Horse cents

Barbaro, the colt that was seriously injured during the Preakness just two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby, is insured. According to owner Roy Jackson, the cost of the insurance jumped after Barbaro won the Florida Derby and the Kentucky Derby. But the Jacksons appear more interested in nursing Barbaro back to health than in making any insurance claim.

The Jacksons likely would have collected on their policy if they had decided not to go through the expense of trying to save Barbaro. “If they went to the insurance company and said they made a decision to destroy the horse, there would be no questions,” Dan Rosenberg, president of Three Chimneys in Midway, Ky., where Smarty Jones stands for a stud fee of $100,000, told Associated Press racing writer Richard Rosenblatt. “But they didn’t.”

Rosenblatt reported that money is usually the major issue in deciding whether to save an animal. Barbaro might be expected to gain millions in stud fees. The Jacksons reportedly turned down stallion-rights offers for Barbaro before the Derby. Smarty Jones, who won the 2004 Derby and Preakness, was syndicated for $40 million.

Nobody knows for certain how much Barbaro would fetch had he won the Triple Crown. But Dr. Dean Richardson, who pinned together the leg bones the 3-year-old shattered in the Preakness, told Rosenblatt that Barbaro’s owners are not considering the money.

“If this horse could have absolutely no reproductive value, they would have saved this horse’s life,” said Richardson, who works at the George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center.

Richardson put the costs of Barbaro’s surgery and recovery time at “tens of thousands of dollars — many tens of thousands of dollars.” (Associated Press)