Routine and emergency veterinary care

Three Counties Equine Hospital LLP are the resident veterinary surgeons at the Equine Therapy Centre, providing routine veterinary care for resident horses. We have excellent facilities for lameness investigation on our non-slip 40m x 4m trot up, with 12m diameter trotting circle. Within the purpose-built diagnostic suite, examination can be made with the most up to date imaging tools.

Digital radiography is the standard imaging technique for bone and its main use is for lameness and back pain investigation.

Diagnostic Ultrasound is used widely in equine lameness cases to evaluate soft tissue structures of the limbs, such as the flexor tendons, various ligaments and synovial structures.

Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy has been in use in the human and equine sports fields for some time. It involves the delivery of high impact short duration physical ‘shock waves’ to an area of damaged or inflamed tissue. Used primarily for the treatment of lameness or back pain, the machine delivers a series of shocks (physical rather than electric) focused on the site of tissue damage and this is usually repeated at 7-10 day intervals for up to three occasions.

Nuclear Scintigraphy allows identification of areas of increased bone turnover which is not always possible with radiography alone. This enhances the ability to diagnose stress fractures, for example of the cannon bone, pelvis or tibia and allows the vet to more fully determine the significance of certain back problems such as overriding dorsal spinous processes (kissing spines). Nuclear scintigraphy is only available at the Three Counties Equine Hospital LLP.