Ipswich Horse Industry Meeting Minutes

Date: 06/10/07
Location: Ipswich Showground
Time: 1.00pm

Speakers: Chairman: Vivian Edwards DVSc
Peter Toft – Arabian breeder/exporter/international endurance rider.
Janine Dwyer DVSc
Richard Toft DVSc – Brookfield Vet
David Lovell DVSc – Redlands Vet Clinic
Dr Jim Varghese – Director General DPI & F
Ian Douglas – Biosecurity representative for Qld
Mike Bond – Aust. Quarantine Inspection Services
Mike Horan – Shadow Minister for DPI & F

The meeting was opened by Chairman Dr Vivian Edwards DVSc

He acknowledged Peter Toft and others present for their efforts and for attending.

He stressed that the meeting should be peaceful and should offer no blame on any body or person present. Thanks was given to Ipswich Showground who offered the facilities free of charge.

First Speaker: Organiser Peter Toft
Peter thanked the horse industry for their responsibility and presence and stressed that there is a need to pull together and to unite to protect our industry.

He felt that answers were asked for from govt officials by those present representing the pleasure horse industry and that better communication for our industry was needed and wanted from them.

He stated that everyone wants to resume their livelihoods and lifestyles.
Peter also stated that there was a need for the equine industry to support the DPI and government.

Thanks were given to media for attending.

Second Speaker: Janine Dwyer DVSc
Janine was involved with the Morgan Park, Warwick lockdown as an attending veterinarian and also at Tamborine Village and other infected properties.

She felt there needs to be recognition that there are many properties not affected despite being near affected ones.

She stated that while EI is considered a mild disease it still has drastic effects.

Her belief is for eradication.

She claims many horses are foaling without high loss of foals.

She stressed the need for plans by individuals to be prepared for the virus should it affect their horses.

30% of her clients are affected. And she is managing much of those over the phone.

Horse owners should presume that any horse with a cough and a temp has the EI virus.

At Morgan Park 100% of the 252 horses there were affected by day 5 – 252 horses. This is symbolic of this condition.

Any temp over 38%C is not normal.

All horses with this virus need rest. She recommend stop working horses if virus is in your area as horses can be carrying the virus for 3 days before symptoms show and there could be damage to the lungs if a horse is in work.

She stated that a low temp is not a bad thing, but be very careful of high temps and to use fans, hosing to bring temps down.

She stressed that using too much Bute is not a good thing and could be dangerous.

She recommended taking temps twice a day and only to use Bute with high temps. She suggested recording the temperatures. She also stressed that it is the secondary infections which are dangerous. Green nasal discharge is a sign.

There are dangers associated with anti-biotic treatment and owners will need to work this out with their vet.

She mentioned that some horses will show some blood stained mucous when coughing. She also mentioned that paddocked horses seem to contract a milder form of the virus, so horses are best kept out and fed with heads down to drain nasal passages.

She also recommended that owners keep feeding simple using a high fibre, low concentrate diet.

Electrolytes are not recommended. Drinking should be encouraged.
Janine also recommended not visiting other horse properties, especially in infected areas.

If you become infected – don’t go out at all if possible. Buy in enough food to last 2 weeks.

She stressed the need for frequent showering, washing hair and clothing and disinfecting etc. Also washing cars.

She also advised wearing a mask as she believed the virus can live in nose hairs for up to 3 days.

She also stressed the urgent need for horse owners to stay within the buffer zone to reduce the likelihood of the virus travelling further, that should it do so would be catastrophic to our industry. She believes eradication is the best solution and containment the only way to achieve this.

Third Speaker: Richard Toft DVSc - Brookfield

He stated that vets were working closely together and sharing experiences of complications.

He is particularly concerned with older horses on poor diets. In these cases the virus should be treated aggressively. Impaction colics are a real problem and that psyllium husks and a high fibre diet is essential for all horses and particularly older horses.

His concern was also with foals. Low mortality rate, but should be checked 3-4 times a day. Fluids must be kept up.

He reiterated what Janine Dwyer had said with regard to Anti-Biotics and that these should only be used in the case of secondary infection.

Fourth Speaker: David Lovell DVSc – Redlands Vet Clinic

David stated that he had asked to speak prior to official guests to give them an opportunity to respond to his questions.

He had attended a meeting a couple of days prior of 15 vets to discuss the EI issue.

He expressed great concern with the current situation and stated that a bulletin he received last night stated everything under was under control.

David questioned this. (Applause from crowd)
He expresses concern that this situation might go on and on and mentioned that his colleague Dr Reg Pascoe had predicted this scenario many years ago.

