New Zealand: Home of horse ambulances

Ten years ago, two mates began spitballing about what would be required of an ambulance for horses.

That backyard barbeque chat has since lead to a world-first service; a fleet of 10 purpose-built ambulances, built to lower to ground level so that an injured horse can climb aboard once stabilised.

New Zealand is now the only country in the world with a dedicated horse ambulance at every race meet.

Dr Peter Gillespie, the vet behind the concept and recent recipient of the Brian Goulden Equine Vet of the Year Award said the NZ Horse Ambulance Trust had been a "sort of side gig really, to my equine practice".

He'd been a race day vet and attended equestrian events many times over the course of his career which began in the 1980s, and said during that time there had been a huge amount of advancement in the way injuries - particularly orthopaedic ones - were treated.

But he thought the way injured horses were taken off a race track needed to be done better.

"As luck would have it, I had a client whose husband was a transport engineer and at a barbecue one night we got talking about what would go into making a horse ambulance - one that could hydraulically raise and lower - and he said that was possible," Gillespie told RNZ's Nine to Noon.

"At the time I was on the NZ equine vet association and we were looking at projects we could get our teeth into so to speak, so my friend and colleague Bill Bishop and I decided we'd run with this project and it started from there really."

Gillespie said they developed a short list of criteria; a horse had to be able to walk on at ground level and the horse had to feel stable during the journey, meaning suspension in the ambulance needed to be pretty good.

The main hurdle was money.

"There was a fund in horse racing called the Racing Safety Development Fund, a government initiative that 50 percent funded ideas that benefited horse racing," Gillespie explained. "We applied and were turned down as the rules were you had to be a racing club - but that drew attention from Thoroughbred Racing NZ and Harness Racing NZ and they just got right behind it.

"We formed a charitable trust at that stage, that was 10 years ago... we built one and put it out there."

The first horse ambulance debuted at Addington Raceway in 2018. Within two months, orders were place for another five.

Now, Gillespie said horse ambulances were at 700 events a year - about 12 to 15 a week. That included race meetings for both harness and thoroughbred, along with A&P shows and one-day events.

He said he had been blown away by the support from the equestrian and racing industries.

"We have to raise at least $200,000 a year to cover our operational cost and to date, we've raised just over $2-and-a-quarter million from fundraisers, community golf tournaments - all sorts of places.

"Horses are such a beloved part of our community, for leisure, for racing, it's part of our DNA so to speak."