Esteemed Equine Veterinarian, Dr. A. Gary Lavin, 83, Passes

Dr. A. Gary Lavin, a distinguished equine veterinarian, Thoroughbred breeder, and exemplar of leadership in his profession, passed away at his home in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 27. He was 83. Dr. Lavin had been afflicted by cancer for several years, but had successfully maintained quality of life and had been planning when he would return to his second home in South Carolina.

Dr. Lavin is survived by his wife of 60 years, Elizabeth (Betsy), sons Allan (Susan) and Kevin (Amy), and granddaughters (known by the family as “The Cousins”) Catherine, Alexandra, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Lulu, and Hattie.

Response from the racing world was immediate and illustrative of Dr. Lavin's standing as a professional and friend, both of the industry and individuals within it.

“If you set out to meld 'country scientist' and 'southern gentleman' the product that exited the forge would be A. Gary Lavin, VMD,” said noted colleague Dr. Larry Bramlage, a world renowned veterinary surgeon. “Whether discussing a difficult case or one of his passions, such as The Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, words never came quickly and were never wasted: '…Well…if that is the best, we'll do it!' He certainly was one of the 'Best.' They don't come along all that often.”

“Doc Lavin was a mentor to me,” said Dell Hancock of Claiborne Farm. “Anything I have ever done for the horse was inspired by him,” added Ms. Hancock, who is chairman of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation. (Lavin served as vice chairman.)

“Doc Lavin did as much to further my career as anyone as I was getting started in Louisville,” said Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey. “He and his family were friends as well as supporters, and I will never forget how important that relationship has been.”

Dr. Robert Copelan, like Lavin a former president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP), said upon learning of Dr. Lavin's passing: “He is one of the oldest, dearest, and closest friends I have ever had or hope to have. I think back to when we met. It was at Randall Park in 1953. He was a student then and was in charge of the canoe they used to have in the infield lake. I was in the first year of my practice and was at the head of the stretch inspecting a field going into the gate. We became friends that day and have been friends ever since.”

“'Dockie' was a special person and among the most wonderful human beings I have ever met,” said Keeneland sales executive Geoffrey Russell. “He loved the horse and everything to do with the horse, be it racing, sales, breeding, or its health. He never met a stranger and always had time for everyone no matter your station. His knowledge was immense, and he was generous in sharing it with anyone who would listen. I was blessed to have spent 13 years working with him on the inspection team at Keeneland. Crisscrossing Kentucky and the East Coast, days were filled with great humor and even better stories. He loved history, especially the Civil War. He would joke that I could drive by Civil War markers faster than Rogers Beasley (also on the team) could.​

“After working on the racetrack for over 30 years, he had seen every conformational fault a horse could have and knew what a horse could live with. When grading yearlings that had some conformation faults he would sometimes say, 'Don't worry about that, he'll be alright.' I will always treasure our friendship, and I will raise a glass in his memory. Thanks Dockie. We'll be alright.”

“Every so often someone comes along who touches so many live, both professionally and personally,” said Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas. “Doc Lavin was one of those. He was always there, with advice, or just friendship.”

“He was a true giant,” said Rogers Beasley, who recruited Lavin to be part of Keeneland's yearling inspection team after his retirement from active practice. “I know that phrase is used a lot, but he really was a giant. He accomplished so many things in the industry, and he was always promoting what would benefit the horse. And he never met a stranger. You would see him on the backstretch and he would always ask how you were doing, whether you were and owner or a groom. And he never lost his inquisitive mind.”

Illustrative of Beasley's last point, Dr. Lavin led the decision by Grayson-Jockey Club to make a special call for research on Shock Wave Therapy. He recognized that the beneficial new treatment had the potential downside, if misused, to eliminate pain without a horse being cured and therefore place them at risk of injury. The resultant research project at Iowa State University guided racing commissions' parameters for how long before a race the therapy must not be used.

Dr. A. Gary Lavin was born on November 6, 1937, in New Orleans. He grew up in racing, as the son of Allan (Doc) Lavin, racing secretary at Churchill Downs and also at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark. The young Lavins were high school sweethearts in Hot Springs and retained a lifetime affection for track and the area.

