BEIJING - If you're just horsin' around, you could argue that Tim Ober is the Virginian who has had the best Olympics so far.

He's been affiliated with two gold medals, a silver and a bronze for the United States. In a rare Olympic performance, he helped win a gold and silver for Canada, too.

But Ober hasn't run a race or swum a lap or shot a ball.

He's provided physiotherapy to horses and, on occasion, performed a bit of equine chiropractic.

Ober, 44, of Gordonsville, is the U.S. Equestrian Federation's veterinarian who has been tending to Olympic horses in Hong Kong, where the 2008 Olympic equestrian competition was held.

The American humans and their horses had a heckuva Games, with the Americans winning gold in team jumping, silver in eventing and a bronze in jumping. He also worked with Canada's medal-winning stable.

"No, I don't get any medals," said Ober, a graduate of Tufts University vet school who travels around the nation and world to work with high-performance horses.

This isn't your grandparents' vet. In Hong Kong, Ober said, he used high-powered lasers to help healing, electronic stimulation of muscles and ultrasound on horses such as McKinlagh and Authentic, which won medals for their riders.

Before the Olympics, he spent time in quarantine with the U.S. horses in the Netherlands.

"I've been with these horses since February," Ober said. "We built momentum."

He added: "It doesn't matter if it's an Olympic medalist or a local competition horse. They experience a lot of the same problems."

But winning Olympic medals, being a vet to the stars?

"That's very rewarding," Ober said.

As for his horses/patients, they weren't available to comment.