MacLean shares his knowledge from a life spent with horses

Winning Post’s Paul Richards chats with equine vet Alastair MacLean, 50 years on from his arrival in Australia…

Paul Richards: Alastair, it’s the Cox Plate this Saturday, and in 1992 you were the vet who helped get the great Better Loosen Up back to racing well enough that he almost won it.

Alastair MacLean: Yes, he arguably should have won. (He finished fifth but was promoted to fourth after Simon Marshall successfully protested against second-placed Let’s Elope.) It would have been an amazing effort to come back from his tendon injury and win a Cox Plate. Most horses don’t get back to anywhere near their best after a tendon injury and neither did Better Loosen Up, but he came back well enough to almost do it.

I’ll come back to tendon injuries. How long were you a vet?

I finished studying at Massey University in Palmerston North in 1973. It was the only university in New Zealand where you could do equine studies. Once I completed the course, I came to Australia to do equine surgery at Melbourne University. It was supposed to be for a year, and I’m still here. After the year at Melbourne Uni, I spent seven years initially at Bendigo, where I worked mainly on harness horses, and then over to Perth to work with the thoroughbreds. Then I came back to Melbourne University in 1982 and stayed there until I turned 60 in 2006. I then continued with a Private Equine Referral at Werribee until I retired at 70, seven years ago.

Is there any difference between the injuries thoroughbreds and standardbreds (harness racing horses) suffer?

The thoroughbreds put more pressure on their front legs while the harness horse is more balanced. They have more hind-leg problems as they don’t put as much pressure on their front legs.

How much have they changed since you started in the 1970s?

The standardbreds have had an unbelievable change. It’s hard to tell the difference now between them and a thoroughbred. Their times have improved markedly. For instance, a thoroughbred runs a mile (1600m) in around 1:36 while the world record for a harness horse is 1:46. Back in the early 1980s, Popular Alm was the first harness horse to break two minutes for a mile in Australia. Now the Australian record is 1:47. It’s quite extraordinary how much the times have come down. The thoroughbreds run similar times to what they were running back then.

Why the change?

They allowed artificial insemination in the harness world, so they were able to get the frozen semen of some of the best stallions in the world, primarily from the USA, at an affordable price.

What was the most common injury you had to handle with the thoroughbreds?

Knee injuries were the most common. Back then we used to perform an arthrotomy, which was open knee surgery. We used to go in and remove any bone fragments that were causing the issue. In the 1980s this was replaced by the arthroscope, which was keyhole surgery. This was a dramatic improvement in how quickly horses could recover from the operation.

What causes bone chips in horses?

A mixture of conformation issues and the pressure they put on their knees due to the speed they’re going.

I mentioned Better Loosen Up earlier. He was coming back from a tendon injury. How different is it treating those issues now compared to 1992?

Well, in that time there have been no end of new methods that were supposed to fix tendons, most of which aren’t around anymore. Sadly, once a horse damages a tendon it’s very hard to get them back to their best. It’s still a very poor prognosis. There are exceptions, but generally, a tendon injury is not good.

Can you explain, for those of us who aren’t vets, what a tendon injury is?

A horse has a tendon at the back of the knee. It’s quite long, probably around 12 inches (30cm) and as the horse gallops it receives a lot of pressure. The fibres in the tendon can get stretched or torn. Nature is a wonderful thing and with time they can heal, but they’re never as strong as they were before.

We don’t seem to hear about horses bowing a tendon as much as when Better Loosen Up was going around.

They’re still common but probably not as prevalent as then. I think changes in the way horses are prepared — things like treadmills, walking machines and water-walkers — appear to be reducing instances.

What about horses bleeding?

I believe that sometimes when a human runs a marathon, they occasionally cough up blood because of the stress it puts on the body. Well, horses are the same. Back in the 1980s I was involved in a study at the Moonee Valley trots. We scoped every horse that won and found that 80 per cent of them had blood in the airway. It wasn’t enough to bleed out of the nose, which is when you have issues, but 80 percent of horses that won had an internal bleed, so you’d imagine those who were trying to catch the winner had the same issue.

Has treatment changed over the years?

It’s a bit like the tendon treatments. There have been 101 claims of products that can prevent a horse from bleeding, but most of them haven’t worked. There seems to be some success with the use of a few natural herbs.

What about throat issues?

I managed to have a lot of luck treating roarers back in the early 1980s. It was a common condition among thoroughbreds, where they couldn’t get enough air into their lungs and would make a noise. We were able to get Red Tempo to win a Futurity Stakes (1984) and a Newmarket (1985) after an operation. That success got us a bit more exposure. There have been advances in technology, but the treatment is essentially the same.

In the 1970s and 1980s trainers were able to use anabolic steroids on their horses.

Yes, their use started to be reduced in the 1970s and they were ultimately banned. At the time people were saying it would be the end of geldings, but they’re still going around big and strong. The key is to feed them well. Colin Hayes used to say that half the success of breeding a good horse was feeding them very well.

