It’s hard to imagine there’s another person in the country who’s helped more thoroughbreds than Bill Marmion.
In his hey-day he’d do about 800 operations a year on horses from right around the country at his Morphettville Equine Clinic, and was the first to perform arthroscopic surgery in this country.
The founder of Horsemed SA was recently honoured with the prestigious Matrice Award for outstanding services to the industry, an award from the SA Thoroughbred Breeders which was 40 years in the making.
Bill started to make a name for himself at Morphettville in the 1980s.
“I decided I’d become a veterinarian when I was at school and I really wanted to be a country vet looking after not only race horses, but cows and everything because I loved the country. But my parents bred and raced horses all my life, and were very successful owners with a few Group 1 winners.
“I wasn’t all that interested but by the time I finished veterinary school I decided I was only going to be a horse vet and specialise in horse surgery, and I just loved doing it, and I loved the performance side, the sports medicine and the surgery side,” he said.
Back then very few people were plating broken bones in horses, or even going into the abdomen of horses to fix twisted bowels, let alone performing keyhole surgery, which Bill became known for.
“I was the first person in Australia to introduce arthroscopic surgery which is keyhole joint surgery in horses, and I was lucky enough to go to the United States in ‘85 when it was being developed and learn from the pioneer of arthroscopic surgery in horses at Colorado State University.
“Then I brought the technique back here and started operating on South Australian horses and horses from all over the place. Northern Territory, Victoria, New South Wales and joined Dick Morton who had a single man practice here at Morphettville and we grew that into a clinic doing surgery. I also brought other advance techniques as well, but certainly arthroscopic surgery is the big thing that’s helped horses since its development.”
These days Bill has slowed down a little and leaves the surgery side of things to his talented staff who know they can always go to him as a sounding board. Horsemed SA employs 14 veterinarians across the Morphettville hospital and the clinic up in the hills, and about 35 other staff work across both practices.
“Firstly I’m getting old, I don’t admit to being old,” said Bill when asked about why he’s not as hands on these days.
“Mainly I’m at the stage where I’ve got very good people in the practice that are standing in my shoes and doing a lot more.
“When you get older being around horses it gets pretty difficult when you get sore knees and sore back and arthritis and picking up legs and getting knocked around by horses isn’t as easy as it used to be. So it’s time for me to move on as a veterinarian and run the practice, and leave it to my colleagues who are younger and frankly more skilled than I, I hope in the future.
“It's been a very rewarding career in retrospect. At the time it’s just hard work and long hours but I’ve enjoyed it, and it’s never really felt like work because it’s been something that I’ve really wanted to do.
“It’s been a passion which is daily rewarding, sometimes frustrating, sometimes very difficult, but for the pactice to grow and be supported by all our clients in South Australian, Northern Territory, Western New South Wales and Victoria, it’s been very rewarding to see where we’ve got to over 40 years or so.
“In the racing sector I’ve helped a lot of really good trainers from John Hawkes, Mark Kavanagh, David Hall - lots and lots of trainers, and it’s helped them build their career by helping their horses not only with surgery, but with sports medicine and performing well,” he said.
