Since its genesis 38 years ago, Anglesey Equine Hospital in County Kildare has evolved into Ireland’s No.1 veterinary practise for the treatment of horses. We dropped into their well-appointed base adjacent to The Curragh Racecourse and got an insight into day-to-day operations from Tom Austin, one of four partners in the pioneering practice.

Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital is a ten-vet practice dedicated to the first-class diagnosis and treatment of horses. Based at a purpose-built hospital alongside The Curragh Racecourse in County Kildare, the facility offers a full call-out veterinary service to local clients and referral services for horses from all over the island of Ireland. The four partners in the practice are Ned Gowing, Marie Harty, Mark MacRedmond and Tom Austin.

The hospital has expanded significantly since its formation in 1976 and now employs 20 people in total. With this expansion has come the increasing specialisation of the vets into different aspects of horse medicine; they now employ vets whose primary focus is surgery, lameness and orthopaedics, internal medicine, critical care or mare reproduction.

Reflecting on the genesis of the practice, Tom Austin notes: “Ned Gowing is the principal and he started off as a one-man band  in County Cork. He then practised in Kildare town for some thirteen years before moving to the current site and opening Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital on the edge of The Curragh Racecourse in 1976. Ned has built it up brick by brick.

“There are now four partners and I am very much the baby of the partnership, having become a senior partner only three years ago. But I have been involved in the practice since 2000.”

Generally regarded as Ireland’s premier equine hospital, Anglesey is renowned for its cutting-edge treatment of sick foals and wind surgeries (where operations are carried out on racehorses’ throats). “Given our location, about 95% of our work is with racehorses,” Tom confirms. “We would be heavily involved in assisting both the breeding and training of racehorses.

“On the breeding end of it, we make our services available to a number of leading stud farms in Maynooth, County Kildare, Mountrath in Laois, Grangecon, County Wicklow plus all the local, immediate clients.

“We also work with a number of leading trainers in Ireland, including Jessica Harrington, Arthur Moore, Johnny Murtagh, Willie McCreery, Patrick Prendergast, Ken Condon and Eddie Harty.”

The strengths of the practice are manifold. Not least amongst these is the outstanding track record built up over the best part of four decades. “Having been in business for 38 years, we have long-standing relationships with our clients,” says Tom. “We benefit from a lot of customer loyalty, mainly because we provide a top-class service. Our vets have a genuine passion for the horses and also a real interest in the people who own them. The client is our No.1 priority. We look after the needs of the horse and the owner.

“Mr Gowing has a keen ethos on how the place is run and that is adhered to night and day. You do everything you possible can for the client and for the horses and you run a tight ship. One thing he emphasises is: never put a job off until tomorrow if you can do it today.

“There are huge levels of expectations and there is a lot of pressure involved as horse racing is a big-money business. At the same time, we treat every horse equally. You could be working with a racehorse valued at half a million euro or a pony that cost €100 … we treat them all the same. Every horse is important to its owner and every horse that comes into the hospital is important to us.

“Of course, we don’t see the horses that are winning week in, week out. We tend to see the horses that have problems and our task is to try to get them back to the winner’s enclosure.

“People are happy with our services once their horses are well. As long as the horse is running healthy and well, owners are happy to pay trainers and that helps keep the wheels turning. We see ourselves as the people who protect the owner’s investment.”

In addition to ten full-time vets, all of whom have been with the practice long-term, Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital also provides further work to two interns during the Spring time. “We would have vets out on the road on a day-to-day basis performing scans and X-rays and we also tend to sick foals in the hospital itself, performing surgeries and caring for very sick animals in the Intensive Care Unit.”

The practice has offered this specialist critical care service since 2006, boasting 24-hour onsite nursing with veterinary back-up. They are able to look after the sickest patients, including horses with colic, colitis, pneumonia and pleuropneumonia, neurological problems and bone or muscle injuries. Level III intensive care is provided for foals. This includes, when necessary, mechanical ventilation, oxygen, electronic volumetric pumps to accurately deliver fluids and drugs, blood pressure measurement and 24-hour nursing.

The critical care service is led by Kevin Corley, a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care. “We’re also extremely fortunate to have the services of specialist surgeon Turlough McNally, who trained in both Kentucky and Florida, and brought a lot of fresh ideas back to Ireland.”

There are a total of 23 stables onsite at the practice and occupancy at present runs at around 70%. “We were operating at full capacity during the Celtic Tiger but we’re not quite as busy now. However, we are fortunate in that we have very good, reliable, long-term customers.

“When the recession kicked in, we lost the battle with credit control for a time but everybody tightened their belts and we rode it out and we are fighting back now. Funds are available again and we have invested €200,000 into the practice over the last 18 months.”

This money has gone towards the provision of new scanners, a new X-ray machine and a dynamic endoscopy (a tiny camera which goes up the horse’s nose and records activity in its throat and assesses how it is breathing during exercise).

Anglesey Lodge Equine Laboratory provides laboratory services to the vets within the practice and many of its referring vets. They process blood samples both for detection or monitoring of disease, and for assessment of racehorses in training and before declaration to race. The laboratory is overseen by full-time lab manager, Noreen Madden, whose CV includes spells in Newmarket, Cornell and the State laboratory in Abbotstown.

Regarding the future of the practice, the emphasis will remain very much on continuing to provide an excellent service: “Our aim is to stay in business by continuing to keep our clients happy,” Tom concludes. “As the country recovers and the industry expands, we will expand to meet whatever demand there is for our services. We are demand driven and it can be a 24-hour job sometimes, especially during the Spring, but we all love our work and wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital,
Phone: 045 521373
Fax: 045 521114
Email: [email protected]
www.aleh.ie

Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 2 No 6, November 2014

Anglesey Lodge, Equine, Hospital