HORSE CENTS

Barbaro, the colt that was seriously injured during the Preakness two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby, is insured. Owner Roy Jackson said the cost of the insurance jumped after Barbaro won the Florida and Kentucky Derby, but he is more interested in nursing Barbaro back to health than in making an insurance claim.

The Jacksons likely would have collected on their policy if they had decided not to try 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 he told Associated Press. “But they didn’t.”

Rosenblatt reported that money is usually the issue in deciding whether to save an animal. Barbaro could gain millions in stud fees. Smarty Jones, who won the 2004 Derby and Preakness, was syndicated for $40 million.

“If this horse could have absolutely no reproductive value, they would have saved this horse’s life,” said Dr. Dean Richardson, who pinned the horse’s leg bones. He tallied Barbaro’s surgery and recovery time at “tens of thousands of dollars.”(Associated Press)