapped as research director. Together with Dr. Hannah Gallantino-Homer and Dr. Jim Orsini, they lead the efforts to find a cure for the disease that ultimately took Barbaro's life.

The ultimate goal of the Institute is to translate their findings on tissue banking, the pathogenesis of the disease and the creation of an in vitro lab model of laminitis into real life clinical applications. Certainly Barbaro's legacy is making a difference in trying to eradicate this horrible and common disease.

Contributions from the Barbaro Fund have not only helped the Vet School purchase new equipment for their existing surgical suite, they have become the literal foundation of the new surgical suite being planned at New Bolton Center. To date, more than $700,000 has been raised toward Penn Vet's goal of $10,000,000 for the new suite from more than 3,000 donors, many of then Friends of Barbaro.

In many ways, this incredible horse's legacy has contributed to better lives for horses everywhere and the mission continues.