He mentioned the AUSVET plan which he maintained was the best document available at this time. This was put together through the efforts of many industry professionals but although input was extended to pleasure horse owners/breeders there was a general complacency and lack of appreciation or understanding of how an introduced disease such as EI could impact our industry. Consequently very few industry people had any input.

He pointed out that the AUSVET plan is now the law.

Dr Lovell stressed that there should be no criticism of the DPI. He believed they are doing the best they can and that perhaps we should criticise the people who make the laws, not those who uphold them. He feels that as an industry we should direct problems to the politicians.

He also stated that he believes the EI virus is out of control and that he believes that this is a logical belief.

Dr Lovell believes that for every 1 property confirmed that there are at least 4 with EI which are not confirmed and that meant that there may be 2,500 properties affected in Qld as of now.

Dr Lovell was concerned that there are no accurate, objective figures of this disease or of the number of horses within any of the zones.

He mentioned that the AUSVET plan supported containment and that this was the objective of the DPI and government.

He also stated that Warwick provided the ultimate opportunity to contain disease. But that it escaped and still wasn’t contained. He felt that those horses who did leave gave another opportunity to for containment, but this wasn’t achieved either.

When racing was allowed to resume temporarily he stated that this was a big mistake.

Despite strict controls it still wasn’t contained.

Regarding Vaccination Dr Lovell had two criticisms – 1: there was a great deal of confusion surrounding the vaccination program. 2: He questioned whether vaccination would work.

He felt there was a week wasted while the vaccination program was implemented, and that the plan was then changed – back to a broad buffer zone – which he believes is the correct approach.

He stated that his colleague in Sydney, Dr Tim Roberts at Randwick Racecourse had recommended the broad buffer zone.

Dr Lovell acknowledged the organization of the racing industry as compared with the pleasure horse industry.

He believes that vaccination should have been used to secure the entire buffer zone and not just used on racehorses.

He feels strongly that all our objectives should be to eradicate the EI virus.
He believes we still haven’t seen a strategy towards containing the virus within the red zone and that a positive plan was needed to control it within the red zone – quickly.

He believes that a primary problem is that there is no strategic plan to eradicate the virus and that goals should be defined. He felt there were three goals we could begin with:

• Foremost should be a concern for horse welfare.
• Second should be getting the industry back to work as quickly as possible.
• Thirdly, eradication of the virus was essential.

Dr Lovell mentioned that the AUSVET plan doesn’t address getting the industry back to work.

He also mentioned the loss of gambling revenue to the government but he questioned it’s understanding of the pleasure horse industry.

He believed that we are not getting proper answers from DPI and govt.
He also stated that no business can survive in the current situation, but there is still need for our primary aim to be eradication of the virus.

He believes that containment is working within the buffer zones.

He also stated that he and group of vets is working on a plan.
First consideration is to ensure all horses in red zone are cured and all horses in red zone are vaccinated and disease is eradicated. Every horse in the red zone should be immune.

• All horses in the red zone have to be identified.
• All horses should be assigned a status
• All horses should be vaccinated

He then talked about the types of vaccines available.
He stated that he was grateful for the opportunity to present his opinion to govt officials.

Fifth Speaker – Dr Jim Varghese – Director General DPI&F, representing Qld government

Jim Varghese introduced the DPI officials present and welcomed all the vets and made comments on the constructive comments made from them.
He then made mention that Oct 6 was Day 42 of the crisis.

He stated that 200 people were rostered on a daily basis by the DPI and that there are some 700 people altogether within the DPI working on the situation.

He advised that there were 24,0000 calls received at the call centre and that the website received huge numbers of hits every day.

He made apologies for mistakes made but mentioned the scale of the situation.

He stated that the Biosecurity department has 56 vets on staff plus private vets who were consulted with.

He feels that containment is successful within red zone and buffer zone despite the contagiousness of EI.

He stated that there was a need for buffer zone perimeters to be strengthened. He also mentioned that the virus was not usually fatal.
He agreed with Dr David Lovell’s opinion that there is a need for the industry to go back to normal as soon as possible.

He also mentioned the AUSVET plan and the need to stick with this national plan.

He raised two points which concerned him:

• movement of people and spread of the contagionthe need to be
• committed to the containment within the buffer zone

He confirmed that yesterday 10,000 doses of canary vaccine were available to put into buffer zone.

He talked about structure being necessary and the use of vaccination to contain the virus. He stated that horses may still catch virus when vaccinated but symptoms would be less.

