Racing Victoria charges thrust horse vet activities into spotlight

By Patrick Bartley

The ethics and professionalism of equine veterinarians and their board have been put in the spotlight with Racing Victoria laying 20 charges against Flemington vet Dr Tom Brennan after a lengthly investigation into cobalt doping in Victoria.

Senior horse vets, who did not wish to be named, speaking generally and not in relation to Brennan, say that inactivity by the Veterinary Board of Victoria in relation to breaches of the rules of racing had allowed vets to become more sports scientist than good clinician.

They also said that gambling by horse vets was a problem and suggested that horse vets should not be permitted to bet on horses they were treating.

However one vet said: “The trainers always know what is going on. There is pressure on the trainers to find the edge, but the concept that any vet would treat a horse without the trainer knowing, especially with illicit drugs, is simply fanciful.”

Earlier in the week, vets at Brennan’s practice, the Flemington Equine Clinic, were grilled by NSW stewards in their parallel investigation into Sam Kavanagh’s cobalt positive for Midsummer Dream, which is part-owned by Brennan.

In that inquiry, the junior vets co-operated with the investigators.

Brennan’s partner, Dr Ian Church, was interviewed from France where he is holidaying, but claimed he was unable to answer a number of questions due to memory lapses.

Former partner Dr Adam Matthews is travelling overseas and was unavailable for questioning.

Dr Stuart Vallance, a senior associate, refused to answer any questions until he obtained legal advice.

Meanwhile, Brennan and practice manager Aaron Corby denied mailing cobalt bottles to Kavanagh and denied threatening standover tactics if their involvement was exposed.

Brennan did, however, admit taking cash payments for veterinary services and splitting the cash with Church.

This is the first time unprofessional behaviour by horse vets has been publicly alleged. However, it is not the first time vets have been involved in dubious dealings.

Several years ago, international horse Bauer, trained by Luca Cumani, was nearly stripped of second place in the Melbourne Cup when it was found the horse had been “shockwaved” close to racing – in clear breach of RV rules.

The vets, two partners of the Melbourne Equine Veterinarian Group – Dr Rob McInnis who treated Bauer and Dr Peter Angus who altered an invoice to hide the treatment – were referred to the veterinary board and McInnis was reprimanded.

Earlier this year, Fairfax Media reported that Mornington-based Irish vet Dr Eoin Kelly admitted to RV integrity officers that he had bought and on-sold cobalt to local trainers though emphasised that was before the limit had been set nationally at 200 micrograms per litre.

Fairfax Media further understands that another vet had cobalt compounded into a paste and marketed under the name “Altitude”, a benign reference to the blood-doping effects of cobalt.

In the past, such practices have regularly gone unpunished by the board or lightly sanctioned.

Meanwhile, owners have lost prize money, horses have lost races and trainers have been penalised for positive swabs.

As a result, under new integrity legislation, vets can be charged by RV stewards in the same way as a trainer and will now front RAD board.

One suspects the RAD board may not be as lenient with regard to transgressions as the vet board and one wonders what effect this will have on the vet board.

Fairfax Media understands RV stewards intend referring several vets to the vet board over the current cobalt investigations.

To date no horse vet has been deregistered.