They gave Barbaro the chance

Back in Pennsylvania on Monday, a horse named Barbaro remained full of life, eating well and checking out the female horses. All things considered, he has a good quality of life.

Here in Los Angeles, the people most responsible for that quality of life were getting a day’s worth of public pats on the back for actions in the last 8 1/2 months that have turned a potentially devastating horse racing story into a “possible” positive.

If Barbaro lives, the positive stands alone. If Barbaro recovers enough to makes babies that could go on and win a Kentucky Derby, as he did last year, then the movie producers start lining up. Seabiscuit becomes old news.

Roy and Gretchen Jackson and Dr. Dean Richardson haven’t allowed any of that to deflect their attention from a horse still on the serious-to-critical list. For the moment, the Jacksons, who own Barbaro and have done everything possible to give him a chance to live after his terrible breakdown only seconds into the Preakness, will smile and take their special Eclipse Award for service to the sport.

Same for Richardson, the surgeon from the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary medicine center, who put Barbaro’s right hind leg back together again after that fateful May 20 in Baltimore. With bones shattered into 20 pieces, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men had a better chance at success than Richardson. But nine hours and 27 screws later, he did it.

The Eclipse that went to the Jacksons at racing’s annual awards dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel also went to Richardson’s hospital. So he shared in that, as well as receiving a special award from the Turf Publicists of America at a luncheon in Beverly Hills. His award, the 41st annual, was called the Big Sport of Turfdom, a strange name that becomes more meaningful when the list of past winners includes Bill Shoemaker, Eddie Arcaro, Jim McKay, Bob Baffert, Wayne Lukas, Julie Krone, Tim Conway and Laffit Pincay Jr. (twice).

Richardson has not only been praised for his way with a scalpel, but for his way with words. His is a rare brain that works out of both sides. Were it not for him, many in horse racing say, the story of Barbaro would have cloaked itself in medical mystery and locked out the public, which would have quickly drifted away in confusion and skepticism.

“There was so much interest,” Richardson has said, “that it would have been bad for the horse racing industry if I hadn’t been forthcoming.”

Not only was he forthcoming, but his dealings with the press and public became frequent, candid, reliable and image-perpetuating. Barbaro’s condition went up and down, but Richardson was always there to tell the world why.

“I even got to the point where I respected the press -- well, some of them,” he joked Monday, adding later that he has been misquoted sometimes, “like Charles Barkley was in his autobiography.”

On the day Barbaro’s right hind leg shattered, Richardson was in Florida, watching on TV. When the Jacksons offered to rent a private jet and fly him back, he declined, saying that would be “grandstanding.” He got on the last seat of a commercial plane, “back next to the toilets,” and got himself back to do surgery immediately.

“The big story was that my plane was actually on time,” Richardson joked.

From that point to now, Richardson and his medical team have been a rock to the Jacksons, as well as to Barbaro.

Roy Jackson, Peter O’Malley’s roommate and fraternity brother at Penn, has owned minor league baseball teams, been president and/or commissioner of several minor leagues and, as recently as 2002, owned his own sports agency that handled as many as 25 major leaguers.

Gretchen is the more knowledgeable horse person in the family, having grown up riding in equestrian and fox hunting events. According to an article in the Blood Horse Magazine, Barbaro was named after Roy and Gretchen found a fox hunting painting, vintage 1880, in his mother’s house after her death. There were five dogs chasing the fox, and each had a name listed underneath. The Jacksons chose the dog on the right, Barbaro.

Now, the saga of that horse has filled, and in many ways redefined, their lives. Many in racing saw their efforts to keep Barbaro alive as foolish and sentimental. Others saw a public relations ploy that would distance the horror of the accident from the inevitable outcome of euthanasia. None of that ever occurred to the Jacksons.

“He deserved a chance,” Gretchen said. “He never looked like he didn’t want to live. You can look at him and see it.”

She sees it twice daily, which is how often she visits Barbaro.

The fight to keep Barbaro alive and progressing has attracted international attention and has not waned. Horse racing refers to it as the Barbaro Nation, and that includes a website that remains filled with notes of concern, encouragement and love.

At Monday’s luncheon, TVG’s Todd Schrupp, the master of ceremonies, read one from a 7-year-old who wrote to tell Barbaro he was “very pretty.” He read another from somebody presumably much older who wrote to the horse: “As long as you continue your brave fight, the nation can rest assured that the terrorists won’t win.”

This month, when Barbaro had a setback, a website on which well-wishers can burn electronic candles to show their concern had 14,000 candles lit. That represented 41 countries. The volume temporarily knocked the website off line.

Horses the caliber of Barbaro are insured for their lives. Had he been put down, the Jacksons would have collected and been made whole. But the sort of medical envelope-pushing that has taken place with Barbaro over the last 8 1/2 months is a different story. Clearly, the Jacksons are people of means, but many wonder about the cost of all this for them. So do they.

“We have no idea,” said Gretchen, who indicated it is a concern. “We haven’t seen a bill. We can go and pick them up on a monthly basis, but we just haven’t. Right now, we just don’t want to deal with the money.”

If Barbaro eventually stands at stud, money issues disappear. It would be a Homestretch Miracle, a validation of the efforts of the Jacksons and Richardson, a happy time for millions.

In at least 41 countries.

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.