The equine division of the Alnorthumbria Veterinary Group encourages all the members of the veterinary team to become trained in casualty management in order to service both emergency work in practice and to provide veterinary cover at events, racing and point to points.

To attend race course work the vets have to be a minimum of five years qualified. They will also have to be in a large proportion of equine clinical work and have attended a casualty management training course within the last five years. Training courses are run by the Association Racecourse Vets (ARVS) and supported by the British Horse Racing Association (BHA).

It has been recently recognised that there is a need for more frequent racecourse team training for emergency procedure involving the vets, doctors, paramedics, ground staff and incident controller (often the clerk of the course or head groundsman). A rapid team approach is more likely to reduce jockey injury and maximise horse welfare.

Part of the training involves different techniques for rapid placement of strops to safely move a horse that is trapping a rider after a fall. All our equine vets are trained in these techniques.

In the equine veterinary team at Alnorthumbria Veterinary Group we have six FEI treating vets with one of these also qualified as an official FEI veterinary delegate. This enables us to provide vets for any FEI events that require our service.