Bernardini won the 131st running of the Preakness Stakes on Saturday as Barbaro's Triple Crown hopes, and his career, came to a stunning end.
Bernardini won the mile-and-three-sixteenths race at Pimlico, Md., by six lengths over the next closest horse, Sweetnorthernsaint.
Barbaro, whose six-race unbeaten streak had included a one-sided Kentucky Derby win, broke through the starting barrier just as the last of the nine horses was being put in the gate.
Jockey Edgar Prado tries to control Barbaro after pulling up early in the Preakness Stakes. The horse suffered fractures above and below his right hind ankle.
(Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
He was put back in, but jockey Edgar Prado pulled the horse up due to a right hind ankle injury suffered moments into the race.
"During the race, he took a bad step and I can't really tell you what happened," Prado said. "I heard a noise about 100 yards into the race and pulled him right up."
According to Dr. Larry Bramlage, a world-renowned equine orthopedic surgeon on site at Pimlico, the horse suffered a fracture above and below the ankle.
"It's a serious fracture. This will require pretty major surgery. ... Keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer," he said. "His career is over. This is very life threatening. Under the best circumstances, we will try to save him as a stallion."
The horse was transported to University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center, which specializes in equine surgery.
For his part, Bernardini became the first new shooter (horse not to run in the Kentucky Derby) to win the Preakness since 2000. Jockey Javier Castellano rode the horse to victory.
"It's very exciting for everyone, for me especially, to win the Preakness. It's also very, very sad. It's a big disappointment," Castellano said.
Bernardini posted a winning time of 1:54.65 in just his fourth start. The horse is owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai.
Winning trainer Tom Albertrani could empathize with Michael Matz, Barbaro's trainer.
"I can understand what he's going through right now, being around horses," Albertrani said. "You're always upset when something like that happens."
Hemingway's Key, owned by George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees, finished third.
Brother Derek, owned by 79-year-old Calgarian Cecil N. Peacock, was fourth.
Barbaro's Derby dominance had given rise to speculation that he could become the first horse to win the Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978. It is the longest drought since the inception of the Crown - which has been won by 11 horses - in 1919.
Six horses in the last nine years, including the likes of Silver Charm to Smarty Jones, have fallen short at the final race of the trio, the Belmont Stakes.
Barbaro was racing for the first time ever with less than five weeks of rest. He had suffered jittery moments before previous victories, but long before the starting gate.
"This [the injury] had nothing to do with him breaking through the gate, as far as cause and effect of the fracture in his leg," Bramlage said. "He wouldn't have been able to go around the gate, get back in and break like he did."
The 138th running of the mile-and-a half Belmont will take place on June 10 in Belmont, N.Y.
with files from Associated Press
