Barbaro (centre), with jockey Edgar Prado in the irons, wins the 132nd Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, in this May 6, 2006 file photo. - Reuters

KENNETT SQUARE, Pennsylvania (AP):

Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was put down yesterday after complications from his breakdown at the Preakness last May.

"We just reached a point where it was going to be difficult for him to go on without pain," co-owner Roy Jackson said. "It was the right decision, it was the right thing to do. We said all along if there was a situation where it would become more difficult for him then it would be time."

Roy and Gretchen Jackson were with Barbaro on Monday morning, with the owners making the decision in consultation with chief surgeon Dean Richardson.

It was a series of complications, including laminitis in the left rear hoof and a recent abscess in the right rear hoof, that proved to be too much for the colt, whose breakdown brought an outpouring of support across the country.

"I would say thank you for everything, and all your thoughts and prayers over the last eight months or so," Jackson said to Barbaro's fans.

FIVE-HOUR OPERATION

On May 20, Barbaro was rushed to the New Bolton Center near Philadelphia, hours after shattering his right hind leg just a few strides into the Preakness Stakes. The bay colt underwent a five-hour operation that fused two joints, recovering from an injury most horses never survive. Barbaro lived for eight more months, though he never again walked with a normal gait.

The Kentucky Derby winner suffered a significant setback over the weekend, and surgery was required to insert two steel pins in a bone - one of three shattered eight months ago in the Preakness but now healthy - to eliminate all weight bearing on the ailing right rear foot.

The procedure on Saturday was a risky one, because it transferred more weight to the leg while the foot rests on the ground bearing no weight. The leg was on the mend until the abscess began causing discomfort last week. Until then, the major concern was Barbaro's left rear leg, which developed laminitis in July, and 80 per cent of the hoof was removed.