WestÕs first equine clinic filling badly needed void

Michael Glynn

OUTSIDE, it’s a picture of idyll. Grazing mares with foals following their every move populate the railed front paddock, every so often one of the youngsters bounding into life with a short, sharp burst and a leap that startles it so much that it comes to an immediate, abrupt halt to briefly ponder this strange, newly-discovered ability before resuming some comfort-nursing from the ever-obliging mother.

Inside the building, such tranquility can seem a million miles away as a horse, in excruciating agony, gives demented vent to its pain while the vets prepare it for urgent life-or-death surgery in the padded Knockdown Room where the application of the anaesthetist’s needle brings some blessed relief to the highly-agitated animal.

A half-ton of comatose horse flesh has to be electronically hoisted from the floor onto the operating table in the adjoining room where it can require up to €700-800 worth of anaesthetic gas and intravenous drips to keep the patient unconscious for the duration of a two-hour operation to sort out a severe case of colic which, if left untreated, can cause a harrowing death in a matter of hours.

Colic is but one of the many ailments that afflict the equine, whose external grace and power belie the susceptibility of its respiratory and intestinal systems to a series of complex disorders and ills. Although covering a wide range of gut conditions from mild to chronic, it is, however, the word generations of horse owners have dreaded, all the more so in the West of Ireland where the time it took to bring a badly-afflicted animal to an equestrian clinic in Leinster or Munster was often the difference between it living or dying.

This time, surgeon Jurgen Bodamer and vets Phillip McManus and Rita Carlone can reflect on another successful outcome at the newly-opened Rockmount Veterinary Clinic and AI Centre, to add further testimony to their expertise which will be impressively illustrated at the Dublin Horse Show in a few weeks time when two of their former patients will compete – one a show horse within a month of surgery, and the other, their very first surgical patient, which has qualified for one of the showjumping classes.

“Seeing a horse, not alone back on its feet, but competing so successfully makes all the long hours well worthwhile,” says Phillip McManus, founder of the Rockmount equine clinic which opened its doors in March under the auspices of the Glenina Veterinary Clinic, a general practice on the east side of Galway city, in which he is a partner.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune racing supplement.