Equine Vet Max Wilson's View on EI

OCTOBER NEWSLETTER #2 22/10/07

What a mess we find ourselves in with this damned Equine Influenza! Containment is working is all we hear from our industry representatives! Clearly it is not!!

I have been proud to be associated with the Thoroughbred industry on the Darling Downs for over 30 years. During that period we have proudly watched our industry transform itself in the eyes of the public & our southern counterparts from a poor second cousin to the vibrant industry it was in August with our Queensland studs leading the nation with the highest averages & performances for their progeny.

Where are we now, just 2 months later? Back as the almost forgotten second cousins from Hicksville! In all probability, Queensland may not have a single yearling which will qualify for the premier yearling sales in 2009 because wehave not been allowed to put our best mares to the best stallions. Make no mistake; this is not an Equine Influenza problem. It is a problem of bureaucracy & politics!

NSW has EI too but it is still breeding mares without restriction. Its studs will still be presenting quality yearlings in 2009! It is appalling the way greed & self interest have governed our pathetic efforts at control in Qld. The ridiculous extremes that elements of our industry have gone to in an attempt to stop our top Qld mares getting to the top NSW stallions are unbelievable. The zenith of their efforts was the recent ruling that only unvaccinated horses could cross the border; vaccinated horses would have to wait another week! What bloody idiot dreamt that one up?

While we are on the subject of movement, what is happening with our movement permits? We have been waiting for almost 2 weeks for the promised lifting of the movement restrictions. Nothing has been announced. Instead we have the studs putting their own restrictions on mares coming to their studs. Ten days or 2weeks after vaccination makes sense but shouldn’t that ruling have come from our DPI representatives? Our previously infected studs have been left totally in the dark as to when they can recommence accepting outside mares. They have been left to just quietly go broke & ask no questions - not good enough for Qld’s second largest industry!

Again on the subject of movement, we were expecting a stallion from Gympie (uninfected and within the red zone) to come to our Equine Breeding Centre at Southbrook (also uninfected and within the red zone). Permits were refused but were issued for the stallion to travel via the Darling Downs to Tamworth in the height of the infected area. He is unvaccinated. Makes sense ah?!!

The whole eradication campaign has been shockingly mismanaged. It would be laughable if it were not so economically disastrous for so many of us. (We have 6 mares at our Equine Breeding Centre when we would normally have over 60 & this is being repeated all over the Downs.) Studs like Wattlebrae which have invested huge amounts on new stallions have had the legs cut out from under them & thousands of smaller horse lovers have lost their lifestyle all together.

We should have vaccinated much earlier instead of racing around the country now with vaccine trying to stay ahead of the disease & often failing. Thousands of dollars have been wasted on vaccinating horses that had no chance of getting protection before the virus struck. We should have opened up movement between the infected areas as they did in NSW so that people could breed their mares. Love him or loathe him (Like Johnnie Howard), John Messara got things moving in NSW. We have no equivalent in Qld.

The AUSVETPLAN may have been well conceived but it was always doomed to failure when the disease struck at the start of the breeding season. Now we find ourselves in the worst possible situation. We have sent people tothe wall trying to stop this infection by stopping movement (& breeding) & we have failed. We have been forced to move onto vaccination but we have failed again because we have done too little too late - closing the stable doors six weeks after the horse has escaped! We have the ludicrous situation where Throughbred horses can move & be vaccinated but pleasure horses cannot. All that this will achieve will be to slow the rate of spread of the disease & increase the antagonism between theindustry groups when it is most important that we all pull together.

Unless we vaccinate everything or almost everything, the disease will just continue to slowly spread amongst the unvaccinated horse population. We may well find ourselves still in the same position at the start of the next breeding season. We are in real danger of not being able to get our Qld yearlings to the national yearling sales next year. Mark my words - unless we make some changes, these stupid movement restrictions will still be in place this time next year!

We have to vaccinate everything; we have to make it compulsory & if it is goingto be compulsory, we have to make it free! Nothing else will work now his would not have been necessary if we had vaccinated earlier. We cannot expect our pleasure horse industry to tolerate the inequitable position they find themselves in at present. No movement & no vaccinations! Fortunately they now have a representative body of their own (Queensland Performance & Pleasure Horse Industry) which will allow them to lobby more effectively.

If ever there was evidence of the effectiveness of a good industrybody, it is the Harness Racing Board. The Trotting mares were the first broodmares vaccinated in Qld; well ahead of the expensive Thoroughbreds. It is easy for me to be so critical after the fact but I have consistently spoken against the effectiveness of trying to impose movement restrictions at the start of a breeding season & I have been calling for vaccination since the start of the epidemic.

Saying “I told you so” will achieve nothing! Nothing will give us back our breeding season or the livelihood we have lost. All we can hope for now is damage control.We must get rid of this disease & get our industries moving again in the minimum of time & with the minimum amount of further money & lifestyle loss. There is only one way to do that now - vaccination of everything & as soon as possible & not at our expense!