TALK ABOUT DOUBLE STANDARDS!!!!

I just received my October’s Horse Magazine in the post this morning and after a quick flick came across this extremely interesting piece of information provided by Heath Ryan in his Ryan’s Rave section of the magazine. Ever since the EI outbreak occurred I have wondered (along with many) HOW did & how was this disease able to get into the country in the first place? I basically had a general understanding that horses had to do 3 weeks quarantine in the UK before leaving to come to Australia then I thought they had to do another 2-3 weeks quarantine once in Australia. If this were the case then I came to the conclusion that it would be VERY hard for EI to remain undetected in horses “before” they actually left for Australia given the time frame of the period of incubation & infectious period… However I had no knowledge of what the procedures were for horses coming from the USA or Japan. In Heath’s article he states a very important bit of information which would explain how a horse was allowed to travel from a foreign country, carrying the supposedly undetected EI virus. I quote from Heath’s article in the Horse Magazine, note the bold & underlined bits I have included!:

‘Traditionally I am used to doing 3 weeks quarantine in a government quarantine facility either in Germany, England or the USA and then flying into Eastern Creek for a further 2 weeks quarantine. Bearing in mind that EI has an incubation period of 1 to 5 days and actively stays alive in its host for up to 10 days this means that in a 21 day quarantine situation, a) it will be easily detected, b) even if it wasn’t detected it can’t survive that period of time. So you would think that it is nearly impossible for an infected horse to get into Eastern Creek.

Unfortunately race horses seem to have a totally separate set of quarantine rules. Why, is totally beyond me, other that this industry has more money and is cheating on the rest of us. To import from Japan is 21 days for you and I, 14 days for a race horse and an unbelievable 7 days for a re-import (a horse that goes over to race and then returns immediately after that race). In the USA for you and I, its 21 days, for a race horse- 14 days. In Great Britain for you and I, 21 days, for a race horse, thank goodness, 21 days. There are lots of other anomalies out there and those of you interested in researching simply look up www.daff.gov.au (Australia Quarantine and Inspection Service).’ (unquote)

Now I don’t think anyone can come up with any logical reasoning WHY race horses do not have the same quarantine requirement as every other non racing horse!!! It just doesn’t make sense… If anything racehorses are probably more likely or more susceptible to carrying or transmitting diseases (un-intentionally) seeing as though they are exposed to such a large population number & range and because they cover such large distances to race regularly. Before this saga began I was under the assumption that Australia had some of the best quarantine standards in the world… OBVIOUSLY NOT!!!! And did who-ever who thought up these double quarantine standards every stop & think of the ramifications these anomalies would have if a disease such as foot & mouth was ever able to enter the country?... EI would be a walk in the park compared to foot & mouth!! We could kiss our agricultural industry goodbye alone with the livelihoods of everyone involved in these industries…

The whole double standards system between the racing industry & non-racing industry really upsets me, its actually very discriminating how the racing industry has treated the performance or non racing industry ever since this outbreak first occurred. We can play the blame game from here until the cows come home but from where I stand not enough is being down to try to contain & eradicate this disease! WHY I ask have I just heard on the radio that VIC has been given 7000 doses of vaccine to vaccinate racehorses when they are currently EI free? Why can’t the politicians & those in the racing industry see that it would be better to allocate those 7000 doses of vaccine to create buffer zones around infected areas in NSW & QLD instead of using them where they are not currently required… By allocating resources inefficiently it is just delaying and preventing the containment & eradication program. I know there is huge amounts of money tied up in racing and more importantly the spring carnival in VIC but shouldn’t the more important objective and ultimately the bigger picture be to concentrate on containment & eradication?... Personally, I think the national wide standstill should have remained in place with cancellation of ALL horse event’s including racing… that even means cancelling the Melbourne Cup if needed! I love watching the Melbourne Cup but if cancelling all events including this would help prevent the spread of this disease and eventually allow it to be eradicated then I am all for it!! Obviously allowing racehorses to return to training & racing in SE QLD did not help the situation… all it did was spread the disease a bit more & force the shut down of the racing in SE QLD till next year… It also appears that the racehorses have been given first priority to vaccines in QLD as well… Why is everyone else so less important!...

This article- http://www.theage.com.au/news/horse-racing/williams-warns-on-vaccinations/2007/09/27/1190486481819.html about VIC trainer Lloyd Williams gives an interesting insight into the potential consequences of vaccinating the Victorian race horses. He states that they will suffer a 25% loss in workload because horses have to be rested after each vaccination which will interrupt & affect the horse’s training & racing programs… I wonder if this had been considered by others before!...

Carissa
N QLD