Dr. Lavin graduated from veterinary college at the University of Pennsylvania in 1962. (He always enjoyed pointing that his alma mater identified his veterinary degree as VMD, whereas other colleges conferred a DVM.) He established himself as a race track practitioner in Louisville while also working at Warner L. Jones Jr.'s Hermitage Farm and for clients in Bowling Green, Ky., and in Indiana. Over the years, other long-term associations included working for such clients as John Ed Anthony and Peter Willmott. In that capacity, Dr. Lavin and his Longfield Farm were involved with such horses as Anthony's back to back 1982-83 Preakness winners, Pine Bluff and champion Prairie Bayou, as well as the noted future stallion Cox's Ridge, plus Demon's Begone and Eddington. Also, Angel Fever, raised at Longfield, became the dam of Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus.

“My relationship with Gary Lavin began when Loblolly Stable first acquired Thoroughbreds in 1971, 50 years ago,” said breeder-owner Anthony. “From that time forward Doc has been a key part of my life and experience in the industry. He nurtured and helped develop every prominent horse we campaigned, plus attended to the lesser stock with the finest skill, expertise and patience known to his profession.

“The Lavins' Longfield Farm was our home base where mares, foals, and yearlings and layups were under his watchful eye as he and Betsy raised their fine family there. At the sales he was the critical advisor. His counsel regarding trainers and industry personnel was invaluable. I came to know of his kind, honest, and helpful regard for the horses and the people associated with them. He was always optimistic, positive, and encouraging. His honesty and integrity were without question. There are few people one can say they trust absolutely, yet Doc was such a man. Doc lived life fully, but more importantly, calling this fine man friend was a high honor that I am proud to have had in my life.”

Dr. Lavin's long career as a practitioner and surgeon was accompanied by a degree of dedication to the sport and his profession that led him to accept many roles and challenges. He has served terms as president of both the American Association of Equine Practitioners and the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, and was vice chairman of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation and a director of Keeneland Association.

In 1994, Dr. Lavin became the first veterinarian elected to The Jockey Club, and he also has served as a steward of that organization. He has also been on the boards of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and the Breeders' Cup. Over the many years they owned Longfield Farm in Goshen, Kentucky, he and his family bred major winners, raised horses for the commercial market, and managed bloodstock for clients.

Family members also became deeply involved in the sport in individual capacities. Mrs. Lavin served on the Kentucky Racing Commission, Allan runs Lavin Bloodstock, and Kevin owns Lavin (Equine) Insurance. Lavin Bloodstock bred the sentimentally named Star of Goshen, whose son Pioneerof the Nile sired Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, etc.

Dr. Lavin received many honors, including his alma mater's Bellwether Medal for Distinguished Leadership and the Thoroughbred Club of America's Annual Testimonial Dinner guest designation. He was a Distinguished Life Member of the AAEP, recipient of the Distinguished Practitioner Award of the Kentucky Equine Practitioners, and namesake of the Lavin Cup for Equine Welfare. The Lavin Cup was established in 1996 by the AAEP.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation (821 Corporate Drive, Lexington, Ky., 40503).

A private family burial will be held in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville.

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Dr. Gary Lavin Passes Away

Dr. Gary Lavin, one of the Thoroughbred industry's most respected and accomplished veterinarians, passed away Saturday morning at his home in Louisville, Kentucky after a long battle with cancer, according to his family. He was 83 years old.

Lavin is a past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Steward of The Jockey Club, trustee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and the Breeders' Cup, director at Keeneland, and vice-chairman of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation.

Lavin was a 1962 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania veterinary college and was honored with the school's Bellweather Medal for Distinguished Leadership. He was recognized as an Honor Guest by the Thoroughbred Club of America in 2014.

