“We live in dark and troubled times… The world we once knew is no longer.”
I first said these words as a 17-year-old boy in a speech that I gave at my school in Brisbane six months after the 9/11 attacks.
Today, 18 years later, I say them again.
“We live in dark and troubled times… The world we once knew is no longer.”
SARS-CoV2 at last count has infected 18,026,716 people globally and has resulted in 688,982 deaths due to COVID-19. Each and every one of them a tragedy.
In the USA 157,905 have died. The 9/11 attacks killed 2,977 people.
This won’t be the usual Joie de Vivre blog you’ve come to expect from a globetrotting equine veterinarian. The world is suffering. Australia is suffering. Ripe with division our governing body is suffering. Our sport is suffering. Our businesses are suffering. Our equestrian community is suffering. Our friends and family are suffering.
“The world we once knew is no longer.”
The challenges I have faced this year are far from insurmountable, and far from horrible. I am very aware that my struggles pale into insignificance in comparison to people who have lost their livelihoods, and heavens forbid, lost loved ones to this virus. And I know I speak from a place of privilege; I’m a white, middle-aged, highly educated male living in Australia who works in a relatively privileged industry.
But this virus is indiscriminate, and my life has been rocked by its global impact.
Leaving my job in the UK at the end of the first week in January 2020, I was sad to be closing the door on the British chapter of my life. The UK had been wonderful to me. All of my British bosses had shown great faith in my skills over the years and had allowed me to develop into the sport horse veterinarian I am today.
I will forever be grateful to them and for my time in the British equestrian landscape. It provided me with opportunities and experiences I would have never otherwise been able to obtain; but the time had come to move on.
Badminton 2009 Badminton 2019
Oh, what great plans I had for 2020.
An exciting transition year full of equestrian adventures prior to moving to the USA to start a new chapter in my life. I had planned to rack up more frequent flyer points in 2020 than I had in my entire life combined. But little did I know boarding that plane out of Heathrow in January that all my plans would come crashing down around me.
Heathrow → San Diego √
San Diego → Miami √
Miami → San Diego √
San Diego → Las Vegas CANCELLED
Las Vegas → Lexington CANCELLED
Lexington → San Diego CANCELLED
San Diego → Beijing CANCELLED
Beijing → Xi’an CANCELLED
Xi’an → Shanghai CANCELLED
Shanghai → Ho Chi Min City CANCELLED
Ho Chi Min City → Brisbane CANCELLED
Brisbane → Geneva CANCELLED
Geneva → San Diego CANCELLED
San Diego → Brisbane CANCELLED
Brisbane → Tokyo CANCELLED
Tokyo → Atlanta CANCELLED
Atlanta → Quito CANCELLED
Quito → Atlanta CANCELLED
Atlanta → Brisbane CANCELLED
The aim of January and February in the USA was to find myself a new job.
My girlfriend is an American dressage rider; we met during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and we had decided that the best next step for us was for me to move to the USA. After debating the pros and cons of West Coast (California) vs East Coast, and North (Virginia/Pennsylvania) vs South (Florida), Florida won the day. I guess the Queenslander in me wanted to get back to horses in the Tropics.
It’s very normal for sport horse veterinarians in the US to be based across different locations depending on the season and time of year. They follow the same competition circuit that their clients do. Winter in the tropics with Jumpers and Dressage followed by Summer in the land of the Kentucky 3DE, The Fork 3DE and Aiken horse trials sounded like a great plan to me.
Not long after securing a job in the US, I was offered a contract to work for the Tokyo 2020 organising committee as the assistant to the Veterinary Services Manager from the start of May until the end of September.
Last year I was appointed a technical official for the 2020 games as Treating Vet Team Leader, which was amazingly exciting, but this new appointment was a surprise and a huge promotion. I was beside myself with excitement to be moving to Japan for five months and having the opportunity to play an important role in ensuring the very best of veterinary care is ready for the Olympic Games.
Then came the cancellations…
- Jumping and Dressage World Cup Final in Las Vegas CANCELLED
- Land Rover Kentucky 3DE CANCELLED
This cancellation really stung – I have wanted to vet at Kentucky 3DE ever since visiting the Kentucky Horse Park back in 2007 when I was a vet student. And now after securing my first appointment out on Cross Country it was cancelled. I was gutted. But worse was to come…
- Celebrating my mother’s 70th birthday with her on a trip to China CANCELLED
Yes, that’s right, we had booked a trip to China for March 2020. What are the chances? We had even planned to spend quite a bit of time traveling around Shaanxi Province, the province right next to Hubei province. Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province.
