[Sightseek]

Originally Posted by cabvmd

As an examining veterinarian for 21 years, my hat and great thanks goes to Dr. Baily and the LA Turf Club Association. She most likely prevented yet another high profile raceday from having a horse get hurt. The job of examining Veterinarian is not easy. You only have short time to perform your exam and determine the soundness of a horse. Having the same veterinarian when ever posssible examine the horse each time it races is key. I remembered the horses I checked from week to week. When I first started in the job the assignments were the same every time a horse raced. Over the years the job climate has changed and there is a shortage of qualified examining veterinarians, forcing racing associations to rely on substitute veterinarians more often. Notes are kept in a master program for each days races so an examiner can go back to the previous starts to see if there has been any changes in the horse, but there is no better way to insure consistant evaluations of these horses than by having the same person examin the horse each time.

When I have recommended a horse be scratched, I have been sworn at, my skills as a veterinarian belittled, but I would rather have been "proved" wrong about any horse a thousand times than be right once. If I had questions about a horse and let it run any way and have something bad happen it would be just terrible. Most of the horses I have sratched pre-race did not race again, or had limited carreers after they had been scratched, meaning I had found some thing significant and the horse was not safe to race.

It is a TOUGH JOB. Thanks for all the Dr. Baily's out there. I hope racing will look to find enough qualifed veterinarians to perform this most important of jobs a the race track and compenstate these professional men and women at a level that reflects their knowledge and importance to the racing industry.