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Hi All,
It is that time of the year again, hope you are feeling festive, Christmas has come round pretty quick and pretty soon will be gone. It seems like madness we are already half way through another jump season, and another breeding season is about to commence!
I suppose time flies when you are having fun, it’s either that or I’m getting old.
The last few months have been mad busy, keeping all of us on the edge of our seats: we had few trips abroad and saved some lives here and there. Myself and Mollie went to Arqana sales in late November, a sale we won’t forget any time soon, as the weather was dreadful, it was literally raining sideways for the whole 3 days of sale, only barely mitigated by the regular trips to boulangerie and nice restaurants.
Storm Darragh is probably one of the (infamous) highlights of December so far, knocking a few trees down and flipping some stables and roofs out of the way. Bourton took a fair beating with Old Gloucester Road being closed as 30+ trees were felled. Most trainers reported some degree of damage to the gallops but nothing that could not be overcome so after a few days wielding a chainsaw, all seems back to normal.
We are in the midst of our busiest time of the year in regards to racing - our stock of adcortyl and esomeprazole is at its peak and the usage is pretty rapid! We have been using a new management system for the last year (you probably have seen us
wandering around the yard holding an iPad, we weren’t “just” playing candy crush) and that’s been pretty helpful on the old’ stock take and in making office life a bit easier.
We are all having a few days' holiday between Xmas and new year’s - but don’t fear we are always around to help out. The office line should redirect you to the vet on call, but most of you ring us directly which is probably the easiest way to get someone on the road to you. The office will be shut on Christmas day, Boxing Day and New Years Day - apart from that someone will be around shall you wish to pick up the phone and send us wishes or pay a bill!!
2024 has been a great year, particularly for Emma, who is pregnant and due her baby in
February 2025. Maternity is now close so Aaron will take care of managing our office whilst Emma is away. I’m sure he will become a familiar voice pretty swiftly, being already a familiar face to most of you since he used to work at Jonjo’s: he is deeply involved in racing and has a wide background experience with office work so the wheels back home will keep spinning smoothly.
Emma has been with me from day 1 since we started back in 2017 and we look forward to having her back after her maternity leave. It was definitely a learning curve for the both of us, particularly for the first year or two, when neither of us (well Emma was more clued up than I was) had no idea on how to file VAT returns, pay tax, apply for R&D, pay salaries, finance stuff etc. I can definitely say that we made it up as we were going along: probably some of you still think the same about myself nowadays!
Archie is due back end of January. As most of you know, he’s currently in Australia completing a breeding season in Scone and probably necking down a few Fosters here and there, or I’d better say, to be more accurate, he’s in Australia necking down Fosters and
scanning a few mares here and there. We all look forward to having him back and taking care of studs and taking his own share of racing yards. He gathered quite a good amount of exposure to the Australian flat racing scene as well so his role will be of an all-rounder, or a jack of all trades, which is very helpful particularly to myself as by now y’all should have figured out that I can’t scan a broodmare to save my life!
Altogether we can’t complain about 2024. Dave has become a local rugby authority taking additional duties at Stow RFC: you might be thinking
I’m joking now but he’s actually in charge of the sausages and bacon!!! And other admin tasks. Pat and Molly are getting increasingly busier with no intention to stop. Pat has also started playing a bit of rugby so I just hope for him he’s as quick as he’s light or we might be in trouble. Molly can be seen competing at team chases from time to time and has helped me a lot recently with calls and treatments which has made a big difference. It’s great that all of our clients are familiar with all of our faces, I think it’s really cool, we will always aim to provide “that extra personal touch" that perhaps makes our little practice unique.
So altogether not a bad year, I don’t personally have much to report. I had a couple nice holidays, all the animals at home (dogs, sheep, horses, Emily) are alive and well, business is
going well. I attended a couple conferences abroad, notably the one in Amsterdam with a bunch of other Italian vets, none of us can remember much of the lectures as you can imagine but we all slept pretty well those nights.
What shall we ask from 2025? Probably just smooth
sailing and a bit more sunshine and less rain but this is England nevertheless and we all like lush green pastures. I might buy myself a little tractor, pretending to be a big-time farmer apart from an exceptionally good-looking vet.
Anyway, onto something else, we are also looking for an extra vet tech to come and join our ever-expanding little practice. We are looking for a nice, driven, friendly person that will basically be in charge of making sure vets are doing things right! in other words helping out with visits, driving, stock, admin etc. 40h/weekly, 5 days, no weekends. If you think of anyone suitable, send our way!
You should receive this newsletter just before Xmas (together with our invoices!!!), so we all wish you a happy Xmas and a prosperous new year. Try to take a couple days off if you can, eat mince pies and drink plenty of wine!
I personally look forward to our traditional Port wine fuelled Christmas eve game of Trivial Pursuit where we start all civilised and end up shouting each other's answers till it degenerates further, but we still keep going till the end because no one likes to give up!
All the best and happy Xmas,
Paolo
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