I was permitted to leave classes early with a provisional license from the state of Virginia to practice medicine because of the great Dr. Olive Britt. She was the first or one of the first equine specific interns and resident at Penn’s New Bolton Center. Dr. Britt was the veterinarian that foaled renowned race horses Riva Ridge and Secretariat. Dr. Britt was the doctor for all of the elite horse owners/farm owners in the Richmond and Petersburg and Tidewater areas of Virginia and the surrounding area. For example, Francis Rowe, Richard Reynolds (Reynolds’ Aluminum), as well as most of the ‘first families of Richmond‘.Anyway,
Dr. Britt had an accident and cut a tendon in her hand and couldn’t do surgery. She went to Dr. Loren Evans, an impressive and incredible professor at New Bolton Center (UP’s University of Pennsylvania The School of Veterinary Medicine, large animal rural campus). Somehow, miraculously, I was chosen by her to immediately leave school early and become “her hands.” It all makes my head spin. Penn, Dr. Evans and the State of Virginia made it happen for me.
My time practicing with Dr. Britt was pretty much a fairy tale. So going forward, I did breeding work for the Gafford’s in Petersburg, VA. They went from six foals to more than twenty plus mare and over 16 foals in just the first year they employed me. They decided that the next year they could do it themselves. Their success rate plummeted to below double digits. I went from there to the planning of AMC in western Pennsylvania and of course, could not physically do both.