You spent a lot of time working with Colin Hayes. How did that start?

I treated a few of his horses when I first started in 1973 and we got on well. By the time I got back to Melbourne in 1982, his Lindsay Park (SA) stable had got so big he’d built a facility to treat his horses. I’d fly over quite regularly and stay a day or two to treat their horses.

What about shin soreness? How do you treat that?

Rest is still the best method. Fortunately, it isn’t as big an issue as it used to be. Trainers have far more knowledge. The quickest way for a horse to go shin sore was to take them from the paddock and straight into training on a hard surface. These days they gradually build up the work.

How did you handle it when a horse died or was so badly injured or ill that it had to be put down?

Disasters happen all the time in racing and in treating the horses. We’ve had them react when the needle goes in and thrash about in the surgery, or we’ve had them have a reaction to the drugs. It’s horrible, you hate to see any animal suffer, but you sort of get immune to it. You can’t let it get to you as a vet.

Is there one bad one that comes to mind?

Probably Grand Cidium. I was only just starting at Werribee then. He’d been a star three-year-old who’d won the Caulfield Guineas (1973). He came in with lameness in a hind leg. We performed the surgery but soon after he collapsed and died. It’s not a great memory.

I believe you were also on hand when the great Placid Ark had to be put down (1988)?

That was very sad. He’d broken both sesamoids in his forelegs at trackwork at Flemington that morning. We could have tried to fix them, but he would have had to spend three to six months in a box, and he probably would have been a cripple anyway. It was a hard decision, but we had to put him down on humane grounds.

Could you treat it differently now?

If he’d only broken one sesamoid you could try to fix it, but as time went on, I learned to be less heroic. There’s nothing more depressing than seeing a horse going through rehab in a paddock but still being in agony.

On to more positive memories. As you mentioned, Popular Alm was the top pacer in the early 1980s. I believe you worked on him after he broke down.

He fractured a hind pastern and we put some screws in to try to help it heal. He came back and won his comeback race at Moonee Valley (1984). I was there that night and can still clearly remember Bill Collins calling, “… and welcome back, Poppy.”

How did you feel that night?

I was pretty high and happy, that’s for sure. It was a great occasion and to have been part of it was a fantastic feeling.

Is there one surgical recovery that you’re most proud of?

I’d say the pacer Sokyola coming back and winning successive Miracle Miles at Menangle (2003,’04). As I got older, I spent more time with the harness horses, so to see one get back to the highest level is one that stands out.

What are you doing now?

My daughter Elizabeth’s partner is Chris Svanosio, who’s in the top bracket of harness-racing drivers in Victoria. I help them out six days a week, doing a minimal amount of vet work. I also help out with a few horses on the jogger and general odd jobs. I’m cheap labour, really. I’m 77 now and slowing down a bit, but I love it.

Alastair, thanks for the chat.

Thanks for the call, Paul. You’ve brought back some great memories.

What is a wobbler?

It’s a neurological condition that occurs in the horse’s neck. It leads to them being uncoordinated and they can stumble or fall. It’s not a good thing.

What causes it?

Primarily it can happen if they grow too rapidly and too quickly in the period from weanling to yearling. It’s still an issue today and usually leads to the horse being put down.

Is there a way of treating it?

Back in 1985 I went over to the USA to meet up with Barry Grant at Washington State University. He’d been having a bit of success with wobblers, so I spent some time watching him operate on them and brought the technique back to Australia. I was the only person doing it here. One of the first horses I worked on was a colt by Danzatore out of the mare Star Lot. He was a half-brother to Acumen, a very good youngster who finished second in a Blue Diamond and a VRC Derby and third in a Caulfield Guineas (1985). (Businessman/owner) Laurie Connell in Perth bought him from New Zealand as a yearling for a big amount, but when he turned out to be a wobbler the insurance company agreed to pay him out on the purchase price. I had a friend at Murdoch University who suggested they send him to me at Werribee.

And what happened?

I operated on him using the techniques Barry Grant had taught me and he recovered so well, I suggested to Colin Hayes that he might make a racehorse.

Anyway, (named Space Cadet) he finished second on debut at Gawler and won at Balaklava soon after. It actually got quite a lot of publicity that we’d enjoyed success with the procedure. However, soon after, a group of New South Wales vets came out and said, “If we’d been on course, we wouldn’t have let it race.” They were concerned that it still could wobble around and cause a fall. After that, I was scared to operate as there was the threat that if the horse fell and a jockey or another horse was hurt, I could be sued. We retired him to stud, and he ended up siring Niarchos who won a Sires Produce Stakes (1995) in South Australia for us.

Looking back now, how do you think you would have gone if you’d been able to keep performing the surgery on wobblers?

I’m confident that with the right luck we could have been able to help a lot of horses, but unfortunately the legal threat killed that option.

From Harness Racing Victoria