So You Can

Over the past 30 years, long-serving equine veterinarian Dr Tom Ahern has been sought out world-wide for his innovative throat surgery that has literally breathed new life into racehorses across the globe, however he feels that the involvement of the pharynx in breathing issues is still quite confusing to many industry participants.

The experienced surgeon hopes to educate trainers, owners and his colleagues alike with the aim of promoting the procedure he developed, the oral palatopharyngoplasty, which is currently only performed by a handful of vets around the globe due to the often-reported high degree of technical difficulty and the potential to permanently damage the airway.

Ahern’s surgical journey began when he graduated veterinary school in Sydney in 1978 before landing a job in Perth. A short time later and his revolutionary operation was unexpectedly born within his first decade of practice. He first published his surgery in 1992 before publishing the theories behind the procedure, titled ‘Pharyngeal dysfunction during exercise’, in the United States seven years later.

The operation was founded after renowned late trainer Peter ‘Porky’ Graham, a client of Ahern’s, approached him in the 1980s regarding a horse who had previously won a race but had since been banned from racing after refusing to jump from the barriers in races or trials. “Porky said to me, ‘we’ve got to do something about this horse’,” Ahern said. “I just laughed and said, ‘I’m not a psychiatrist!’

“Then he replied with, ‘no, I think it’s a physical issue and he’s struggling to breathe because I had a noseband and tongue tie on, which worked for a while, but now he’s refusing’.” Ahern was of the opinion that the available surgeries at the time were a waste so, in an attempt to satisfy the trainer, he said he would try to think of a different approach.

As he reflects on the events leading to the creation of the ground-breaking surgery, Ahern recalls a float arriving at his practice 10 days after his conversation with Graham and a grey horse being unloaded. “I asked what horse it was and they said, ‘it’s Porky’s horse, he said to do whatever you’d thought of’,” he said. “So, I went home that night to do some serious thinking.”

That evening, Ahern recalled having seen the beginning of numerous horses’ palates billow noticeably when intubating them through the throat and decided to focus on that area, rather than the opposite end where traditional procedures were being performed. After experimenting with the tightening of the region in order to reduce the palate billowing, Ahern was pleasantly surprised to see it ultimately resolve the horse’s issues.

“That horse ended up racing again and won eight or nine races,” Ahern said. “That was my first and biggest lesson in understanding the association between altered behaviour and breathing issues. “After that it was a matter of trial and error, as is the case with developing any new procedure. “Since then, I’ve done thousands of surgeries in a dozen countries and horses have won stakes races everywhere.

“In Europe, patients have won the English Derby, Golden Jubilee Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, and most stakes races in WA have been won at least once by my patients and sometimes three or four times. “These days, the procedure is presented in all the major equine surgery textbooks around the world and it’s essentially regarded as a form of plastic surgery, like the human equivalent, as there are often only millimetres between success and failure.”

Ahern concedes that the common mentality towards throat surgeries is largely dismissive due to the varied success of traditional procedures, such as laryngeal surgery, otherwise known as a ‘tie-back’. However, he makes mention that there are up to 30 different variations and combinations of throat operations performed on horses, which must be assessed individually.

His own procedure is yet to undergo critical assessment as other surgeons have struggled to reproduce it but, in 1993, one of the many research articles that have been published by Ahern found his operation to result in successful race performances in 75 of the 100 horses across three states that were used in the study.

According to Ahern, since returning from the United Kingdom in 2008 the surgery has resulted in 420 individual winners of at least 1,200 races on WA tracks alone, averaging out to approximately two wins each week. Successful patients include Railway Stakes winners Machine Gun Tom and Welcome Knight, as well as current Ascot 1200m track-record holder, Danny Beau, but Ahern said he couldn’t name other patients for reasons of client confidentiality.

“A horse is an obligate nasal breather, meaning they are designed to only breathe through their nose, as they need to be able to eat and run if suddenly confronted with a predator,” Ahern explained. “However, if for whatever reason the horse feels that this nasal supply is inadequate, then it can cheat by sneaking some emergency air through its mouth.https://www.waracingtrainers.com/the-ahern-procedure-vet-hopes-to-educate-on-breathing-issues/