🔒 🔒 The vet behind Cosmic Crusader’s Cox Plate triumph

Dr Tom Ahern says the rise of Cosmic Crusader from talented gelding to Cox Plate winner “has kept him going”, with the 75-year-old veterinarian savouring his role in the horse’s crowning Group 1 moment.  

Two years ago, the Perth-based vet performed his unique throat surgery on the Bob Peters-bred and -owned Cosmic Crusader, a procedure Dr Ahern has been perfecting since the early 1980s.

One of just three experts worldwide who undertake the so-called Ahern Procedure, the Australian equine vet conducted the difficult surgery on Cosmic Crusader in late 2024 on behalf of the horse’s owner-breeder Bob Peters.

Cosmic Crusader had won two ratings races at Ascot that October and was on target for feature Pinnacles carnival races when the gelding encountered a tendon issue and a breathing problem.

During Cosmic Crusader’s enforced absence from the track, Peters elected to have the surgery performed by Ahern.

The vet is hoping Cosmic Crusader’s stunning spring, which saw him win a Group 1 Turnbull Stakes and Saturday’s Cox Plate to deliver Peters his racing Holy Grail, is the “catalyst” for the Ahern Procedure to be legitimised among his peers around the world.

Peters’ commitment to Ahern’s method has also proven pivotal in its development spanning more than four decades.

“Bob’s part of the development, in the sense, because he’s always made his horses available,” Ahern told The Straight.

“We’ve had a lot of success, but it’s never been talked about. I suppose this is the first time a horse has been mentioned (in the media having had the surgery). It’s a difficult, intricate procedure.

“As much as we’ve had a lot of success, the simple fact is that people (other veterinarians) have struggled to do it and most trainers would never even have heard of it. 

“I’m 75 now, and as much as I’ve had (equine) patients win the English Derby, the Arc, or have success all around the world, in the end the surgery has struggled to get into the (mainstream veterinary) arena.

“I’m still hopeful there will be some brave vets out there who are prepared to try, who will probably need some instruction, but really, Cosmic Crusader becomes, for me, an opportunity to (prove its merits).”

Ahern explained that his procedure differed from the more commonly used tie-back and tie-forward throat surgeries used to correct breathing issues with racehorses.

Tie-back surgery is used on “what they call roarers or broken-winded horses, where we have a hemiparalysis of the larynx”. 

“And the surgery for that is the tieback (of the larynx), then we get to the pharynx, which is the palate,” Ahern said. 

“More often than not, people talk about palate issues. There’s an American procedure called a tie-forward rather than a tie-back, which works on a sensible position of the larynx. 

“Whereas, (Ahern Procedure) surgery looks to actually tense the palate. The palate basically is the floor of the airway, and it can move up and down.

“The tighter it is, the less it moves up, and when it moves up, it starts to curve the airway.

“It’s basically plastic surgery on (horses’) palates. It’s the same principle they use for people who snore or suffer from sleep apnea.”

Cosmic Crusader, who has won eight races including a Northerly Stakes for his then trainer Michael Grantham last December since the surgery, is Ahern’s flagbearer but many of Western Australia’s owners and trainers are converts of his procedure.

Two horses at Northam, the WA provincial circuit, won on Sunday after undergoing the throat surgery.

The Tiarnna Noske-trained South Hoba won a 1600m class 1 at the Western Australian provincial track and, two races later, Maestra won her maiden first-up from the surgery for trainers Robert and Kate Witten.

And a trainer from Turkey also reached out to Ahern on Sunday about whether he would travel to Europe to complete the procedure on some of his racehorses.

“Horses like Cosmic Crusader, he was a very wound-up, over-racing animal when he was having breathing issues,” Ahern says. 

“There are some surveys that reckon one in three thoroughbreds have this issue, so it’s very common … and there’s different ways to diagnose problems and different ways to treat them. 

“Unfortunately, I think far too often (those issues are) not addressed, because people are looking for the classic, ‘do they make a noise?’ and things like that.

“Whereas we often start with a horse that’s simply anxious and not finishing his races off. Not uncommonly, those horses are actually experiencing what used to be called palate displacement. 

“There’s a term now called palate instability.”

“I’m still hopeful there will be some brave vets out there who are prepared to try, who will probably need some instruction, but really, Cosmic Crusader becomes, for me, an opportunity to (prove its merits).” – Tom Ahern

After years of honing his skill, where millimetres make all the difference and practising as a vet in England and America, Ahern has the utmost belief in his procedure and its ability to enhance racehorses’ prospects on the racetrack.

“Even in England, I think the horse of (John) Gosden’s that won the Golden Jubilee (Malhub, 2002), who won after surgery, was a big learner for me,” he said. 

“It’s like anything you do, if you continue to do it (the better you get). I have to admit, and I’ll say it, I have never been happier with the procedure. 

“I just feel extraordinarily confident.”