The objective was to have everything under one roof so that in patient care and supervision were of the highest standard. Security is also maximised and horse handling straightforward. We have a live-in nurse and Tim Galer also lives next to the Clinic.

We have two stable yards down each long side of the building. Each box is totally separated from its neighbour. The stables are lined with rubber matting and the horses are bedded on paper. We find this to be the cleanest, safest option and ensures that we can easily empty and steam clean each box between patients. Each stable has an external door so that the horses can have their heads out but the normal access is via the internal doors.

The operating theatre is in the centre of the Clinic with both a knock-down and recovery box. These are both well padded so that the horse is protected both during induction of anaesthesia and during recovery. We have an overhead hoist system to transport the sleeping horse into and out of the theatre.

Image is everything and so at Peasebrook we strive to produce the best radiographic and ultrasound images possible. We are fortunate to have two digital x-ray systems; one is the Tru-DR portable system from the States which takes truly awesome images and displays them instantly on the screen of its laptop. This equipment is fantastic for taking in-field images if one suspects a fracture for example and we need to establish if it is safe to move a horse. The second system is a Kodak CR system which stays in the clinic. It has a larger size plate capacity and so gives us the ability to take chest films or whole head pictures which could not be done on the portable unit.

We have a range of ultrasound scanners, the most recent addition is a portable Mylab scanner with a 16MHz transducer allowing us to take fabulous tendon and other soft tissue scans.

Our bone scanning unit is nearly ready to go live now that we have finally sorted out all the red tape that quite rightly surrounds the use of this equipment. This technology will be an enormous aid in identifying bone pathology especially in the upper limb, pelvis and spine.

The Sato high-speed treadmill unit that we have at our Hartpury Clinic gives us the opportunity to investigate poor-performance in horses.

Most of these cases are Racehorses but we also test Eventers, Trotters, Dressage and Endurance horses. We take referrals from several Practices as we offer a very quick, efficient and cost-effective service. The horses are generally trained on the treadmill for three days prior to the actual exercise test; this gives us the chance to get them balanced and to perfect their transitions. We have had some tricky patients over the years but now we have had several hundred cases through we feel we can cope with the most difficult and nervous horses. We encourage the Owners, Trainers and Referring Vets to attend the test session so that they can see first hand how their horse performs. The horse is fitted with a videoendoscope so that we can record his larynx and soft palate function during fast exercise. This is crucial to investigate poor performance as breathing problems often only occur when the horse is tiring at the end of a race. We also record the horse’s ECG which shows us if there are any heart rhythm problems occurring such as atrial fibrillation.

At Peasebrook we also have an Equi-Tred exercise treadmill which enables us to do controlled walking and trotting rehab programs on the flat and on an incline. We have successfully treated several Racehorses using this machine.

Lameness examination and investigation contributes to a significant percentage of our caseload. It is essential that we have safe flat trot-up areas to watch the horse in straight lines and on circles. These facilities are also used when we do pre-purchase vettings. In fact we try and get as many of these examinations to come into the clinic as possible so that we are always evaluating them on the same surfaces.

The design of the Clinic with purpose designed stocks in the examination room makes it easy to cater for our many Artificial Insemination candidates. It is much more efficient and cost-effective to have these cases into the clinic so that if they need to be inseminated at 2am everything is at hand!