THE SUNSHINE COAST COLUMN: THE RV VET'S SCAN DEBATE. IT DEPENDS WHICH WAY YOU LOOK AT IT

By Graham Potter | Monday, September 7, 2020

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the column these articles are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

Protocol after protocol … that is what racing authorities have had to formulate, implement and enforce over an extended period of time since Covid-19 first emerged and engulfed the world, changing everybody’s lives … possibly forever.

For an iconic race like the Melbourne Cup extra issues have been involved beyond all of the local contingency planning.

Would overseas contenders be able to travel to Victoria? If so, would their regular stable staff be allowed to travel with the horses? If so, would there be enough flights to accommodate them?

On all of those counts the racing world had to, in the first instance, wait for the Australian government to make their call but, ultimately, certain stables and staff were given the green light to go ahead with their plans to visit the country.

That left the visitors with the difficult task of organising the travel logistics, shuffling the pack to try and get their horses here safely and in a time appropriate manner so that their respective training schedules can flow well enough to have the horses at their competitive best come race-day.

But at least these trainers were now able to look forward … and one of them has immediately raised a point of concern regarding the vet checks undertaken by Racing Victoria vets on big race participants … in particular on Racing Victoria’s vet’s interpretation of hi-tech CT scans which, for example, each horse in the Melbourne Cup has to undergo.

Last year there was a lot of unhappiness from Mermelo’s connections when that horse was determined to be unfit to race in the Cup by racing Victoria vets following scans … and this year Charlie Fellowes, who is bringing Prince Of Arran back for a third crack at the Melbourne Cup, has concerns about how the scans are used to determine race fitness.

Fellowes believes that most horses racing for some time at the elite level would carry some minor niggles which might be picked up by a high-tech scan, but which are not necessarily significant in any way in terms of the horse’s overall well-being and performance capability.

“I think it finds injuries that aren’t there,” Fellowes told the Racenet website, and he has called for “a degree of common sense” to be brought into play.

Whether Fellowes has a point or not would be an interesting general debate but, unless proven one way or the other, there is no question about who should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Animal welfare is paramount wherever it raises its head these days and, particularly with regard to the Melbourne Cup which has had its share of unwanted episodes in recent times, everything has to be done to ensure that every horse that walks out onto the track is in as much ‘ready for action’ condition as is possible to determine.

I can see a point in Fellowes’ argument … and it does open what could be a very lively conversation … but, at best, that is probably all it is going to do.

Racing Victoria have their protocols which they will undoubtedly follow once again during the Melbourne Cup Carnival.

Or, more particularly if you want, how the Racing Victoria vets interpret the scans will be the official version of how the scan is interpreted.

That is not going to change.