As our practice has evolved into all sports medicine and lameness consult, and with the departure of Dr. Stewart, we want to remind our clients that setting up your horse(s) with a practice for general medicine and emergency in advance of necessity can alleviate stress if you should unfortunately need emergency assistance. We will miss our annual visits with our patients for wellness and vaccines, but acknowledge that we cannot be available in a pinch if we are traveling. Therefore we advise considering your options of other practices, and setting up an account with them before your spring vaccines may be due. This will allow the veterinarian that you call in an emergency an opportunity to meet you and your horse(s) and establish a relationship that you are comfortable with. Emergencies are stressful enough, but having a plan of who to call when you have one is the first step.

We are looking forward to continuing to see all of our friends, human and equine, in the future for your sports medicine and lameness needs. As always we hope to help our patients the best we can, whether they are in need of diagnosis or management!!

Whole Horse Examination

Equine Sports

Our philosophy for both a lameness and performance evaluation on our athletes entails thorough palpations, manipulations and various tests of not only the distal limbs but the axial skeleton as well. Muscle symmetry is closely evaluated and noted in order to gain insight into history of how a horse uses themselves, which can often be compared to previous evaluations to see how our patients are evolving in their programs and responding to treatments. Listening to history or watching videos is important to gain further understanding into cases. The movement portion of an exam often involves baseline jogging, flexion tests, lunging and/or under saddle observation. Combining all this information is what leads us to diagnostic analgesia, imaging or specific treatments- but it is very important that our clients understand the process so that a decision can be made together to best treat our patients whether injury is identified or optimizing their performance is the goal. These exams are thorough and we take our time to listen to our clients, observe and evaluate the complete presentation of our patients and this is the basis of our "whole horse philosophy". Our thorough reports and notes throughout examinations allow for consistent accurate medical records for either future comparison or to optimize multiple veterinarians collaborating on cases.


Modern Equine Vet April 2022 Jessica's article with an in depth description of the "whole horse examination".


The Whole Horse Exam: An Inside LookPlatinum Performance® Podcast

Master sports medicine practitioner, Cooper Williams, VMD, DACVSMR, ISELP, takes us through the intricacies of the whole-horse exam and how a methodical approach can yield vital information.

Platinum Performance Podcast 2023