The son of racing secretary Allan Lavin who started his career as an assistant trainer at Greentree in California before World War II, Lavin grew up in the sport. He worked for many years on the racetrack as an equine practitioner and surgeon, and was a member of the Keeneland inspection team for 16 years, retiring in 2010. His grandfather was a doctor, and though his family has Kentucky roots, he was born in New Orleans and raised in Arkansas.

Lavin was also an owner and breeder, and developed Longfield Farm in Goshen, Kentucky, a commercial breeding and boarding operation, which bred or raised notable horses such as Pine Bluff, Prairie Bayou, Eddington, Quality Road, Om, and Secret Circle.

“He was great, great, great man,” said Rogers Beasley, former Vice President of Racing at Keeneland and currently the Chief Strategy Officer at the Breeders' Cup. “He encompassed a whole range of our industry from racing to breeding, to being on many many boards that provided for the health and welfare of our horsemen. He was concerned for all involved in the industry, both horses, and on the backside.”

Lavin was the subject of the TDN and Keeneland's Life's Work Project in April, 2020, which may be read and viewed here.

One of the pioneers in early equine surgery, Lavin recalled Tim Tam's successful operation for a broken sesamoid in the wake of the 1958 Belmont Stakes as a turning point in equine surgery. “When I got to Churchill, surgery was in its very beginnings,” he told the TDN's Chris McGrath in 2019. “That was the summer Tim Tam broke down in the Belmont and went to the University of Pennsylvania for his surgery. I've always marked that as the time, when it made the front page of the Daily Racing Form for weeks after, that people knew it was possible.”

Lavin (front row, second from left) on the Keeneland inspections team

He and his colleague Dr. Robert Copelan were credited with saving Flip Sal, who broke down in the 1974 Kentucky Derby. “He had a good pulse in his pastern and we decided, well, we'll just see what happens,” he told McGrath. “We snugged him up in a tight bandage and, day by day by day, finally we put a cast on him. And he spent the entire summer there. And, of course, Dr. Copelan and I got all the credit for doing a wonderful job. All we did feed him, clean [his] stall and change the cast. That horse saved himself, is what happened.”

Shug McGaughey trained his first-ever stakes winner, Party School, for Lavin and his partner Henry Meyer's Mjaka Stable and said that Lavin was a transformational influence on his life.

“I don't think that anybody was a bigger influence on my career than Dr. Lavin was at an early age,” said McGaughey. “I don't think I'd be where I am today if it weren't for him. I knew he had been struggling a little bit, but I didn't expect this at this time. This one is hard. He was a wonderful man, he loved the game, he put a lot into the game through Grayson and being a surgeon in the old days, when they basically operated on horses with knives and forks. I remember him telling me when he retired that it wasn't because he was getting too old for it; he said, `I got tired of giving people bad news.' I repeated that story just the other day to a girl who works for me down in Florida. He was a great influence on me, we were great friends, not only on the racetrack, but off. He was a proud guy; proud of his accomplishments, though he would never say it. He was proud of his family, proud of his friends, and we had a lot of fun together and a lot of laughs. When they won a race, they celebrated and had a good time.”

Keeneland's Geoffrey Russell worked with Lavin for years on the inspection team and called him, “the most wonderful human being I think I've ever met. He never met a stranger. He had time for everybody. Sometimes, on inspections, it was difficult to get him off of the farms for all the chatting and catching up he did. That's what made him such a wonderful person. We had great trips across Kentucky, and up the East Coast, and the stories he would tell made those trips so much more enjoyable.”

Russell said that in 1998, Lavin was part of the group who told him that he had just seen the sales topper. “I said, `come on guys, it's the middle of March. It's the second day of inspections.'” That horse was Fusaichi Pegasus, who topped the Keeneland July Sale for $4 million and went on to win the Kentucky Derby. “`Dockie' always said about that horse, he had the skin of a seal.”

“He had all his priorities right. He loved what he did and he loved his family. He put everything in the right order.”  –Dell Hancock

His experience, his eye and his willingness to share his knowledge made working with him on the inspection team “a blessing,” said Russell. “For anybody who worked with him, it was a blessing. Having worked 33, 34 years on the racetrack, he had seen every conformational flaw on a horse and would say, `I've seen that. That won't bother him.' He was a wonderful teacher, and so happy to share his information. He was in it for everybody.”

