Inside the Hospital
Belmont Park Racetrack
The Ruffian Equine Medical Center is located adjacent to beautiful Belmont Park Race track in Elmont, New York. The hospital encompasses over 26,000 square feet of space - a facility of this large scale is a first for Long Island.
REMC has two dedicated operating rooms for orthopedic and soft tissue surgery, and three adjacent recovery stalls. Each surgery suite is equipped with a 60” video screen and teleconferencing capabilities. Clients may observe surgery from the conference room monitors or be connected remotely.
The high-speed treadmill can exercise horses at speeds up to 35 miles per hour and provides important diagnostic information regarding upper airway conditions and physiology during exercise.
The nuclear scintigraphy (bone scan) unit is state-of-the-art and is used as a very valuable adjunctive tool for lameness examinations . It is able to detect early bone remodeling and stress fracture formation in situations where only a subtle lameness exists.
REMC is one of the few equine hospitals in North America to house a portable computed tomography (CT) unit to assist with bone imaging. This unit is very valuable in the surgical repair of complicated lower limb fractures. The CT scanner can provide a complete 3-d reconstruction of the limb in less than 60-seconds. Other important imaging services include digital radiography and ultrasonography.
A 150-foot long, fenced and paved jogging strip, and an outdoor lunging area are used for evaluating lameness. The hospital has 29 stalls, each with individual heating and lighting controls. Three stalls are located indoors and are temperature controlled for management of patients requiring more intensive care. One of these stalls is fully equipped with an over-head sling to assist severely lame or debilitated horses.
The hospital also houses a large pharmacy, full -service laboratory, many staff offices, and a spacious conference room with large screen televisions for clients to observe surgical procedures, and digital media such as radiographs, bone scans, CT studies, and ultrasonographic examinations.