Social Manipulation

I have followed the EI saga since the beginning, and been affected due to our horses getting sick and recovering. Now we are in a Purple zone.

I have become resentful of the clumsy social manipulation being practised - either consciously or unconsciously - by the authorities.

In the very beginning, a blame game was played where there was a virtual witchhunt to identify the source of the outbreak, followed by much official sabre-rattling over who would "pay". In reality, lax procedures in quarantine were an accident waiting to happen but control of an invisible microscopic virus was always going to be problematic. The concept of blame and division spread with the outbreak, setting neighbours against one another. The information on how the virus spread was incomplete to the point of being inaccurate - people were not adequately informed about how it spreads quickly on the breeze and by flies, birds etc, they were told humans were to blame in almost all cases. Some information about the virus has been suppressed altogether (they will say "merely not publicised" or that it was "to prevent people being alarmed").

The public were told that immunisation was not an option, and that they were well-advised not to ask for it due to costs, ineffectiveness, adverse reactions and so on. Many people formed their opinions based on this phase of the spin-doctoring. When an about-turn was made, the public were then expected to embrace the concept of immunisation as the silver bullet that would halt the outbreak.

Meanwhile, ordinary horse owners became more and more cynical as they observed the inequities between themselves and the racing community in terms of the rules applying to immunisation, movements and events. All horses - and horse owners - were apparently NOT equal. Zones were introduced but decisions were made arbitrarily and zoning was changed in many cases without warning.

The profile of the disease we were given was inaccurate - the incubation period was in some cases longer than expected, the symptoms were sometimes different, the probability for mutation appears to have been much higher than originally expected (you may hear about this eventually), the effect on foaling mares was more severe than hoped, it can be CAUGHT by dogs (not just physically transferred - did you know that? Has your dog been sick?), and now it seems that some recovered horses do NOT have the immunity expected (this is one reason for swabs/microchips being required for recovered horses). The after-effects of the virus can result in some apparently well horses collapsing and even dying when put back into work.

The survey sent out has, it appears, revealed effects on the social fabric of the horse community that reach much further than was expected. People who make their living through the industry have been severely financially and thus emaotionally affected, but there have also been negative flow-on effects to do with social life, communities, families and so on as a result of loss of recreation and impact on social interaction.

Now the authorities are asking an increasingly cynical community to try to "get back to normal" with activities and events on the one hand, while imposing unreasonable conditions on the other. The idea that you can suddenly pull spelling horses out of the paddock and go out and compete is ludicrous and shows a worrying lack of understanding of the reality of owning and riding horses. Most breed and sport clubs work on the basis of a "showing year" - half of this has been lost, it will be impractical to try to hold most of the big State/Royal/National events while zoning is in place, and who wants to take an unfit, untrained, under-prepared horse to an event when one of the possible outcomes is being caught in a lockdown and being subjected to cost and inconvenience - better to wait it out. I think maybe the initiative to encourage the holding of events has more to do with getting the horse businesses out of trouble by encouraging spending, and feigning the appearance of the hobby clubs being back in action, so that the preferential treatment of the racing industry will not look so bad. And also the authorities are using events to force people to have horses swabbed, microchipped and immunised etc.

My personal view at this point is that we might as well write off the rest of the competition year (if your club operates on a financial-year basis), enjoy our horses at home and gradually bring them back to fitness with the next show year in mind, and wait out the "burning out" of the virus (which by luck, management or judgement seems actually to be happening, hallelujah). And as showies, club officials, and recreational horse owners we should refuse to continue to dance to the tune (or the ever-changing, different tunes, more like) being played by the authorities as they continue to try to manipulate us into the behaviour they want.

The outbreak has shown that most horse owners are prepared to do the right thing to ensure the welfare of their animals and to help stamp out the virus, but we don't want to be fed misinformation, treated like idiots, told what we can and cannot do with no input into official decisions which affect us (which end up often being wrong anyway), and expected to change our views when told to do so by the people in power.

I would like to have once again the luxury of being able to form my own opinions based on accurate, unbiased information - ask me to co-operate and give me a reason, DON'T tell me what I have to do and follow it with threats!

KM