Horse flu debrief highlights need for better communication

A Tamworth-based Department of Primary Industries (DPI) equine flu debriefing has identified problems with the ability to communicate information effectively during the crisis.

The session was one of 12 being held across New South Wales to evaluate the department's response to the biosecurity situation.
The Australian Quarter Horse Association has described it as a collaborative process that included a frank and open assessment of the DPI's performance.
Association general manager Hunter Jones says the debriefing recognised a need for a better communications strategy.
"One of the things that came up was that most of the breed organisations such as ours work on a postcode system where the Government works on local government ... codes if they are primary produces," he said.
"So ... the meshing of data to be able to contact people quickly and readily was a real problem till at least October, November last year and there was certainly a well understood belief that more detailed information about where horse properties may have been was going to be of a great asset to them."

Rider dies in accident at Co Cork equestrian event

Monday, April 21, 2008

Ireland's equestrian community is in mourning this morning following the death of Karen Rodgers during a competition yesterday.

The 41-year-old, from Kildare, was killed when her horse, Kilcoltrim Brigade, fell at a jump on the Ballindenisk cross-country course in Cork.

Ms Rodgers was an experienced rider and a regular competitor at the course.

Eventing Ireland and the organisers of the Ballindenisk competition have expressed deep sadness and shock following the death. Click here to go the website

Light Horsemen headed to Israel for memorial dedication

SEVEN World War II veterans will attend the dedication of the Park of the Australian Soldier at Beersheba in Israel next week, the site of a famous World War I battle involving Australian Light Horse regiments.
The WWII veterans, in their 80s, will attend because there are no surviving light horsemen from WWI.
The centrepiece of the Israel park is a sculpture of a light horseman leaping the trenches, designed by Australian sculptor Peter Corlett.
It marks the charge of the 4th and 12th Light Horse Regiments against Turkish posts at Beersheba on October 31, 1917.
It will be dedicated by Governor-General Michael Jeffery and Israeli President Shimon Peres. Alan Griffin, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, will also attend.
Dale Robertson, now 86, is one of the WWII veterans attending the dedication. He served in Papua New Guinea and Bougainville for 12 months, beginning in 1944.
"I'm very, very honoured," he said. "Light Horsemen were all very close companions, (who) respected one another for their horsemanship and their abilities."
Mr Robertson enlisted in the 2nd Light Horse Regiment in 1940.
The party travelling to Israel will also attend an Anzac Day dawn service to be held at Mount Scopus War Cemetery in Jerusalem.

Dog rescued after months at sea

Snickers the Sea Dog is barely more than a pup, but he's already an old salt.

The eight-month-old pooch spent three months adrift on a 15-metre boat and survived four months on tiny Fanning Island - 1609 kilometres south of Hawaii - where his owners left him after their sailing boat ran aground last December.
Now the cocker spaniel, who is in quarantine on Oahu after being rescued April 9 by Norwegian Cruise Line workers and a group of other people, will be flown to Los Angeles to meet a man who desperately wants to adopt him: retired Las Vegas resident Jack Joslin.
"I love animals," Joslin said today. "I had two dogs up until the middle of March. Then I had to have my border collie euthanised. The day they called saying the ashes were back was when I read the story (about Snickers). It occurred to me I could do something."
Hawaiian Airlines, moved by the dog's survival story, has given the go-ahead on flying the animal for free to the mainland, said Peter Forman, a Hawaii-based airlines historian who helped negotiate Snickers' transport.
Forman said he expects Snickers to arrive sometime in the next three days.
Snickers' ordeal began when his owners catamaran began experiencing mast problems after setting off from California, said Gina Baurile of the Hawaiian Humane Society.
The boat drifted to Fanning Island where it hit a reef and the dog's owners, Jerry and Darla Merrow, swam 200 metres to shore with Snickers and their parrot, Gulliver. They left the island soon after on a cargo vessel leaving their pets in the care of islanders, Baurile said.
Efforts to contact the Merrows have been unsuccessful.
Robby Coleman, who owns a sail boat off Fanning Island then started watching out for the dog and parrot on the island, Forman said.
"Robby put out the SOS and a lot of people got involved," Forman said.
After being contacted by Formans wife the Hawaiian Humane Society took the lead on Snickers rescue and organised for a ship to be sent out to Fanning Island to pick up the dog, said Norwegian Cruise Line spokeswoman Krislyn Hashimoto.
The dog landed in Honolulu on Wednesday, cleared customs and has been in quarantine since, awaiting transport to LA, Hashimoto said.

Woman Of Steel

Riding instructor Anne Skinner isn’t meant to be alive.

She spent years teaching children with disabilities the joy and therapeutic values of horse riding.

A freak car accident made her the first person to survive such extensive spinal and pelvic injuries. An Australian surgeon needed to invent a world-first metal bolt device to enable her just to walk again.

After a total of twenty operations and three months spent re-learning how to walk, Anne returned home and eventually, back into the saddle and back into competive riding.

On the path to the Beijing Paralympics, she crossed paths with Queensland horse, Cossack, who had also survived a harrowing car accident.

Having both cheated death, this unlikely pairing has produced a unique chemistry.

Click her to go the the Australian Story website to watch this inspiring program televised on the 21st April 2008