Dell Hancock, who worked closely with Dr. Lavin at Grayson, said she had known him since her early 20s, and said, “He was one of the kindest, most wonderful people I've ever met. He was obviously a great veterinarian, but his knowledge of horses went so much further than just this or that. He loved horses. He didn't just work on them, he loved them. That separated him from so many people.”

She called his work at Grayson “invaluable.”

“He always put the horse first,” she said. “His work for the horse at Grayson was invaluable and it's one of things that made Grayson what it is. He and Larry Bramlage are the ones who came up with an early look at all these projects and it's the backbone of Grayson, and each would say it wouldn't have happened without the other. I couldn't say enough good things about Doc Lavin. He's one of the few people who didn't have an enemy. Just a super, super person.

“He had all his priorities right,” said Hancock. “He loved what he did and he loved his family. He put everything in the right order.”

Lavin is survived by his wife, Elizabeth (Betsy), a former member of the Kentucky Racing Commission; his son Kevin and his wife, Amy; son Allan and his wife Susan; and grandchildren Catherine, Alexandra, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Lulu, and Hattie.

He will be buried Tuesday in Louisville's Cave Hill Cemetery in a service for family only. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, 821 Corporate Drive, Lexington, Ky., 40503.

The entire Life's Work interview with Dr. Lavin, recorded July 18, 2019, may be viewed here at the University of Kentucky's Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History.

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Record Funding Approved by Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation

For the seventh consecutive year, the board of directors of Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation has allocated over $1 million in funding for equine research. A total of $1,638,434 in 2021 will fund 12 new projects at 12 universities, 12 continuing projects, and two career development awards worth $20,000 each. The amount represents the most the foundation has ever allocated in a year and brings the foundation's totals since 1983 to more than $30.6 million. These funds have underwritten 396 projects at 45 universities. The foundation is the nation's leading source of equine research funding.

“We are heartened by the continued commitment of universities to supporting equine veterinary research throughout these difficult times and that we are able to distribute more funding than ever before, enabling us to help horses of all breeds and disciplines,” said Dell Hancock, chair of Grayson.

The diverse research includes the following new projects:
• Passive Immunization of Foals with RNA-AB against R Equi: Jeroen Pollet, Baylor College of Medicine
• Hyperthermia and Acidosis in Exertional Muscle Damage: Michael Davis, Oklahoma State University
• Developing an Improved Serological Test for Strangles: Noah Cohen, Texas A&M
• Mitigation of Equine Recurrent Uveitis through SOCS: Joseph Larkin, University of Florida
• Environmental Origins of Equine Antimicrobial Resistance: Brandy Burgess, University of Georgia
• Treatment of Joint Injury with Mesenchymal Stromal Cells: Thomas Koch, University of Guelph
• Optimizing Bone Growth to Reduce Equine Fracture: Mariana Kersh, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• New Generation Equine Influenza Bivalent VLP Vaccine: Thomas Chambers, University of Kentucky
• Injury Prediction from Stride Derived Racing Load: Chris Whitton, University of Melbourne
• Predicting Exercising Arrhythmias with Resting ECGs: Molly McCue, University of Minnesota
• Understanding and Preventing Supporting Limb Laminitis: Andrew Van Eps, University of Pennsylvania
• Diagnosis of Incipient Condylar Stress Fracture: Peter Muir, University of Wisconsin-Madison

In addition, the Storm Cat Career Development Award grants $20,000 to Dr. Callum G. Donelly of the University of California, Davis, who is considering a career in equine research and has a project titled “Proteomic Investigation of Equine Spinal Ataxia.” The Elaine and Bertram Klein Career Development Award grants $20,000 to prospective equine researcher Dr. Aileen Rowland of Texas A&M University, whose research focuses on the efficacy of xenogeny-free mesenchymal stem cells for osteoarthritis.

For more information on current research, visit Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation.

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