Guasco and Associates

Guasco and Associates We offer first opinion equine veterinary care with emphasis on sports medicine and performance issues.

An interesting (cool) case we dealt with this week. This horse was lame in front and blocked to intra-articular anaesthe...
14/02/2025

An interesting (cool) case we dealt with this week. This horse was lame in front and blocked to intra-articular anaesthesia of the right elbow.
Diagnostic imaging showed an enthesophyte to the attachment of the distal, medial collateral ligament of elbow which matched what we could see on ultrasound scans. Scans showed some damage to the medial collateral ligament of elbow, and there was also a bit of visible joint distension.

This is pretty uncommon injury and in my experience it happens when horses do the splits with their front legs, sometimes chasing each other round in a field.

I don’t think there is much we can do for this one apart letting nature run its course and allow time for the ligament to heal over. The joint can obviously be injected with a bit of cortisone but perhaps that’s not indicated at current stage.

So hopefully this horse will be back in full training in a few months.

-ray

👀 Look at this bad boy! 👀
01/02/2025

👀 Look at this bad boy! 👀

We are looking for a full time veterinary technician to come and join our ever expanding little practice.Key duties incl...
07/01/2025

We are looking for a full time veterinary technician to come and join our ever expanding little practice.

Key duties include assisting vets with calls and procedures, general admin, stock management and more.

Good horse handling skills are a must.
Full driving license required.

40h weekly, no weekends, private medical insurance and branded clothing included.
Overtime paid or taken as time off in lieu.

Please apply by sending CV to
[email protected]

Xmas party side A and side B
20/12/2024

Xmas party side A and side B

🏇💉🚑 I forgot to share this one a while ago! I hadn’t seen (“el pincho gordo”) in 15 years. Last time we had a dinner it...
06/12/2024

🏇💉🚑 I forgot to share this one a while ago!
I hadn’t seen (“el pincho gordo”) in 15 years. Last time we had a dinner it was in Lexington and it was 2009.
At the airport we had to drop each other live location pins as he’s got fatter and I got bald so we didn’t recognise each other at first sight.
True friendships last forever.

Horses bought and sold!Here all week fun times
30/10/2024

Horses bought and sold!

Here all week fun times



A bone sequestrum on the hind cannon bone of a horse. This is a piece of dead bone that separates mostly as the result o...
06/10/2024

A bone sequestrum on the hind cannon bone of a horse. This is a piece of dead bone that separates mostly as the result of a trauma, as in this case. It dies off as the blood supply is damaged; the animal then picks it up as a foreign body and tries to expel it. Often these require surgical removal. But not in this case! The horse was sound, the wound was not discharging so we put the horse on antibiotics and let nature work its magic by resorbing the fragment little by little.

🇮🇹🇳🇱🇬🇧 Italians at ISELP 🇬🇧🇳🇱🇮🇹
18/09/2024

🇮🇹🇳🇱🇬🇧 Italians at ISELP 🇬🇧🇳🇱🇮🇹

💉🩸🏇From racing days to saving lives! 🏇🩸💉This is our retired racehorse Alfie that I was kindly gifted by once his racing...
19/08/2024

💉🩸🏇From racing days to saving lives! 🏇🩸💉

This is our retired racehorse Alfie that I was kindly gifted by once his racing career was over. The original plan was to ride him ever so often but since I haven’t been on a horse for more than 15 years and I was probably gonna break many bones by attempting to saddle a racehorse, I thought he’d be a perfectly healthy blood donor, considering his lovely nature.

Alfie is portrayed here saving lives as he does best, having his blood collected which then processed by separating plasma from red blood cells. That takes quite a few hours, but then the plasma is transfused to a poorly horse, which is especially important when suffering from protein loss.

Sometimes horses need multiple transfusions or generally speaking a large volume of plasma.

Average horses have about 45 litres of blood - so they can donate a fair bit luckily.

