Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

If you read the account of it in Jane Schwartz's book, it's pretty gruesome. Barbaro let himself get pulled up right away, but Ruffian fought Vasquez when he tried to pull her up and kept running on that broken ankle. She did also undo all the work they did when she came out of anesthesia, you are still right about that.

And an article I read said they've made some advances since then-- they now try to wait to do surgery so the adreneleine from the race is out of the system and they bring the horse out of anesthesia in a standing position so it doesn't panic- but it seems to me her injury was still very severe even by today's standards.