to what we all thought, it wasn’t reality TV or a fly-on-the-wall programme, it was an observational documentary. Right, I thought, so there’s a difference? Weren’t they pretty much the same thing? I decided I’d better keep my thoughts to myself.
That night I dashed off to Kent for the weekend to go to Abi’s birthday party. She’d just finished her first year as a teacher and she was in the mood to celebrate. We had a great night out and danced till one in the morning, so I arrived back in Dorset a little tired on Sunday evening.
After another week with the cows in the glorious Dorset countryside I headed back home to catch up with my family, before starting a fortnight’s work experience with a sports horse veterinary practice that provided veterinary services for the local racecourse.
This was heady stuff; the idea of working with highly strung racehorses fascinated me. They are mostly hot-blooded thoroughbreds – tall, slim, athletic and handsome – but because of the exertion they are put under they have a high accident rate and a lot of health problems.
The first race I attended was on a Tuesday evening, which meant working a long day as I had started at eight that morning when we visited a number of local stables. I really didn’t care, though, because I was so excited and couldn’t wait to see behind the scenes.
We had been told to dress smartly, which was impractical but necessary according to the rules, so, in contrast to my usual dress-down, vet-on-the-go look, I wore smart beige tailored trousers with a crisp shirt, my freshly washed black Musto coat and polished boots.
Vets Jane and Tanya, both of whom, in their tailored outfits, looked more like race officials than vets, were warm and welcoming. Jane had just been made a partner of the practice, despite still being in her early thirties, and Tanya was a hugely experienced vet with loads of tips to pass on. They knew exactly what they were doing, oozed confidence and looked completely at home amongst the race officials and racegoers. I, on the other hand, felt totally out of place and would have been more at ease in my wellies mucking out the stable.
Just before the first race, the three of us went to stand in the middle of the parade ring amongst the trainers, owners and jockeys to assess how each horse was walking and to pick up any problems. Tanya and Jane were running me through a checklist of what to look out for when the first of the racehorses came through – and took my breath away. I had been around horses all my life, but I had never seen anything like these specimens. These were super-horses, the athletes of the horse world; every muscle popped from them, they were lean, their coats glistened in the low sunlight and their manes flowed. These were horses at their peak.
When the bell rang the jockeys mounted almost in unison. The horses seemed to know what the bell signalled and some of them started bouncing with excitement. The trainers led them down the walkway to the race track and, as the last one left the ring, we followed. Racegoers crowded towards the walkway on both sides, watching the horses and looking curiously at us. For a few heady moments I had a sense of what it must feel like to be a champion athlete, coming out of the tunnel onto the pitch, with a fever of excitement and expectation all around.
As the horses reached the racetrack, the trainers stepped back and the jockeys cantered them up to the start line. That was our cue to head for the two BMW cars parked to one side. Tanya got into one to go to the halfway point, ready to cover the second half of the race, and Jane and I got in the other and headed for the start line. Once there we left the car to have a look at the horses waiting to go into the start gates, checking for a final time that none of them appeared lame or unwell. Some were playing up and refusing to walk in without a tussle but the jockeys knew how to manage them. As the last one was led into the stall, Jane and I sprinted back to the car.
We had just seconds before they released the horses. We dived into the car and accelerated to keep up with the horses. It was amazing being right next to the race with the horses galloping beside us, eyes wild and nostrils flaring. I was lost in awe of them, until Jane shouted ‘Hold tight’ and I bounced halfway out of my seat and hit my head hard on the roof. The smooth road beside the track had given way to a bumpy dirt track but we hadn’t slowed down. We followed the horses for another couple of hundred metres until we reached Tanya’s car. At that point she took over and followed the race back onto the smooth road on the other side of the track and on to the finish.
We followed more slowly, me rubbing my sore head as Jane apologised and explained that we absolutely had to keep up with the race. We reached the finish as the last horse was leaving the track, got out of the car and followed them back up the walkway to check that they were all being offered water and washed down, and that none had been hurt during the race. Jane was pulled aside by a trainer who wanted her to put a scope down one of the horses, as it hadn’t run as well as they had expected. We took the horse back to the on-site vet room to put the camera down its windpipe. There was a little mucus, which indicated the start of a mild respiratory infection. This put the trainer’s mind at rest; the horse wasn’t useless, it was becoming ill.
Moments later we ran back to follow the horses into the next race. There were several races that night and we had a turnaround time of about ten minutes between each, so we didn’t stop for several hours.
I loved my night at the races; the pace, buzz, the people, the excitement, and most of all those magnificent horses.
Two days later I received an email from the Young Vets programme makers to say that Isobel had loved meeting me and that she thought I would be great in the series. I was stunned; it took me a few moments to take it in. If I agreed, there would be a film crew following me through the rest of my rotations and I knew that would, at times, make life harder. But on the other hand it would be fun, and I would have a record of this year as a souvenir of one of the toughest and most challenging times in my life. How could I say no?
I wrote back to say I’d be delighted. The crew would join me, they said, in a couple of weeks’ time, during my summer holiday with my family, to do some background filming.
After the heady thrills and glamour of working with sports horses and my invitation to be part of the Young Vets series I bumped back down to earth with a week in an abattoir in Bristol. This was not a placement that many of us trainee vets were looking forward to, but it was an essential part of our training. Every abattoir has a vet present to ensure that animals are treated humanely until the point of slaughter, and that the procedures are carried out properly and hygienically. The vet also provides a vital service to the meat inspectors who check the meat for any signs of disease before it goes on the market.
Determined to prove to myself that I had a strong stomach, I’d already visited an abattoir before I started at the RVC. It was not fun seeing a healthy cow and realising that half an hour later it would be dead, but I got through it and this time I was at least prepared for what would be involved.
So at the abattoir we were taught about animal welfare and meat inspection, and on the plus side I felt reassured that the meat we all eat is carefully monitored and the process is quick and pain-free for the animals, who are unaware of what’s happening because they’re stunned unconscious before slaughter.
It was good to be back with my rotation group after a month in which we’d all gone our separate ways to do our elective courses and our work experience. We worked in the abattoir from 6am to 1pm, so we had afternoons clear. There were a couple of assignments to write, but other than that we were free. As it was August and the students were on holiday, we were staying on the Bristol University campus, so Lucy and I headed for their impressive squash courts, figuring that if we could play tennis, squash couldn’t be that hard.
Lucy was president of the RVC tennis team, regularly taking time off from rotations on Wednesday afternoons for matches, and while I wasn’t as good as she was, I could play. But we soon discovered that when it came to squash our