Plasma transfusion is way more common to be seen in foals, when they don’t manage to suck enough colostrum (the first milk, which is fundamental for development of early immunity) and need a top up of healthy immunoglobulins right in their bloodstream. In such case we use specific plasma, supplied by , which is enriched to provide best neonatal immunity.

Periocular sarcoids are generally a nightmare to treat but in this case we used Immunocidin which worked wonders! We exp...
04/08/2024

Periocular sarcoids are generally a nightmare to treat but in this case we used Immunocidin which worked wonders! We expected to have to inject the mass 3 times, but 2 were enough!

Immunocidin is an emulsion of mycobacterial cell wall fractions that have been modified to reduce their toxic and allergic effects, but retain their antitumor activity. Immunocidin stimulates the activation of macrophages and thymic lymphocytes which kill tumor cells.
How do I know that? I just googled it! For once marketing matched the expectations!

Cervical stenotic myelopathy, pretty severe sadly ☢️🚑🏇If you are wondering what the random white spot is, just by our lo...
27/06/2024

Cervical stenotic myelopathy, pretty severe sadly ☢️🚑🏇

If you are wondering what the random white spot is, just by our logo, it’s the microchip.

A weird lesion which was identified following a trainer’s concern due to some swelling in a hind tendon of a horse in wo...
25/06/2024

A weird lesion which was identified following a trainer’s concern due to some swelling in a hind tendon of a horse in work. These are not foreign bodies but some old, historic calcifications in the SDFT of a hind limb, visible on both scans and x-rays, with no evidence of recent damage.
This must have happened a while before attending the horse, who knows when.
Anyway for once we delivered some good news as the horse could continue training as normal!

🏇🚑😷Before and after a condylar fracture, tidy job as usual from Newmarket Equine Hospital 😷🚑🏇
23/06/2024

🏇🚑😷Before and after a condylar fracture, tidy job as usual from Newmarket Equine Hospital 😷🚑🏇

An uncommon injury in horses, a fracture of the distal border of the navicular bone in a hind leg. The horse had a lengt...
23/06/2024

An uncommon injury in horses, a fracture of the distal border of the navicular bone in a hind leg.
The horse had a lengthy break, just conservative treatment (I.e., rest and rehab), recovered well, raced 20 times following injury, including being placed 11 times and winning twice!

Think positive!

🥇 🏇 🏃‍♂️🥇Two different , two different programs, two different , two different types of fibers in action, two diff...
23/06/2024

🥇 🏇 🏃‍♂️🥇Two different , two different programs, two different , two different types of fibers in action, two different types of muscle development, two different - vs

Both aiming for the same result - winning races! 🥇🏃‍♂️🏇🥇

🏇💉🚑💰 🏆Well 2023-2024 season is over, well done to all the trainers and owners that trusted us with the care of their rac...
28/04/2024

🏇💉🚑💰 🏆Well 2023-2024 season is over, well done to all the trainers and owners that trusted us with the care of their racehorses. Here is a quick recap, looks like we didn’t do too bad afterall 🏇💉🚑💰🏆

🧑‍⚖️ Doncaster May sale next, hols then we go round again 🧑‍⚖️

A septic central tarsal bone of a that was diagnosed by , confirmed by and treated with intraosseous antibiotic...
28/02/2024

A septic central tarsal bone of a that was diagnosed by , confirmed by and treated with intraosseous antibiotics.

This was a tricky one as the lesion was not apparent for a few days and there was only very mild swelling around the , and the foal was only intermittently lame. showed markers of infection.

Nevertheless antibiotics fixed her, she’s doing well and hopefully we’ve looked after another winner!

☢️🦴 this is a rather uncommon problem in race horses and it’s called enostosis type lesion ☢️🦴We diagnose one of these e...
07/02/2024

☢️🦴 this is a rather uncommon problem in race horses and it’s called enostosis type lesion ☢️🦴

We diagnose one of these every other year
Luckily prognosis is good and all horses need are time and rehab

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Cheltenham
GL542JJ

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+441527591047

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