- FEI Sports Forum CANCELLED
I was very excited for my first FEI Sport Forum, I had planned to meet everyone from the Tokyo2020 organising committee in person so I could get to work ASAP.
And then the big one…
The gut-wrenching disappointment I felt on hearing the news was indescribable. But my personal sadness is nothing compared to the tens of thousands of Olympic athletes world-wide who had dedicated their entire lives to this one moment in time. Trained in the knowledge of the steadfast and predicable 4-year cycle that has been unbroken since World War II. All those riders who had spent years and years of their life dedicated to ensuring their equine athlete partner was primed and ready with the perfect balance of age, experience and performance.
Many of those athletes, human and equine won’t be at the rescheduled Tokyo 2021 games. Their time was now. Their peak has now gone. Their opportunity has passed, never to be found again.
And spare a thought for all those hundreds of dedicated individuals who have been working for the Tokyo2020 Olympic Organising Committee day in, day out, for years and years to ensure the games were ready for all of us. Dedicated individuals like eventing coordinator Carola Brighenti who has put her life on hold to continue in her job at Tokyo 2020. Everything they had planned for was ruined.
Cancellation wasn’t their plan.
Cancellation wasn’t my plan
Cancellation wasn’t anyone's plan.
But here we are. Our lives have been changed forever due to a virus. A virus that spilled over from animals. As a veterinarian, the irony of this has not been lost on me.
Coronaviruses are widespread throughout the animal kingdom. They have been known to Veterinary Medicine since the 1930’s. Coronavirus causes Winter Dysentery in adult cattle and a respiratory infection in calves, it causes Infectious Bronchitis in chickens, it causes Epizootic Catarrhal Enteritis in ferrets which is charmingly known as “Green Slime Disease”.
Pigs and dogs have their own set of coronaviruses, so too do turkeys. Feline Infectious Peritonitis, a mutation of FeCoV, is invariably fatal in infected cats. Even horses have a Coronavirus – EqCoV is poorly understood but it’s known to cause gastrointestinal diseases.
So… where to now?
Well, I’m just a horse vet…
But what I do know is that we must follow the science. Trust that science will find our way out of this pandemic.
We all must put our faith in those Chief Medical Officers.
In the short term we must let the medical profession guide us. And we must each play our own part by doing all those little things on an individual level to fight the virus.
Keep your distance. Wash your Hands. Wear a mask.
And in the long run, we all must become more aware of the concept of “One Health”.
One Health is a transdisciplinary concept that recognises the health of people is intimately linked to the health of animals and the shared environment. Veterinarians, Doctors, Biologists, Ecologists and many more, all working together to ensure future human, animal and environmental health.
We in the equestrian community know only too well how environmental conditions can trigger an animal virus such as Hendra Virus to spill over into other species and subsequently into humans with deadly consequences.
SARS-CoV2 is not the first significant disease to cross from animals to humans. And it certainly won’t be the last…
As for me… where to now?
Truth be told, for quite a while there, I really wasn’t sure. I’m usually the one with all the plans. But I had none. All my plans were in tatters, my life thrown upside down. The big wide-world I lived in suddenly seemed very small. Confined to a house on the north coast of NSW, I could no longer jump on a plane and be anywhere on the planet I wanted in around 24 hours.
It was a simple contact from a friend who reached out to me and got me out of what appeared to be an ever increasingly gloomy world I was living in. The Mental Health of veterinarians is often overlooked, but certainly an important topic during these difficult times. So, thank you to that person. In these times, everyone needs friends
Starting your own business during a pandemic wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but that’s what I’ve done. I’m living in Ballina on the far north coast of NSW and primarily working as an official veterinarian for Racing NSW as their raceday vet across five racetracks in the area (thank goodness for thoroughbred racing) plus doing some private work for a couple of trainers and riders in the area. In between seeing horses and race days I am studying for the American Veterinary licensing exams – there are four exams in total - it’s not fun but a necessary evil.
So, after a rough start to 2020, the second half of the year is looking much brighter. Eventing is back! And I am extremely grateful to be in Australia right now. I will ensure that I never take this fantastic country of ours for granted. Northern NSW is undoubtedly a safer place to be than the UK or Florida.
Onwards and upwards. Who knows what the future holds… if I’m lucky I might find myself out on a cross country course somewhere before the end of the year. That would be bloody awesome.
So stay safe out there
Wash your hands, keep your distance, wear a mask
And bring you, your horse and your family home safe
Chris
