Obstacles to backside communication often keep owners in the darkOne of the biggest challenges for the regulatory veterinarian is in trying to communicate with the principals when a horse has a problem. The unique circumstances of the racing game and the huge variety of horse people who are involved with it present significant obstacles that are rarely encountered in business or in other forms of veterinary practice.
First, we work in many locations. The horses are scattered among many barns, so I spend my mornings afoot. A trainer may or may not be at the barn when I'm there looking at a horse. In fact, the trainer may not even be on the grounds. The groom might speak English and might be reliable about conveying a message, or maybe not. The trainer might hear my page to contact the vet's office, or he might be ponying a horse at the time. He might come looking for me only to find that I am now on the front side trying to figure out why the test barn crew's paychecks are late.
Frankly, it is amazing that anything gets accomplished within this system, but somehow it does. I'll run into a trainer I need to talk with while I'm standing in line at the track kitchen or somewhere equally as inconvenient, and we'll have our discussion. But business transacted in the coffee line often leaves a lot to be desired in terms of follow-through or documentation.

What's behind the message
A much larger difficulty than the setup of the backside is the fact that trainers come from all kinds of backgrounds. The levels of education, horsemanship, and honesty vary widely. Each new meet brings a lot of new faces. Within a few short weeks I have to try to get to know these folks well enough to discuss a horse without either losing them or insulting them. And obviously, their reception of what I am saying has a lot to do with how they have been treated in the past by other regulatory veterinarians, who also vary quite a bit in terms of competence and compassion.
Even at high levels of racing there are a few trainers who lack a basic understanding of what training is all about. As the quality of racing goes down the percentage of these folks on the backside goes up. When a trainer lacks horsemanship skills, he or she will often be quite resistant to admitting that a horse has a problem. Getting through to a trainer in such denial is difficult at best.
To further complicate matters, you add the jockey and the private veterinarian. Some of their communications can be very interesting.
When I watch a workout to get a horse off the vet's list, I like to have the rider up who will be named on the horse when it is to race again. I want the rider to feel okay about the animal's soundness before he goes out there in the afternoon on its back and careens around the track at 35 or 40 m.p.h. But I've learned not to bother asking the jockey in front of the trainer about how the horse felt. The rider does not want to make the trainer mad and risk losing other mounts, so he is not likely to tell me right there that the horse scares him. Bug riders are the worst for this because they are hungry for mounts; most of them will ride anything that still breathes, and they are often not experienced enough to recognize a catastrophe in the making.
My solution to this problem has been to try to get to know the jockeys' agents well enough so they know it is okay to approach me quietly later. The agent does not want to see his rider take a spill, so he might let me know privately that the horse still felt unsound, or he might
try to slow down the trainer's frenzy to get the horse back into a race.
Communication with the private backside veterinarians tends to be less difficult than with the trainers. There are usually only a few veterinarians I need to know, and we speak a common language. For the most part (but there are notable exceptions), the practicing veterinarians do try to do their best for the horses they treat. There are two main challenges I see in communicating with the backside vets. One is in identifying the few who are just there for the money, so I know where they are coming from. The other is to get the message across to the rest that I am not there to make them look bad.

What owners hear
By far the most frustrating communication problem revolves around the messages that the owners get. Here, a lot of what is said can be influenced by a major conflict of interest on the part of the trainer.
Good trainers usually have horses in all stages of readiness. If a horse is not doing well and has to be shipped to the farm for a little R & R, these trainers have no trouble filling the empty stall. They make their profit from purses won; the day money paid by the owners is used to cover
expenses.
Other trainers survive on day money, doing most of the grunt work themselves. For some of these, if they can just keep a horse at the track it means income, regardless of how the horse races. In these cases, the trainer can easily skew my message about the state of a horse's legs. The trainer may just desperately want to believe that it's a minor problem that will clear up in a few days. Some know good and well that it is not. Either way, the owner sometimes hears a far less serious version than what was told to the trainer.
I have always appreciated it when owners make the effort to contact me about their horses, except, of course, when an owner calls up screaming or threatening (it does happen!). I will be honest with the owner about my assessment of the horse's problem and what I think is needed as far as recuperation goes. In general, I do not think that owners are well-informed.
Being a public servant means working for the betting public, but it also means working for each rider, each trainer, and each owner. If you have a horse on the vet's list and you are beginning to feel uncomfortable about what your trainer is saying, you should feel free to contact the examining veterinarian for a second opinion. It is your money that is going for training fees and veterinarian bills, your money that is tied up in the horse. The best person to watch out for it is you.