Horse flu restrictions may hurt St Pats nominations

With less than a week to go, the St Patricks Racing committee anticipates it will have lower horse numbers due to equine influenza.
Under current guidelines, if South Australian horses have not been immunised and had a booster shot, they cannot race.
Nominations closed this morning at 10:30am AEDT, and organisers are concerned that the input of South Australian horses, who usually provide 65 per cent of the race fields, will be down.
Far west racing steward Trevor Odgers says if the final number of horses is low, they may have to extend nominations.
"If we haven't got enough in each race, obviously we'll extend the nominations and hopefully we'll have full fields," he said.

Riding into posterity

The founder of one of Australia's largest horse rides has been immortalised in the main street of a town in south-east Queensland.

The Shire of Kilkivan has celebrated its 120th birthday by unveiling a statue of local identify Fabian Webb astride his horse Smoky.
As well as founding the Gympie Country Music Muster with his brothers, Mr Webb also started the Kilkivan Great Horse Ride, which he believes is one of his greatest achievements.
"I'm so proud that in the year 2000 this main street had 1156 riders ride up the street, a significant event on that particular day," he says.
"But it has maintained a great number of riders around about the 1000 mark every year."
Mr Webb is Kilkivan Shire's longest serving councillor, with 37 years of service.

Petition against the EI Levy

Hi Everyone,

City racehorse owners have been paid $65 per day to keep their horses in work – more has been paid to city racehorse trainers to “keep their businesses viable”.
Owners who sent mares to Hunter Valley studs will receive thousands of dollars of support each, from the Govt – because their mares were unable to move. Nobody else is offered this support.
And the rest of the horse industry has been left at a standstill with little or no support.
The Govt is planning a tax on each and every horse and pony registration to recoup the support provided.
Yes, that means a pony with four registrations will pay four times the amount that a thoroughbred will pay - who may have received over $10,000 in assistance to keep racing.
If you think this is unfair then you must go to the petition page below and put forward your point of view. Please tell any one else who might object to this ignorant and arbitrary approach.
http://www.gopetition.com.au/online/17263.html

Cheers
Pamela

EI Levy - Irrational, unfair, ignorant, shortsighted and mean.

Thanks, Kerry Morgan for writing such a good letter in protest at this levy. I have also written to the minister and shadow minister, plus signed the petition and forwarded it on to as many people as possible. Whether they read these things is another matter. As a breeder of miniature horses, it seems ridiculous that breeders are going to shoulder the largest part of the burden for EI costs. Those with unregistered horses and equine related services escape without any costs at all. As you say, Kerry, we have already suffered a big downturn because of EI, not to mention high feed costs because of droughts. We would register about 10 foals every year, but I know of many others who would register 20 or 30 - so that's an increase in costs of $1000.00 to $3000.00 per year. I would hate to give it up as it's something I love, but I can hardly see myself being able to continue with these costs and I have a full time job as well !! So where does that leave the recreational horse industry, and all the other industries that have our business, plus what happens to all the horses that people can no longer afford to keep as there is no market??? I really hope that this doesn't come about as I really fear the consequences for horses as well as people. Obviously AQIS seems to be indemnified for everything ....., so why couldn't they put a small levy on betting, considering EI was brought here by a shuttle stallion for the racing industry. Billions of bets are made so surely that wouldn't take long to recover the money that way.

Diane Cotton

Mirrindel Miniature Horses

V'Landys wants fair go on EI costs

RACING NSW chief executive Peter V'Landys has called for an urgent meeting with the new Federal Government's Primary Industries Minister to ensure horse owners are not forced to pay the $100 million-plus equine influenza bill.

