well it doesn't matter if they were negligent or not if they are a wonderful state like Virginia and the only thing you can hope to redeem in a civil suit is the cost to replace the horse. And unless you have an appraisal good luck, as a lot of times they are viewed under one general category, LIVESTOCK, to which you might be able to redeem pound value.
Long story short: I lost a Great Dane in Nov '06 during a spay. Basically what came out of that was that, while sedated, they dropped my 150# dog on the floor/table flipped over. Proceeded to pull the table up and slap dog back on it to finish. Mind you this is a good 3.5 to 4 feet drop. To a hard floor. Don't think it can screw up things fling yourself down and see. Anyway they put her in the back of the kennel..... they forget she is there, and the receptionist who wanted to see the DANE, went back looking for her and found her dead, drowned in her own blood, about a gallon in her abdomen. (I also have this whole account of oh my we dropped the ball big time by them on tape)
We reported it to the VET BOARD....Let me go on record and say these boards are a bunch of f******g bull****. After she tells what happens (same as above) and proceeds to go but it wasn't me it was
my staff , they obviously did not do their part right, the Vet Board concludes she has done NOTHING wrong and dismisses the whole freaking complaint. Even when they have a sworn statement from a vet tech that tried to tell her not to go on with surgery and she was basically told to shut up by this compassionate piece of shit vet. VET BOARDS PROTECT VETS.... if you never have to know that feeling I wish that, if you do just expect you can have the vet on video screwing up and nothing will come of it. (As you probably altered the video somehow

) And this was not even heard by them until Nov of 2007. So now we sit with an attorney contemplating the next move.
So my advice get an ATTORNEY. Right now there is nothing in place in many states to protect animal and owners rights. To say that one does not experience pure heartache at the loss of a "friend" makes me seeth with anger. My animals are not PURE poroperty...I sure as hell don't spend over 8k a year on my damn lawn mower. If the only thing that comes out of this is a monetary loss, then so be it, at least it was tried. Since Vets can charge as much as human doctors in many cases they need to be held just as responsible.