The Story Of Seadown

Find out about a New Forest veterinary practice with a varied casebook ranging from leisure and competition horses to free-roaming ponies and donkeys.

The New Forest is a magical place of ancient woodland, open moors, beautiful glades and coastal walks. It is still one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture and heathland in the UK where ponies, cattle, donkeys and deer roam free.

It is also home to a particularly unique, mixed veterinary practice that has served the New Forest community, its people and animals since 1923.

According to its senior equine vet, Peter Tunney, Seadown Veterinary Group is special for many reasons. “Most of our vets and support staff have been together for many years – we’re like a family,” he reveals. “It is also a privilege to work in such a unique area and to enjoy close relationships with a crosssection of owners and their equines, helping to fulfil their hopes and expectations.”

Seadown is deeply embedded in Forest ways and activities, providing honorary veterinary services to the New Forest Pony Breeders and Commoners Defence Society, along with involvement in the annual stallion passing, breed show, point-to-point and welfare tours. Then there is veterinary cover at the New Forest Show every summer.

Peter also makes veterinary inspections at the New Forest pony sales, which started around the same time as Seadown, and remains a key part of forest life, although welfare standards have greatly improved.

A diverse casebook

Seadown’s equine team operates out of Hythe, Totton and Lymington in Hampshire. Practice vet Gillies Moffat says they help treat and care for a diversity of equine patients.