Practicing The Best In Equine Medicine and Surgery

“I'd always grown up with horses, working in a racing stable when I was a young kid,” Garth said. “When I decided to get away from them, I realized how much I actually missed them. And that's why I decided to come and do what I'm now doing.”

But David Garth's previous medical experience proved invaluable.

“My background in medical imaging in the human world is really important,” Garth noted. “I always had an interest in sports medicine and had an interest in medical imaging.

“Then having been around horses growing up, this has allowed me to do what I love, basically. But it's also meant that you've got a unique set of skills that not every veterinarian has. “

Now, Garth finds himself in Sydney and in proximity to the horse industry — an industry with four-legged athletes carrying 1,200 pounds or more, racing on hoofs of six to 12 inches.

And those athletes require a great deal of medical attention.

“Horses are basically born athletes,” Garth said. “They're made around being a flight animal, that's what they would normally do in nature. 

“Their whole system is built around being able to run reasonable distances at a very fast pace.  But it also means because they've got that ability, their biology is constantly pushing those limits. So when a horse gallops, those limits have been tested.

“And there are the injuries that we see. If you look at any athletes around the world, any athlete that's competing at the top level is always prone to various aches and pains and even at your local footy club level. They get their aches and pains and needles and they can't make it any further. And horses are no different with all of those sorts of problems.”

For Garth, a lot of office hours are spent at the track, and not playing hooky.

“We work every day of the week at the race track, examining the horses after they've worked in the morning,” Garth explained. “We don't work on race day. We may be called on by the trainer to examine the horse after it's raced and returned to the stable. So we're always on call for those things, but it's a conflict of interest.”

Garth said steps are taken to prevent on-track euthanizations, as modern medicine and radiology have improved to the point that diagnoses once limited to being life-threatening can be reassessed.

“One of our biggest things is the ability to diagnose different conditions,” Garth said.

“This has come about from a Biomedical Imaging background. We've now got the ability to see things, whether it's X-rays or ultrasounds that we couldn't see 30 years ago. Technology has just improved by leaps and bounds. There are more options out there to get an answer and find the problem.

“We then try and treat it because you know what the condition is. There are conditions that just weren't being diagnosed regularly 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Now, they're just a common occurrence, and we've got the ability to diagnose them. That has made a difference.”

Garth, who says the “racing purist” in him prefers the Caulfield Cup in Melbourne, has warmed to The Everest's format of convincing slot holders, not to mention its status as the world's richest turf sprint.

Like others presented with the idea of The Everest at its inception, Garth was skeptical.

“Though I had my reservations at the time, it’s turning out as an amazing concept,” he said. “I had my reservations at the time because it was 'interesting' that people can pick a horse to go in a race rather than having to be eligible for that individual race.

“But I guess the people that have their own slots and have a love of racing, they are picking the best horses for the race, out of the best horses that are in the country at that period of time.

“That's what the Everest is showing me.”