He mentioned the need for studies to gauge the effect of the disease on the economy and that there was a State Disaster Management Group.

He stressed the need for better communication between the DPI and the community and mentioned the 7 day a week community advisory centres which have been put in place. He appealed to individuals to help if they want.

He thanked everyone present for attending.

Sixth Speaker - Ian Douglas, Biosecurity representative for Qld
Mr Douglas spoke about recognising the need for national support on this issue.

He spoke about Animal Health Australia being a very small group which also included the bodies of industry as follows:
Australian Horse Industry Council
Racing Industry
Harness Racing

He urged the need for industry to use these organizations.

He mentioned the difficulty of getting the message out to everyone.

Regarding vaccination, the mentioned that AHA had been instrumental in the selection and ordering of vaccines and stated that 6,000 vaccines were arriving tonight.

150,000 doses had been imported. In his view, these were adequate number’s to deal with the virus in buffer zones in NSW and Qld.

He also mentioned that the AHA had a small staff, which was working very hard, in the same manner as the DPI.

He felt we should all be proud of the AUSVET plan which was the yardstick we are all working to and mentioned that the AUSVET Plan manuals were used around the world by various countries.

He also urged the need for us all to work together with determination and wind up with a stronger industry having learned from this experience.
Mike Bond – Australian Quarantine Inspection Services
Congratulated organisers for their efforts.

Was concerned about gathering of people who might be infected and need for everyone to be careful by diligently disinfecting.

Believes the standstill has contributed to containment and believes this has been well managed considering.

Stated that we can’t eradicate the EI virus disease and expect to behave normally.

If disease can be contained within red zone – disease would be over in 4 weeks.

Believes the focus needs to be on people not moving disease out of buffer zones.

The Chairman then calls on Andrew Stevens, Nicole Tough & Nicole Magoffin, horse owners who have recently come out of enforced lockdown at Minden and Warwick.

Andrew Stevens – Minden horse owner, first property locked down in Qld
Andrew’s property was infected 5 days before Warwick by a horse returning from the Maitland event. They were quarantined on Monday the 27th August.

He mentions the frustration experienced by the pleasure horse industry and the communication issues between authorities and horse owners.
Andrew felt there is a lack of detail from the DPI on where to from here. He is concerned about whether there is a light at the end of tunnel. When might it all be over?

(Huge applause.)
He felt that business people would like to know.

He also mentioned that there was no warning to anyone in Andrews district. There was no media notice apart from the Racing Industry.

Local people with ponies had no idea that they even had the disease and thought their ponies had colds, that the virus only effected racehorses.

He felt there was a lack of pro-activity, and also no monitoring done, despite claims by the DPI., and that better communication measures were necessary. He believes that the lack of communication has very probably contributed to the spread of the disease.

Noel Chiconi – President of Aust. Campdraft Assoc.
Noel felt the EI situation reflects the need for a Minister for Pleasure Horses, in the same way there is a Minister for racing.

He believes there should be one rulebook for everyone.

He recognises that we should accept short term loss in hope of long term gain.

He mentions the patience of campdrafting people and the learning curve they have experienced in this situation. Believes it is time to take a step forward to resolve the situation.

He mentions the evident lack of communication an the need for the right messages to get out there.

He also mentioned that not only businesses were suffering financially but also associations.

Noel stressed the worth of the horse industry to the Aust. Economy and the need for this to be looked at and appreciated.

Nicole Tough – Dressage Competitor locked down at Morgan Park after invitation to do a 15 minute dressage display by the Horse Trials committee.

Nicole thanks Peter Toft for giving her the opportunity to speak.

She stated that there had only been a vague understanding of there being an outbreak by the competitors at the Morgan Park, Warwick event. Organisers actually notified the authorities that there were horses showing symptoms.

She also stated that the President of the Warwick Horse Trials Group locked down Morgan Park before the DPI did.

The attending vet at the event, Dr Nathan Anthony, made contingency plans in case of emergency operations – but despite his recognition that this might be necessary, that there is STILL is no emergency hospital provided by the DPI or government vets.

She queried why the buffer zone was not implemented start straight away the day after the lockdown at Morgan Park.

Nicole mentioned that one of the things that sustained all the people locked down at Morgan Park was the thought that they were achieving something for the larger equestrian community, and that to find on leaving to go home that the disease was apparently out of control, was very distressing to all. She stated that the virus was near to her property on the Gold Coast and is faced with being locked down and having to go through it all again.

