Equine ER

I recently finished a good read for those of you who ever wondered what it was like in an equine veterinary hospital. The title is: Equine ER and the author is Leslie Guttman, who spent a year shadowing the vets at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky.

Guttman writes well and she has a flair for suspense, so you never know the outcome of the horses involved in each chapter until the end. She covers a lot of territory in term of types of horses as well as types of conditions that equine vets deal with--everything from the fragile and expensive thoroughbreds with orthopedic injuries to the equally highly valued companion horses that run into fences.

The book is also fairly recent so she touches on the Eight Belles tragedy, some of the Barbaro story and the other Matz trained horse, Chelokee who won the first Barbaro Stakes and was injured in a stakes race on Kentucky Oaks Day at Churchill Downs in 2008.

Also Barbaro fans will recognize some of the players in the equine veterinary world such as Dr. Scott Morrison, who is based at Rood & Riddle and consulted on Barbaro's feet during the later stages of his life.

Not too long, a fast read and interesting for those who ever wondered about the life of an equine vet.