Keeneland investigator finds healing and humor in heart surgery at UK

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 28, 2025) — Most people wouldn’t describe a nearly two-week hospital stay as “fun.” But Billy Fryer says his inpatient experience at UK HealthCare was exactly that.  

“I tell my friends right now, ‘I had an awesome experience,’” the 74-year-old Central Kentucky native said.  

His friends, he said, think maybe some of the anesthesia from his hours-long, successful heart surgery may still be weighing on his judgment. Although the procedure — a coronary artery bypass grafting surgery — went well, Fryer feels that what made his experience special was the way he was treated. 

“In those 12 days, I never met a human I wouldn’t want to be my friend,” Fryer said. “I’m talking about everybody, the people cleaning your room, serving food, doing chest X-rays — everybody.”  

Fryer and his wife, Susie, own Dreamalott Farm, a cattle farm in Woodford County, and he also works as an equine investigator at horse tracks around the country, including Kentucky’s own Churchill Downs and Keeneland.   

On an early morning drive to Keeneland this past spring, Fryer said he felt a pain in his chest that he’d never felt before. Knowing that Keeneland has excellent onsite medical care, Fryer went to the office of Keeneland’s Vice President of Equine Safety — Stuart Brown, D.V.M. — and asked if someone could check his blood pressure. 

Since 2021, UK HealthCare has been the official first aid provider at Keeneland, and that beneficial partnership has led to better outcomes for jockeys, racing fans and Fryer. A few minutes after talking to Brown, Fryer’s heart activity was being tested with an electrocardiogram — often known as an EKG.  

Manning the EKG machine was Matt Ward, the clinical manager for EMS Operations at UK HealthCare and the director of Emergency Medical Services at Alpha Event Medicine. The look on Ward’s face told Fryer that he was facing something serious. 

The result: Fryer had an irregular heartbeat and needed to go to the hospital.

Compassion in a stressful environment 

Brown contacted Brian Adkins, M.D., an emergency room physician and the medical director for UK’s work at Keeneland. Adkins assured them that UK would take care of Fryer.  

Upon arriving at the UK Chandler Emergency Department, Fryer said he was greeted by nurses who already knew his name and was in a bed within 10 minutes. On that initial trip to the hospital, Fryer spent about 11 hours getting exams, waiting and getting to know the staff.  

“During that 11-hour period, I was amazed — and I’m not easily amazed — at the dedication, commitment, friendliness of every single one of them,” Fryer said.  

In the bustle and stress of an emergency department, everyone he encountered was professional and attentive. 

“It was a madhouse, but no one was running around with their hair on fire,” Fryer said. “They were making sure I had what I needed.” 

A partnership between patient and provider 

Fryer's chest pain and irregular heartbeats brought him back to the emergency department more than once. One of his last visits came days before the week of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, where Fryer would be the supervisor of the paddock during one of the most prominent days of the horse racing calendar.  

Fryer said he had guessed the cardiologist seeing him, Nicholas Biondi, D.O., would tell him he shouldn’t work that week — especially since Fryer had walked close to 100 miles during the course of the Keeneland spring meet. But Fryer said he got a different answer.  

“He told me he wasn’t going to risk my life over this, but if I could stick to some parameters and take some medication with me, then I could do it,” Fryer said.

Biondi says the relationship between doctor and patient is a partnership. He tries to give patients autonomy and decision-making capacity for their own health care.  

“I only get to meet with patients for handfuls of minutes at a time,” Biondi said. “I’m not with them all the time, so the best judge of what they’re going through is them. If your heart is telling you it can’t do something, it’s not going to be shy. The symptoms and pain that he came in with is something he’ll never forget, so we were doing our best to keep him below that point.” 

To better understand the source of Fryer’s chest pain, Biondi also performed positron emission tomography myocardial perfusion imaging, a stress test that shows how well blood is flowing to the heart. From the test, Biondi and other members of the UK Gill Heart & Vascular Institute were able to determine that Fryer was suffering from epicardial disease and had blockages in the arteries around his heart.  

“He was having symptoms, and we had defined a cause,” Biondi said. “It’s always our goal to get symptomatic people fixed as soon as possible.” 

‘I don’t sugarcoat it.’ 

Fryer had a successful week at the Derby, but soon after felt pain in his chest again. Surgery couldn’t wait much longer.  

Hassan Reda, M.D., an experienced cardiac surgeon who has been at UK HealthCare since 2007, performed a coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. The surgery is designed to improve blood flow to the heart by creating new pathways around blocked arteries. Healthy blood vessels, taken from another part of the body, are grafted onto the heart and affected arteries to effectively create a detour around a blockage.   

Fryer was impressed with not only Reda’s surgical prowess, but also how he explained the surgery in terms that Fryer could understand and continued to check up on him in his room during the several days while he was recovering.  

“This guy was so personable,” Fryer said of Reda. “When he left the room after our first appointment, I told my wife that I feel like I’ve met him in another life.” 

Reda said he talked to Fryer the same way he tries to talk to all of his patients: “As if I’m about to operate on one of my family members.” 

“I don’t sugarcoat it,” Reda said. “I tell them the risks are high. Nobody can take the risk away, but I’m very good at what I do and they’re in very experienced hands.” 

Fryer spent more than a week recovering in the hospital, having “a blast” taking walks on his floor and befriending the nursing staff and everyone who cared for him. Multiple nurses, he says, went above and beyond to care for him, including one who was able to move him from a malfunctioning hospital bed and into a new one all by herself — at midnight.  

Fryer has tried his best to express his gratitude — including buying a stockpile of snacks for a whole floor of nurses and delivering it to the hospital.  

“The treatment, the kindness from the nurses in the patient rooms and in the emergency department was unbelievable,” Fryer said. “They deserve as much recognition as they can get."