Vale: Dr James Alexander (“Jim”) Rodger BVMS MRCVS MACVSc FANZCVS (16 August 1944 – 8 September 2025)
Thoroughbred Breeders Australia (TBA) joins the Australian thoroughbred and wider equine community in mourning the passing of Dr Jim Rodger, a pioneering equine veterinarian, accomplished artist, published author and visionary community leader. Jim died on 8 September 2025, aged 81.
A graduate of the University of Glasgow (1968), Jim emigrated to Australia in the mid-1970s and joined the Morgan Howey and Frasier Equine Veterinary Practice in Scone. He later served at Scone Equine Hospital before founding Jerry’s Plains Veterinary Hospital in 1990, building a specialist equine reproduction clinic with comprehensive laboratory capability that supported studs across the Hunter Valley and beyond.
A BVMS, MRCVS, MACVSc (Equine Medicine) and Fellow of the ANZCVS (Equine Reproduction), Jim’s expertise spanned stallion fertility, artificial breeding, sports medicine and clinical research. He co-authored Practical Horse Breeding (1997) and was among the first in Australia to champion PCR diagnostics in reproductive medicine, helping shift the industry beyond culture-based methods toward faster, more sensitive, evidence-based care.
Beyond practice, Jim helped found what became Scone Horse Week, now a 10-day celebration that attracts thousands and showcases the region as Australia’s Horse Capital. He also chaired Muswellbrook Race Club and contributed to the Scone Mare and Foal Monument, reflecting a lifelong commitment to community.
Jim’s legacy lives on in the clinicians he mentored, the innovative standards he set, the hospital he built, the festival he helped inspire, and the cultural life he enriched through his art and writing.
TBA Chairman Basil Nolan expressed his sincere sympathies to Dr Rodger’s family, friends and colleagues on behalf of the Australian thoroughbred industry.
“Jim was a clinician of rare foresight and a community builder in the truest sense. His advocacy for better reproductive diagnostics and his decades of service in the Hunter Valley helped lift outcomes for breeders nationwide. On behalf of TBA, we extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and colleagues.”
Funeral arrangements will be announced by the family.
