The daily strolls are out for now, replaced with several hours in a sling. It’s a setback, for sure, but Barbaro’s outlook is not as grim as it was six months ago.

The Kentucky Derby winner shows no sign of infection in either of his hind legs, and has more healthy tissue on his diseased left hind hoof than he did in July when he was first stricken with laminitis.

“We do not believe that this setback puts him all the way back to where he was in July,” chief surgeon Dean Richardson said Friday in an update issued by the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center.

Richardson said that it was “very disappointing” to suffer a setback so close to when Barbaro was set to leave the hospital, but the colt now looks bright, has a strong appetite, and was comfortable