Catching up with Clare McGowan is no easy task. Training standardbreds with husband Dave in the mornings and administering physiotherapy to both trotters and gallopers in the afternoons keeps Clare racing in every sense of the word.

Dave and Clare McGowan with Another Impact who clocked up his fifth win with an easy victory in the Stratford Cup this month. Photo supplied.

English-born Clare came to New Zealand as this country’s first horse physiotherapist. While working with world eventing champion, Lucinda Prior-Palmer (now Green), Clare met Mary Bromiley, a Harley Street physiotherapist who had also extended her work to horses.

Impressed by Clare’s efforts in equine rehabilitation, Mary encouraged her to make a career of it.

Following four years’ college Clare did just that, working on the mounts of a number of New Zealand eventing riders, including Olympic champion Mark Todd.

After EC rules restricting horse treatments to vets effectively stymied her career in the United Kingdom, it was Todd who suggested a move to the freer environment of New Zealand.

Not only did New Zealand bring a new career phase for Clare, it also brought her a new interest in the form of trotting trainer Dave McGowan.

Her work with gallopers had led to her taking out a licence to train them, but meeting Dave introduced her to the standardbred world. Soon she was helping Dave train his horses.

“He decided it was cheaper to marry me than pay me,” Clare laughs.

Of late, the McGowan team has been on a bit of a roll. Among recent wins was the Tauranga Cup. But with horses, the best-laid plans can easily come unstuck.

“We take the good days when we get them,” says Clare. “There’s plenty of bad ones, but it’s great working in a partnership and helps us to focus on the positive.”

Clare aims to help every horse reach the limit of its capability by maintaining the integrity of the horse’s body with her muscle work, identifying sore spots before they turn into major problems.

“Injuries such as bowed tendons can take a horse out of work for three to six months,” she says.

With the average horse’s racing career lasting only a couple of years, that’s down time that can be ill afforded.

Clare says 60-70% of racehorses don’t reach their full potential through soreness and many a ‘slow’ racehorse is simply hurting too much to run fast.

“If they’re hurting, they can’t try,” she says. “They learn to associate speed with pain, and that can sour their attitude.”

Clare wants to educate everyone in the racing industry to value horses for the athletes they are. She likens her role to that of a therapist working with elite sports people.

“No one would expect the All Blacks to tour without the team physio,” she says.

Clare now looks forward to a new generation of trainers and vets open to maximising their horses’ racing careers through working to prevent injuries before they happen.

“A horse in pain can’t do its best. Get rid of those niggling aches and you could have a winner.”