updated 3:49 p.m. ET Jan. 26, 2008

KENNETT SQUARE, Pa. - The white wooden fence once tacked with homemade signs expressing prayers and appeals to “Grow, Hoof, Grow” are bare. Only students pass through the lobby that overflowed with floral arrangements, get-well cards and baskets stuffed with carrots and apples.

The sole visual evidence at the New Bolton Center that the large animal hospital was ever Barbaro’s intensive care home for eight months is a portrait of the bay colt blazing toward the finish line in his stirring 6½-length victory in the 2006 Kentucky Derby.

It’s the way Barbaro should be honored.

The breathtaking stride that swiftly covered grass or dirt and those Triple Crown dreams lofted by the widest Derby margin in 60 years are what those close to Barbaro remember now.

“Sometimes,” said Gretchen Jackson, Barbaro’s co-owner, “I can still see him.”

If Barbaro’s near-flawless career made him one of racing’s greats, it was the feisty fight for his life from his horrific breakdown at the Preakness that morphed the colt into a symbol of courage, strength and inspiration all around the world. What few might have guessed when Barbaro was rushed from Pimlico Race Course to the sprawling, 650-acre campus in Kennett Square was how he would create a legacy that perhaps not even a Triple Crown would have brought him.

So on Tuesday, one year from the day Barbaro was euthanized after complications from his gruesome breakdown, his most devoted fans will hit Internet message boards to leave notes “for Barbaro” and observe a moment of silence. Perhaps then, the Fans of Barbaro — or, FOBs — can also take solace and pride in all they’ve done in Barbaro’s name for equine awareness and horse protection. Their tireless efforts might be the greatest tribute of all.

“I think it’s just great that everything came out in a positive force with Barbaro and it still continues,” Jackson said. “People just did their best. He had that effect on people.”

Jackson and her husband, Roy, are reminded daily how Barbaro touched everyone from the fanatical Triple Crown followers to those who paid scant attention to the sport until they heard of the colt’s plight. That’s one reason why the Jacksons are still carefully and respectfully considering where to bring the ashes of their beloved colt.

Barbaro’s ashes remain with the Jacksons, and Gretchen Jackson said they are still trying to decide the best way to honor the Derby winner. Jackson hasn’t given up the idea of a museum, but plans now likely call for his final resting place to be near a yet-to-be built statue.

“I’d like to see it where he can be visited by people who can pay respects to his remains,” Gretchen Jackson said. “I think we’d like to respect that.”

The Jacksons are still reviewing proposals for a statue and could decide where it will go within the next few weeks.

It could be the Kentucky Derby Museum, just a few hundred yards from the scene of his greatest triumph in the 2006 Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.

“I’m one of those people where the ashes mean nothing to me compared to the memory of the horse,” said Dr. Dean Richardson, chief of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center.

Outside of the Jacksons, no one was as emotionally connected with Barbaro as Richardson. Even as weeks of positive updates turned into months, it was Richardson who cautioned an optimistic public that laminitis, the often-fatal hoof disease, could cost Barbaro his life.

In the end, a series of ailments — including laminitis in the left rear hoof, an abscess in the right rear hoof, as well as new laminitis in both front feet — proved too much for Barbaro.

Now, additional help to battle the dire disease can be found at New Bolton thanks to the financial generosity of the Jacksons, the FOBs and others simply wanting to help, just another way that shows Barbaro’s legacy stretched far beyond a convincing Kentucky Derby victory.

The Barbaro Fund at New Bolton has raised more than $1.3 million and counting, with the money put toward both needed expansion of the George D. Widener Large Animal Hospital, and the purchase of equipment like a new operating table and recovery raft, not unlike the one used to calmly awake Barbaro from the anesthetic.

More than $2.7 million has been raised with a separate fund for laminitis research, and last year Dr. Hannah Galantino-Homer was appointed as lead investigator of the newly created laminitis research initiative.

The laminitis initiative will foster training programs and studies for new treatments of equine diseases.

“It isn’t so much the amount, it’s the continued interest,” Richardson said of the support.

MORE FROM HORSE RACING

Horse racing Section Front

Mistrial in diet drug fraud case Horse of Year Curlin shines in 1st turf workout Ellis Park owner closing track after 86 years Horse racing on the verge of irrelevance Vote: When will we see next Triple Crown winner? Interactive: Triple Crown winners, near misses Latest horse racing videos   Sound off on horse racing message boards Equibase: Top horses, by earnings Equibase: Results ticker from top tracks Horse racing Section Front   Add Horse racing headlines to your news reader: