By JP Phillips
Contributing Writer

New Bolton Center sits behind an unimposing sign just a few miles west of Landhope Farms at 382 West Street Road. Some residents may be surprised to learn that it is home to a top-rate teaching facility and research center in addition to being a world-renowned large animal hospital.  According to Rita Giordano, the director of content and news media for the University of Pennsylvania’s school of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet), more than 425 employees work at the center.  That includes 70 Penn Vet faculty members and clinicians who administer veterinary care, teach, conduct research, and work in the diagnostic and pathology laboratories.

According to their website, Penn Vet graduated its first students almost 130 years ago, in 1887.  In 1952, 200 acres were purchased by the school in East Marlborough Township and New Bolton Center was born. Today, the New Bolton campus is comprised of 700 acres and includes inpatient and outpatient hospital facilities, rehab areas, research labs, their field service headquarters, and teaching herds for the students to learn diagnostic skills and proper care.

New Bolton Center is really three organizations in one:  large animal care, teaching school, and research center.

The hospital handles more than 6,000 patients annually, and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Patients include goats, sheep, pigs, cows, alpacas, and horses—including racehorses. Barbaro, the famous 2007 Kentucky Derby winner, was treated here after he suffered a severe injury during the Preakness (he eventually needed to be euthanized).

The hospital is equipped with many advanced features, such as a warm water recovery tank.  Animals coming out of anesthesia may be disoriented and prone to hurting themselves as they regain consciousness.  The surgery center has a special monorail system that transports the animal into a pool where they regain consciousness in a special raft and harness.  They are returned to dry land when they are fully conscious, reducing the chances that they will re-injure the surgical areas.  

Other facilities and services include a dedicated equine performance evaluation area, breeding advice and services, an animal treadmill and the latest in high-tech ultrasound, echocardiography, EKG, and radio-telemetry equipment to detect health problems.

Owners can drive their animals to the center—or they can be treated on the farm by the Field Service division.  According to Giordano, there are twelve clinicians with fully-equipped trucks that travel throughout Chester County making regularly scheduled farm calls and emergency visits.  Eight of them specialize in horses, and the other four are food animal vets who focus on milk- and meat-producing animals.  According to the New Bolton website, the large animal Field Service Ambulatory Practice treats around 21,000 patients across 2,800 square miles in southeastern Pennsylvania and the surrounding regions. Giordano added that, as a group, they travel nearly 183,000 miles over the course of a year.

Dr. Mary Jane (MJ) Drake is one of the traveling food animal vets. 

“We're the ambulatory arm of the New Bolton Center,” she explained.  

Each vet has a fully-equipped truck with just about everything they might need for a routine or emergency visit. “We have to bring the hospital to the farm,” Drake said. The truck has drawers for all sorts of medications, vaccines, portable ultrasound, surgery equipment like washes and sutures.  She even has a hose. 

“If I'm in a field, and I need to wash my boots or I just need water to clean something off, I have water right in my truck,” Drake said. “All my vaccines are in the fridge. All of my needles and syringes that we use and blood tubes…[we] just have to be ready for anything.” 

Another arm of New Bolton’s operation is to serve as a teaching hospital.  After obtaining an undergraduate degree, the prospective student has to demonstrate real interest and experience besides academic prowess.  

“It’s expensive and it’s four years more of school, so they [Penn Vet Admissions] want to know that you've done your homework before just jumping right in,” she said.  The first two or three years consists of classrooms, labs, and lectures to build the foundational knowledge, which occurs mostly at the main campus in Philadelphia.  “And then the clinical year, which was the last year and a half of vet school for me, was just being on clinical rotation. You’re working alongside the veterinarians in the hospital, with the residents and interns and seeing cases. So that’s when students come here (New Bolton).”  

She explained that there are different specialties—food animals and small animals and exotics (hamsters, birds, rabbits, snakes and other reptiles, for example), although each student must learn about every animal.  In fact, the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE), which every practicing vet in the U.S. must pass, is standard regardless of the student’s specialty.

Drake confirmed that the veterinary field is dominated by women and small animal (versus large animal) practice.  “According to the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association), among 2024 vet school graduates nationwide, 81 percent were female,” she said.  In the 2026 Penn Vet graduating class of about 130, over 80 percent plan to go into small animal practice.  Over time, this will cause significant challenges in caring for farm animals.  

Drake is also a teacher, giving students hands-on experience through calls on local farms.  “They'll come on the calls with me every day to see what I do and help, “ she said.  She takes one to three students out with her most days, discussing symptoms, remedies, and what to expect at the next call as she drives from farm to farm.  

New Bolton also has its own herds for both research trials and for giving students real-life provider experience.  There are 180 cows permanently living on the Marshak Dairy located on campus.

The third key component of New Bolton Center is as a research facility. Giordano provided a list with key projects happening right now:

Equine

• Understanding the causes of laminitis (a common, painful hoof condition) to improve the prevention and treatment of the disease;
• Exploring regenerative therapies to improve musculoskeletal healing and cartilage repair in horses with post-traumatic osteoarthritis;
• New procedures for optimizing lung ventilation and blood flow in anesthetized horses;
• The effect of chiropractic adjustment on horse movement;
• Surgical approaches to treat fungal infections of the guttural pouch in the throat of the horse (potentially life-threatening);
• New methods to detect the bacterium that causes equine Strangles (an upper respiratory disease that is common and highly contagious);
• Effect of a treatment to control insulin levels in horses with metabolic disease;
• Methods to measure eye pressure in horses with eye disease.

 Dairy

• Upcycling culled citrus fruit as feed for dairy cattle, reducing CO2 emissions and feed costs;
• Introducing an additive to colostrum to increase beneficial gut bacteria in calves;
• Effects of dietary zinc on the gut microbiome of the gestating cow and neonatal calf.

Drake explained that research done here can often be applied to improving the environment and human lives.  

“There's microbiome research in cattle, looking at how we can alter or help the microbiome of cattle to reduce methane emissions,” she said. Drake also highlighted orthopedic research, where studies on arthritic horses can be used as a transitional model to apply learnings to human osteoarthritis.  

 The research is funded by a combination of federal, state, and private grants.  According to the March 17, 2025 article in the Penn student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn received over $1 billion in federal research funds in 2024 (all departments, not just Penn Vet).  With the current federal administration position on tying funding to upholding specific priorities and values, there is understandable concern.

Penn posted a statement on their communications website.  “Penn is closely monitoring federal policy changes affecting institutions of higher education and academic health systems. These include a broad range of government actions that impact the University’s missions, operations, and community. Penn’s leadership is directly engaged with public officials to advocate vigorously for the essential role of higher education, scientific discovery, our values, and our service to the greater good.”

Learn more about New Bolton by visiting their website (https://www.vet.upenn.edu/new-bolton-center/) and following their Facebook page (Penn Vet New Bolton Center).