Horse flu cuts Snowy River Festival horse numbers

Another event in the New South Wales high country is being hit by fallout from the equine influenza outbreak.

The Snowy River Festival will go ahead this weekend at Dalgety, but only with a fraction of the horses that would normally attend because of travel bans imposed by the Department of Primary Industries.
Organisers have compensated by finding alternative events to entertain the thousands of people who make the annual pilgrimage to the Snowy Mountains.
Spokeswoman Cecilia Welsmore says biosecurity will be in force on the day.
"We'll be at the gates having footrot baths just for people to keep their boots clean," she said.
"Most people have showered and cleaned themselves, but their boots may still have something that could be carrying the horse flu on it.
"In conjunction with our Rural Lands Department, they have suggested the footrot baths would be a good idea and so they are just full of wool and disinfectant and people just have to walk through that and it's not very sensitive at all."