She felt that ithe Morgan Park experience had been a totally pointless excercise.

She mentioned that Biosecurity measures appeared to change frequently and believes that authorities were totally unprepared.

She also pointed out that there were plenty of horse people in dire need of work if the DPI were short of people to help. (Huge applause)
Regarding the Vaccination situation – she felt we all need to know what is really happening.

Nicole went on to mention that the Racing industry is not the only equestrian industry. She asked the question – “What about the rest of us? We want our livelihoods back!”

Nicole gave thanks to those organisations which provided so many sevices during the Morgan Park lockdown.

She then gave thanks to the DPI for their $200 contribution!
She felt that in conclusion, we need to work together as an industry, and that we need a Minister of our own, and that there was a definite need for the equine community to be recognised as a whole.

Nicole also mentioned that those people with immune horses should have travel permits.

She also felt that the Racing industry should review their relationship with the DPI and ask the question – why didn’t the Eastern Ck facility do their job?

Nicole Magoffin – also invited to ride a dressage demonstration at Morgan Park.

Nicole M. stood with Nicole Tough on every issue she had raised and wanted to aver that pleasure horse owners/riders as an industry have to stop this ourselves by being more proactive and to do as much as we can.

Mike Horan –Shadow Minister for DPI&F
Began by wanting to talk positively about the people who had talked today.
He felt the presentations had been spot on.

He mentioned that he breeds Australian Stock Horses and was familiar with the industry.

He mentioned the need to be practical and pragmatic.

He spoke about the very fast spread of the EI virus and mentioned all the various means that it could be transmitted – birds, flies, people, dogs.
He recognised the need for a plan which addresses the next few weeks and felt that a Vaccination program was of the utmost urgency and critical for the industry.

He urged the DPI and federal government to get vaccinations within the red zone happening and also felt that buffer zones needed to be strengthened.

Regarding the communication issue – he believes that the situation should have received the full media treatment; full page adds, television exposure, letterbox drops etc.

He mentioned that the funding discrepancy regarding TB horses receiving more per day than the Recreational Industry was calculated on prizemoney.

He also stated that the TB and Harness Industry were stronger and more organised with regard to having one voice. He felt that a lesson to be learned is that we need one organization to cover the entire industry - a single voice.

He thanked Peter Toft and all speakers and implored govt officials to sort it out as soon as possible.

Matthew Cronin - representing the QLD Endurance riders Assoc.
Matthew raised the Dollar value question – he wanted to know the % allocation of dollars spent to the Industry.

Jim Varghese responded with new information regarding a once off levy payment of $10 by horse owners to fund vaccinations
Phil Hughes – president of Polocrosse Assoc.

Phil wanted to know where we going from here? Exactly how do we get rid of the virus inside of buffer zone? What is strategy to contain it within this area?

Jim Varghese answers that the vaccination program has begun to do this, that he believe that the disease will burn itself out within the buffer zone with vaccinations.

Phil Hughes expressed the need for government to be looking to free up the situation as much as possible so people can go back to normal.

Phil wants to clarify that all horses within red zones will be vaccinated, not just racehorses and elite horses, or only some horses on one property.

CHAPs Funding Spokesman
Raised the point that people who don’t have an ABN number are not eligible for funding and that only 109 people had applied for CHAPs funding to date.

He asked how many additional staff had been put on by State Govt to cover this national emergency?

Jim Varghese responded that the DPI had increased staff by 595 people – 40% of staff through govt agencies, 10% extra staff.

Speaker felt the question wasn’t answered.

Helen Daniels from Gympie

Helen mentioned that there is no sign on the highway from Gympie down to Brisbane stating that there should be no horse movement.

She also wanted to know how this is going to work. Was it the intention to vaccinate every horse in the buffer zone?

The answer from Mike Bond was yes.

Tracey, Soward-Amalfi. Nutritionist from Hyfeed and horse breeder
Tracey stated she had called the DPI at least 50 times and couldn’t get answers.

She wanted to know who has to wear the costs of vaccination and why should the pleasure industry have to pay at all when they were not responsible for the outbreak.

She pointed out that where horses are quarantined the costs are covered, where they are not quarantined the owner wears the costs.

At this point the meeting ended. Most people left, obviously very disgruntled.

Acknowledgements extended to:
R.T. Edwards, Ipswich for providing TV monitors
David Gadsby of Printcraft for providing posters (of a foal called EIEIO representing future growth of our industry)
Horses & People Magazine for taking the minutes and videoing & photographing the proceedings.
Animals Downunder for editing industry video material used on the day.