IN early September, the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) hosted a meeting of presidents from similar organisations from Ireland to Australia, from Finland to South Africa. The BEVA president asked for ‘hot topics’ and hottest of all seemed to be the problem of recruitment and retention in the ranks.

In future, we may not have sufficient resources to service the needs of our horses and those who own them - to the obvious detriment of the industries/sports of which we are part, but also the welfare of the horses at their heart.

Currently more Irish students study veterinary abroad than at home - we have only one vet school (UCD) on the island of Ireland. But more are set to accept vet students soon - SETU in the south east and ATU in the north west, with the assistance of Mountbellew and Kildalton Ag Colleges respectively.

Each school has recruited a veterinary director; they made their pitch at The Ploughing and on RTE’s Countrywide; so a start has been made recruiting student applicants for 2026. Cause for optimism here perhaps. But it’s not just a numbers game - training more vets alone doesn’t solve the problem of ensuring sufficient, highly-motivated veterinarians remaining in equine practice. Will students entering and leaving the TUs differ much from the UCD cohort (of which I was once one)? We watch this space with interest!

Professional career

We have to acknowledge that there is a fall-off in the numbers of vet students with a stated intention of working in equine practice between entry (first year), qualification (fifth year) and again five years later. What do they learn while learning their trade, what do they experience early in their professional career? A commonly-heard refrain is that the early vet student ‘isn’t horsey enough’; ‘horse people use jargon that excludes’. Imagine asking an average person to go into a stable to check the horse you believe ‘has a leg’, when it’s obvious to all that he has four!

Are the alternatives (small animal practice, state vet services, pharmaceutical industry etc.) considerably more attractive, particularly as one enters mid-career? In the past, many vets joined government, industry or academic ranks, typically only after plying their trade in private practice for several years. In recent times, more are leaving clinical practice early, depleting the ranks of those left to service the farm and equine-owning community.

Work-leisure balance is regularly cited: what my generation of equine vets accepted as ‘normal’ - attending a colic instead of a family celebration; taking the kids on out-of-hours calls - is less likely to be considered acceptable. And it is unfair to expect otherwise: the world has changed in that time and we must adapt with it.

Equine service

How can we adapt in equine practice and adopt better work models? This isn’t just down to vets, it’s up to the horse-owning community too. For example, many still expect their usual vet, or at the very least a familiar vet, at all times. This practice has largely disappeared for GPs and for urban, small animal vets in Ireland; indeed in parts of England emergency out-of-hours equine service is increasingly being contracted out to a specialist provider. Clients in an area are more accepting that they won’t get their usual vet, or even vet practice, if none in an area do!

BEVA recently also ran a campaign called ‘Don’t break your vet!’ - largely about safety in the workplace, handling facilities, understanding equine behaviour etc. but the principle can be extended further - respect your vet, treat them well, don’t expect them yesterday, pay them properly and on time.

We need to recruit those with a real passion for working with horses and horse-people; we then need to keep these gems among us once we have them. Many are motivated when young to work with horses - we need to foster them as they train, mentor them in their early years and keep them fulfilled in the equine industry. Let’s not lament their loss from equine practice, if they go when we might have kept them.