Dr. Branwen Vaughan
She knew what she wanted to be before she knew much else.
Branwen Vaughan grew up around horses. Her family kept them, worked with them, loved them — and somewhere in that early life, watching the way a good vet moved through a barn, she decided that was what she was going to do. Not considered it. Decided. She made a plan, earned the scholarships to make it real, and arrived at UC Davis — one of the most respected veterinary programmes in the world — ready to work harder than anyone around her. She did.
Her specialisation in equine performance medicine and sport injuries was never an accident. She was drawn to the horses that are asked the most of — the ones whose careers depend on staying sound, whose owners need answers rather than guesses. She is precise, methodical, and holds herself to a standard that most people would find exhausting to maintain. When something goes wrong with a horse in her care, she takes it personally. She always has. She has never found a way to stop, and at this point she is not sure she would want to.
Her clinic sits at the edge of Mane & Tale's horse country, and her sister Rhianon's stable — Willow Tree Ltd — is right next door. It is a convenient arrangement. Branwen boards her own horse there, and on the rare evenings she leaves the clinic at a reasonable hour, she can often be found hacking quietly through the back paddocks on him. Those who know her well consider this the closest she comes to switching off.
In what remains of her free time, she reads. Fantasy, mostly — the kind with magic systems and slow burn romance and characters who earn their endings. Her sister finds this information funnier than Branwen thinks is strictly necessary.
UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
Sport Injury & Rehabilitation
General Equine Practice
Dylan Vaughan
He lets the work speak. It always has plenty to say.
Dylan Vaughan does not say much to people he has just met. He arrives, assesses the horse, does what needs to be done, and leaves the animal better than he found it. He has been doing this his entire working life, and the horses — whatever their opinions about everything else — tend to trust him quickly.
Cousin to Rhianon and Branwen, he grew up alongside them, and anyone who assumes his quietness with strangers extends to his family would be mistaken. Around the people he was raised with he is easy company — quick with a dry observation, reliably good for dinner conversation, and considerably more words than most of his clients ever hear from him.
He studied Farriery and Podiatry at the University of Tennessee. He had no particular interest in going further afield. Tennessee suited him then and suits him now, and a formal degree told him what he already suspected — that this was a craft worth doing properly. When Branwen bought the clinic, he was the first person she called. He said yes before she finished the sentence.
He boards his own horse at Willow Tree Ltd, next door, which means on most mornings all three Vaughans can be found somewhere on the same stretch of property before the working day begins.
Outside the clinic he builds things. He has a workshop at his home and a particular love of carpentry — patient, precise work that suits the same part of him that makes him good with horses. The shelving in the clinic, the storage in Rhianon's tack room, the bench outside the wash stall — most of it is his. He doesn't mention this unless asked, and sometimes not even then.
He also takes his coffee very seriously. Black, with cream, with or without sugar depending on the day — but always good coffee. This is non-negotiable and the one subject on which he will speak at length to anyone who asks.
University of Tennessee
Warmblood & draft breeds
Remedial & corrective work