Recent content by Gamebird

I didn't mention the actual vets because I was responding to a point that was purely about the relevance or otherwise of where the practice is located.

I'm going to disagree and say it genuinely is relevant for an awful lot of things! I have nearly 3 decades of experience on the other side of the coin. I've been an equine ambulatory vet for getting on for 30 years, have been Director of an equine practice for over a decade and been in charge of...

Probably worth remembering that if you are an hour from the practice, and the practice has clients in every direction of an hour's radius, then at a weekend/night the vet could easily be 2hrs away from you. Daytime, vets may be all over the area and there will probably be one closer to you, but...

I think it's important not to confuse the list of conditions for which the insurers will uphold a death claim as being a list of conditions when you should put your horse to sleep. Your insurance company cannot make you do anything. You chose when you think euthanasia is appropriate and for what...

Actually, unfortunately for the type of sudden death we saw yesterday, there is very very little notice at all. Horses have dropped dead in similar circumstances whilst wearing ECG monitors and there can be abnormalities seen for a handful of seconds before death occurs. And seeing it is one...

I do find myself rather offended by this statement. I would be OK with it if you had said 'some vets' or 'a vet I have experienced did'. As a profession however I don't think you can make an all-encompassing statement like that. I do not think I have ever gone 'beyond what is realistically...

You must be thinking of another horse. Envoi Allen hadn't run since November.

I actually cried. A gold cup for Gary!!! 😍

As a horse vet I would regularly get called to mild sweet itch, and I have seen midges pretty much throughout the winter here (Midlands). So no, it didn't seem particularly weird to me! To be honest Jakob popping off to the coffee shop for lunch made me raise my eyebrows more - I don't know a...

I get the impression that Davy Russell literally banged their heads together! He was always a bit of a weighing-room sorter-outer!

Fabulous ride from Sean in second though. He's a great lad. It was have been amazing if he'd won! It's still probably the best day of his life!

I do think, as Ruby showed on the ITV coverage, that some of the starts, particularly for the big handicaps, need re-visiting in terms of location, rail placement, and distance from the first fence/hurdle. Certainly it does not appear that the 2m5 hurdle start has enough room to enable all the...

In Ireland bumpers are restricted to amateurs. It's one of the reasons Patrick never turned pro. Probably Jodie too. But i agree with you in general on the tactics.

I do always wonder quite how good the pro Irish (jump!) jockeys are in bumpers. The Irish amateurs ride in them all the time, as do the English pros. But the Irish pros pretty much only ride in one a year - at Cheltenham.

It's possibly unlikely, but I'd love for Jodie to win the bumper. She would almost certainly be the only jockey to have led up and ridden a winner on the same day!