On Thursday, V'Landys welcomed the NSW Government's announcement that EI restriction zones in NSW had been lifted but raised concerns about the coming showdown. "It is back to the trenches," he said.
V'Landys was referring to Federal Government legislation which would seek to bill owners of all horses for EI, even though former High Court justice Ian Callinan's wide-ranging inquiry into the disease is ongoing.
"We did have a commitment from the previous minister, Peter McGauran, that if it was found in the Callinan inquiry that the disease entered the country due to the negligence of the Federal Government-managed quarantine centre they would pick up the bill for the containment and eradication of EI," V'Landys said.
"The best analogy I can make in regard to this legislation is a third person drives your car, smashes it, and expects you to pay to get it repaired.
"We hope they don't use that legislation to do that. We will be talking to Mr Tony Bourke, the new Federal Minister for Agriculture, as soon as possible. We will be making him aware of the previous government's commitment."
Another major worry for V'Landys and the racing industry surrounds Federal Government plans to stop sanctioning the use of EI vaccinations. He said the government was set to stop granting permission for the issue of vaccinations on March 19.
The majority of racehorses in NSW are receiving, or had been given, the third vaccination shot.
"There is no doubt the process of vaccinations expedited the eradication of the disease," V'Landys said. "Without vaccination we would still not be racing and industry participants along with the government would be losing millions of dollars in income.
"We are going to continue with the vaccination program. If we stop now, we end up back where we started. The third shots are vital. It will mean horses have completed the course and will need only one shot every 12 months.
"Racing cannot be shut down again and we will be letting government officials know what the consequences are."
The lifting of restriction zones in NSW means horses are free to move across the state, but V'Landys stressed a "certificate for movement is still required".

No hoof unchecked for the Easter Show

ELECTRONIC identity checks, compulsory document inspections and careful monitoring of every entrance and exit are more reminiscent of a German border crossing in the 1950s than getting into the Easter Show.

But in the wake of the equine influenza epidemic that rocked the NSW and Queensland horse industries, the Royal Agricultural Society is leaving no hoof unchecked to prevent another outbreak.
This year's show will include the Easter Show Horse Classic - the first big horse-judging competition since influenza flattened the industry last August - and every horse owner will be required to produce a ream of documents and testing information at a special inspection site before their charge is allowed to nibble a single blade of showground grass.
Each horse must be accompanied by a certificate of immunity, extensive blood-test and nasal-swab information and a travel plan specifying the exact route taken from the stables to the showground door. Then there is the microchip - scanned upon arrival and checked against all documentation to prevent the entry of impostors.
When each horse leaves the showground all of its bedding, food and water will be disposed of and the stables cleaned according to strict Department of Primary Industries standards.
"Getting accepted for the show is daunting enough from a performance perspective; now actually getting through the door is a challenge as well," said Jane Tayler, a show groom and horse owner.
"I've got a little Welsh mountain pony and it wasn't going to be allowed in initially. It was only when they relaxed the restrictions that my little horse was allowed in. It took three full days just to put together all the paperwork."
But if it was not for Thursday's lifting of restrictions on horse movements the regulations might have been even tighter.
Sources in the industry say show organisers were considering placing all horses in sealed-off individual stables declared strictly out of bounds to the public. There were also rumours that horses would have to spend the duration of the show in the stables, making it almost impossible for all but the most committed breeders to attend.
The actual restrictions are still tough - the public will be allowed to look but not touch the horses while they are in their stables and on parade - but most breeders, trainers and riders are just happy to be back in the action.
"It's just a huge boost to the industry that the horses are actually in," said Jackie Long, a stock horse breeder and trainer.
"Shows are the lifeblood of our industry, but just about every country show in NSW has been horse-free since August.
"Some people have missed out and that's disappointing, but I think most of us would run through a brick wall to get here."
The horse classic will run over the last six days of the show and consists of a range of classes including Champion Hack, Pony Hack, Galloway, Saddle Classes, Led and Ridden Breeds and Harness Classes.

Paying tribute to pioneering donkey

And finally a doctor in South Australia is responsible for preserving a living piece of Australian pioneering history.

The Australian Teamster donkey, imported from the Middle East, was responsible for most of the heavy farm work during Australia's pioneering years.
Dr Helen Robertson has been breeding the rare breed for thirty five years and thinks the donkey is the forgotten hero of the outback...
"At night they just turned them loose, they would forage for their food in the scrub and they would come back and be hanging about in the camp and be quite prepared to be harnessed up in the morning" she said.
"They didn't do what the horses did, which was to tend to try to walk back home. And in the words of one bloke I met who had actually had donkeys in Ethiopia in his youth, he said 'the donkeys are always there when you want them."