Manuel 'Doc' Gilman, chief NYRA vet, dies

Manuel "Doc" Gilman, who gave pre-race exams to more than 250,000 thoroughbred horses as official veterinarian for the New York Racing Association, setting national standards for the sport, died last week in North Shore University Hospital. He was 91.

Gilman's son, Charles Gilman, announced the death but did not give a cause.

"He was not the easiest person in the world to work for," said Dr. Ted Hill, who was an examining vet under Gilman before succeeding him in the chief's job. "He had very high standards for himself and a very strong work ethic."

Those standards sometimes banged up against the demands of horse owners. "You tell them you're not going to allow the horse to race today," Hill said. "Many times people in that position are not used to hearing 'no.' But, done properly, diplomatically, professionally, as he always did . . . people came to recognize, after the initial emotions, that it was the right thing to do."

Gilman, a one-time Garden City resident, went on to serve as Jockey Club director and steward at Aqueduct Racetrack, Belmont Park and Saratoga Race Course after retiring from NYRA. He had begun his career mucking out stalls in Great Neck, commuting from his hometown of Kew Gardens to work for a horse trainer who paid him with riding lessons.

He learned enough to ride professionally on the horse show circuit as a teenager. The money he earned there put him through the University of Maine and veterinary school at the University of Pennsylvania.

After a stint in the Army -- he was assigned to inspect the military's meat, said his son -- he began a career as a veterinarian.

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He developed a system of identifying racehorses by the uniquely patterned horny growths on the inside of a horse's legs, called chestnuts or "night eyes." The system is still practiced in an age of identifying tattoos and implanted microchips to verify a thoroughbred's identity: vital in a sport in which millions of dollars are staked on a horse's bloodline and history of performance.

Gilman also imposed a pre-race horse inspection that became standard at many tracks around the country, Hill said. "Every horse got the same treatment. We examined the eyes, took temperatures, took every horse out, watched them move, jog. That was his standard . . . very few race tracks in country did anything close to that, and it's become recognized as a very important component in equine and jockey safety."

Gilman, however, may be best known for his role in a 1975 racing accident that left a champion racehorse dead and racing fans in tears.

He was among the first to rush to the side of the huge, coal-black filly Ruffian after she badly fractured her ankle in a match-race with Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure that drew more than 50,000 spectators to Belmont Park that July day.

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A picture of him went out on the newspaper wires hours later: grim and purposeful as he applied an air cast to her shattered foreleg, so massive, yet spindly compared with the rest of her.

She was put down later after injuring herself again while waking up from surgery.

Gilman was, in the words of Ogden Mills Phipps, chairman of the Jockey Club, "heartbroken by it. But he was heartbroken by anything happening to a horse."

Besides his son, Gilman is survived by his wife, Margaret Werber Gilman, and daughter, Jane Gilman.

Visiting will be at the Fairchild Funeral Chapel at 1201 Franklin Ave. in Garden City, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday. A private funeral service will be held Wednesday.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to either the Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation or the Backstretch Employee Services Team (B.E.S.T.), which provides a range of health and human services for backstretch workers at NYRA tracks.