Barretts Equine Limited, a leading California Thoroughbred auction facility, recently became the first West Coast auction house to employ the Eklin Digital Repository for review of digital radiographs (DR). Six review workstations were installed at Barretts October Yearling Sale, held earlier this month, by Eklin Medical Systems to accommodate rapid veterinary evaluation of sale horse extremity (legs) health. Barretts is the second U.S. equine auction facility to use this state-of-the-art technology, which is based on technology developed for Keeneland, the world’s largest Thoroughbred auction house.

“We hold several auctions that result in millions of dollars in equine sales revenues each year,” said Jerry McMahon, president and general manager for Barretts. “We felt it was important to offer our clients the same cutting edge DR review capabilities as industry-leader Keeneland provides. The Eklin Digital Repository offers an excellent digital review resource for our evaluating veterinarians. Most importantly, it can be scaled to support either our smallest or largest auctions.”

Barretts holds six Thoroughbred auctions per year which result in the sale of approximately 2,000 horses. Revenues from these sales normally exceed $40 million. The company’s premier auctions are the March and May sales, which account for almost 75 percent of the annual revenues. Barretts plans on expanding the Eklin Digital Repository to accommodate those two auctions
next spring along with its June sale.

“The response to the new repository and availability to review digital radiographs was extremely positive,” said McMahon. “In fact, we observed disappointment from the veterinarians when only film-based X rays were available on a particular horse. They definitely preferred the efficiency of evaluating digital versus film radiographs. We look forward to working with
the Eklin Digital Repository for the upcoming sales