Thoroughbred racing is an exciting sport that is supported in many corners of the world. From Kentucky to Melbourne, racing is an industry that sparks interest and fuels excitement for fans of all ages. Each Victorian Spring Racing Carnival during the months of August to December, a carefully crafted combination of owners, athletes, administrators and veterinary professionals ensure the show can go on. By combining the highest level of equine athletics with a massive support system, Racing Victoria is an authority in the racing industry globally as well as locally in Australia’s most southern mainland state of Victoria.
In April 2022, a Victorian Racing Industry Size and Scope report revealed that the Victorian thoroughbred racing industry:
“Generates nearly $3.4 billion in value for the Victorian economy,” and “sustains the employment of more than 25,000 full-time jobs for Victorians”
The report also shows the magnitude of the thoroughbred community throughout the Australian state:
“There are more than 70,000 owners connected with thoroughbred racing, and almost 9,000 horses being trained by just under 1,000 trainers; “In Victoria there are more than 1,400 breeders; and more than 4,700 racing club volunteers across the state and close to 650 community organizations are financially supported by thoroughbred racing.”
Supporting Preventative Care
The horses and trainers endure a rigorous training schedule to be competitive in the races. As with human athletes, racehorses sometimes sustain injuries and require medical care. Since horses obviously cannot communicate with their trainers and owners, it takes a watchful eye and years of expertise to identify when a horse is at risk of sustaining an injury. Occasionally, intervention is needed to avert injury.
Racing Victoria, in partnership with the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Government, is at the forefront of injury prevention and athletic monitoring through its world leading Equine Limb Injury Prevention Program. Considered the governing racing authority in the State of Victoria, Racing Victoria is responsible for developing, encouraging, and managing the conduct of thoroughbred racing in the region. The Equine Limb Injury Prevention Program was launched in 2017 and has been instrumental in developing practical strategies for trainers to adapt their training methods to not only prevent injuries but detect bone injuries early.
Some of these strategies involve consideration in the method of training, optimizing the timing, frequency and duration of periods of rest, carefully analyzing when a horse is sufficiently physically mature to commence training and racing, and scanning the horses using advanced medical imaging procedures to get a detailed picture of the status of the health of the bones of the horse.
These advanced technologies include radiography, magnetic resonance (MR), computed tomography (CT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Scintigraphy in crucial intervals such as pre- and post-racing to detect injuries before they have a chance to become obvious to even the keenest observer.
In races like the Melbourne Cup, which is run over 3200m, the safety measure of a mandatory CT scan is required for all competing horses (local and international alike) regardless of the status or history of the horse, as well as two pre-race veterinary assessments alongside the submission of veterinary and horse information. Following this, Racing Victoria’s veterinary department will make a detailed assessment, culminating in an assessment of the horses’ suitability to race.
As part of Racing Victoria’s world leading veterinary safety protocols international horses traveling to Australia to compete will complete pre-travel and pre-race screening, which includes diagnostic imaging.
Diagnostic Imaging For the Whole Picture
Diagnostic imaging is an important component of this assessment process, but it can create a large administrative burden for the veterinary team at Racing Victoria due to the sheer volume of athletes and disparate location of stakeholders. As far as equine imaging is concerned, it’s similar to human imaging but obviously on a larger scale; the patients themselves are multiple times larger and heavier than humans.
Diagnostic imaging can either be done with the horses under general anesthesia, or while standing up. To facilitate being able to undertake this imaging with the horse awake they are lightly sedated and specific equine veterinary equipment is necessary. Racehorses typically require the imaging to occur while standing up due to the proximity of these imaging studies being made to the horse racing. Once the images are taken, they are prepared for review by a team of specialist veterinarians to assess the horses before they can safely compete.
Finding A Cloud PACS Solution
With hundreds of athletes and imaging procedures occurring around the world, the Racing Victoria veterinary team had their work cut out for them as they attempted to collect, store, and review diagnostic imaging from various locations prior to each busy racing season. In 2021, a total of 59,622 individual images were received from 157 individual diagnostic imaging studies on 52 horses. This number has only grown in the subsequent years.
Racing Victoria's workflow required them to:
Collect and store hundreds of medical images in a secure manner.
Provide visibility and access to the images regardless of worldwide user location and filter case
access based on defined user roles such as submitter, trainer, private veterinarian, or specialist reviewer.
Collaborate with specialists who would review requests, view in the preferred imaging software, Horos, and use specialized tools such as 2D multiplanar reconstruction.
With the Purview Image™ cloud solution, Racing Victoria has met their goals, creating a seamless workflow for veterinary radiologists, connections, private veterinarians, and trainers alike. All stakeholders can easily access medical images of the horses in a central online location with the web-based Purview PACS and viewer when they need it, from anywhere, and on any device - even a cell phone. This allows everyone involved to have full visibility of the athlete’s condition, identify issues early, and quickly collaborate across specialists when necessary.
With the support of Purview Image™, the veterinary team at Racing Victoria have turned their vision to reality; enabling ease of collaboration, transparency, sharing of key diagnostic information, reduced turnaround time, improved user experience, increased veterinarian satisfaction, and of course better outcomes for the horses.
