The Partners 1959-2010 (left to right) front row: Deidre Carson, Peter Rossdale (retd), Colin Peace (retd), Raymond Hopes (retd), Michael Hunt (retd), Sidney Ricketts, Tim Greet, Nick Wingfield Digby; back row: Ian Cameron, Marcus Head, Mike Shepherd, Andrew McGladdery, Ollie Pynn, Andy Bathe, Richard Payne, Fred Barrelet, Pete Ramzan

History

In 2010, Rossdales celebrated the first 50 years of the practice. At the end of 1959, with the encouragement of some local trainers and stud owners, Peter Rossdale took the bold step of setting up his own practice in Dullingham Road, just outside Newmarket. In the following years, Peter was joined by other pioneering veterinary surgeons who together formed the foundations of the now world-renowned Rossdale & Partners.

After two years, the practice moved to Beaufort Cottage Stables in Newmarket, from which the ambulatory service still operates, serving a wide range of clients locally and further afield in East Anglia. It is also the location for Beaufort Cottage Laboratories, which provides a clinical pathology service specifically designed for the needs of equine practitioners and serves clients from across the UK and other EU countries.

Peter in 1962 feeding a sick foal via a stomach tube.

In 1987, to accommodate developing diagnostic requirements, Rossdales Equine Diagnostic Centre was developed approximately two miles away in Exning, with the co-operation and support of the Exning Estates. Digital radiographic, scintigraphic (gamma camera), video-endoscopic and ultrasonographic suites (including expert cardiological assessments) were developed there. A decade later, in response to an ever-increasing surgical case load, both from the local practice and from referring veterinarians around the UK, this support was extended and Rossdales Equine Hospital was completed in 1997 at the Exning site and opened by Her Majesty The Queen the following April. The hospital provides surgical and medical, and neonatal and adult intensive care facilities.

Ten years later, Her Majesty The Queen returned to open our new Diagnostic Centre. Situated adjacent to the existing buildings, it admitted its first patients in early October 2008. Housing sophisticated MRI and CT imaging suites, examination rooms and a standing surgery unit, this state of the art building has greatly enhanced existing facilities at the Exning site, which can be seen in the aerial image to the right.

Today Rossdale & Partners is the largest equine practice in the UK and indeed in Europe, providing world class facilities and employing 35 veterinary surgeons and almost 100 support staff, who are dedicated to providing a personalised, high quality, ethical service to horse owners and to referring veterinary surgeons.

Continual investment in the latest veterinary technology, techniques and infrastructure, together with the attraction of dedicated expert and specialist equine veterinarians, has not only ensured the creation of one of the largest Thoroughbred ambulatory practices in Europe but has also provided the facilities and expertise to encourage the development of one of the largest equine referral practices, admitting all types of equine patient.