Photo: Courtesy Animal Health Trust

Sue Dyson, MA, VetMB, PhD, DEO, FRCVS, stands next to a towering near-black Warmblood gelding, preparing to administer nerve blocks to help pinpoint a hind-limb lameness. The diminutive veterinarian who heads the Animal Health Trust’s (AHT) Clinical Orthopaedics department, in Newmarket, United Kingdom, looks delicate beside the massive show jumper, but she’s a strong force in the world of equine orthopedic research. 

She watches the strapping show jumper trot up and work under tack while relaying her observations to the two veterinarian interns at her side. “What did you see when he trotted to the left?” Dyson asks one intern who hails from Greece. “Very good,” she says matter-of-factly upon hearing the woman’s response.

Dyson’s focus at the AHT is lameness and diagnostics, and her motto is this: “If you look carefully, you will always discover more conditions. You’re learning as you go along