Welfare of ex racehorses

I have a couple of questions regarding the use of live canary pox vaccine and the ongoing effects to horses.

I am under the impression that horses need time to get over the flu, weeks to months depending on severity of symptoms, yet we keep hearing that racing will be resuming by December in Queensland. It is my understanding that the trainers at Ipswich have been ‘told’ to keep training, they must keep the track open even though there is EI at the stables around Bundamba!! These horse were all vaccinated with the live vaccine but many have contracted EI before the vaccine was effective.

Are there horses that use the Ipswich track being ‘worked’ when perhaps they should not be? If this is the case there is a flow on that will affect not just the horses but also the people that use ex racehorses.

Let’s play devil’s advocate here for a moment, the racehorse is in work too early, hasn’t fully recovered (even though he/she looks fine) as training progresses to faster work, he/she suffers a set back, maybe a respiratory infection?, this hangs around, perhaps he/she bleeds? Or there is permanent lung damage? and ultimately economics force the ‘sacking’ of this horse – let’s face it there are more owners, trainers and horses on the borderline going round in racing than there are at elite level so economics plays a huge part. The terrible wastage in the racing industry is already well documented.

Generally we see the horse sold to the pleasure and performance part of the industry or dogged if a buyer is not found, there are some that spend their lives as paddock companions to young stock.

Is it correct that horses that have been given the live vaccine cannot be ‘dogged’? If it is, what will happen to the horses that are sacked by trainers or owners with no decent land to retire the horse to, how many of the owners would still want to (or could afford to) feed the sacked horse at todays hay prices for possibly the next twenty years (there wouldn’t be many I’m sure)

So a horse that could possibly bring money to the owner, from the pleasure and performance industry or from the doggers is now going to cost the owner even more money to euthanaise and dispose of (I’ve had to do that so I know what it costs)

There is another part to this story as well – let’s say one of these horses becomes an elite level event horse and gets on the Aussie team to go to NZ, elsewhere on this blog it has been written that NZ will not allow entry to horses that have been given the live vaccine (is this true? Is it a short term issue only or is it for the life of the horse?) so this horse cannot go there to compete. I realise that not every rider has either the ambition or ability to get on the team squad but such a purchaser may just find that the horse has the ability with a ‘professional’ rider (this happens, I have personal experience of this) Will this make a difference to those people purchasing the ex race horse?

What happens to the pleasure and performance owner with an old/sick horse in the future that has to be disposed of, not everyone has enough land or lives in a shire that will allow burial on the property.
Will we see more responsible horse ownership and disposal in the future? Will we need a new sector in the industry to dispose of the unwanted vaccinated horses?

This has the potential to become a huge welfare issue (look at the USA states that have banned ‘dogging’) as horses starve to death in paddocks with no feed in drought conditions.
Pam, Esk, SE QLD