Equine Autumn Newsletter

It’s been a long time since we’ve sent one of these, so firstly apologies for the newsletter silence! It has been a very strange year for everyone with COVID, partial lockdowns and the ‘pingdemic’, but all of us at the practice in the main have remained fit and well – by good fortune. It was also great to have a (nearly) full season of racing and competition, and it’s certainly kept us busy, not least with us being a vet down for the summer.
Despite that, we hope that we’ve continued to provide the service you expect and kept everybody out doing their thing, please let us know, we always want to improve.

New faces in the BEV’s team

The lack of newsletter has meant that some new faces haven’t been properly introduced, although I’m sure that they’ve made themselves known either on the phone or on visits. Jeanne went home to Ireland at the start of the summer, an unexpected consequence of the pandemic, but we wish her well and we welcome two new vets this autumn as well as a qualified Vet Nurse and a new face on reception who joined this summer

Hannah Cusack joined us on 20th September as a Veterinary Surgeon. Hannah qualified in 2018 and is originally from Ireland. She is joining us from a practice in Staffordshire, having worked there and in equine practice in Lambourn over the last few years. In her spare time Hannah enjoys taking her dog Marley out for walks and riding her horses Bob and Tuppence.

Ellie Marshall Smith also joined us in mid-September as a Veterinary Surgeon working an Internship. She studied at Liverpool, but she is originally from Otley and was always keen to return home to sunny Yorkshire. In her spare time, Ellie enjoys skiing, walking the dogs and competing her horses Flo and Bill at local shows

Charlotte Craven started at Equine in the middle of June as a Registered Veterinary Nurse after working for 5 years at Bishopton’s small animal department. Charlotte has a golden retriever called Margo, two cats called Dexter and Pepper. In her spare time, she likes socialising, painting and watching rugby

Joy Rixon joined us at the end of March as part of the admin team. Joy lives on a small holding with some sheep, cattle and a couple of horses. She enjoys spending her free time with her grandson, Franky. Some of the clients who’ve been with Stewart and Ben for many years may remember Joy from Cow Myers a few years ago

Breeding season

As it comes to the end of the summer and we begin the Thoroughbred pregnancy scans for October 1st terms, we’ve looked back on what was a busy breeding season. Natural service was more popular this year, partly because we had some historically ‘tricky’ mares and partly as we have a few nice local stallions available. Pregnancy rates of over 80% for combined chilled and frozen AI was particularly pleasing. 

More clients each year are looking to breed from their mares to make use of mare of good breeding or ability. There are many things to consider before breeding from a mare. The first and most important question is why breed a foal. Breeding from a sound, proven and well behaved mare gives you the best starting point. Producing a foal from a mare once she has failed or been injured in her previous role is quite the opposite. Some career ending injuries are unlucky, but historically we have been guilty of breeding from mares purely because they are no longer sound enough to compete. Some defects or injuries are more ‘heritable’, and can be diluted to a certain extent by choice of stallion, but the principles should remain – breed from sound stock. 

We would always encourage people to chat to us before deciding to breed, so if you’re ‘researching’ suitable stallions on the internet as they loose jump ridiculous fences or nearly shave their muzzle showing lengthened strides, have a think about the mare and have a chat to us.