How to redress the system failure???

Interesting info for you all. Some of my thoughts to follow on to the article I just posted. Before the purple zone in the Hunter was declared Coolmore were EI free onStud. Hence they were not terribly thrilled with the concept when it was proposed. That was until three stallions from Coolmore were hurriedly put on a plane out of the country to the USA and they then did an about face and embraced the idea.

Interesting too that it was Coolmore stallions who tested positive. Did they bring it from Ireland????? If so, what & where is the Japanese connection then? The stallions were Johannesburg, Lionheart and Tale of the Cat (now on theUSA Coolmore stallion roster if you check!) It would seem that Coolmore is on the high end of the privilege scale...

Then the many influential people who initiated and supported the purple zone concept. People such as Alan Jones (Radio presenter with an interest in Encosta De Largo -arguably the index case and resident of Coolmore) and John Messara (probably Australia's most influential breeder, Principal of Arrowfield) to name a few... seemingly pulling whatever strings they can/could.....Sort of makes you sit back and wonder doesn't it?

Isn't it about time the TB industry joined the rest of us in the 21st century and allowed AI and we wouldn't be faced with this sort of exotic disease problem. Seems the TB industry have the monopoly on the "get out of jail free" cards and I can hear the cash registers a ringing (from here) when they "pass go". Meanwhile the rest of the country has just slid into the poor house.

John Messara on AI in interview with Susan Archer, Nov06 :
"Look, there's no doubt that AI would help to reduce the transmission of disease. There is no doubt that AI would increase the fertility of sub-fertile animals. It has a number of benefits and for that reason the vets are the major pushers of it,right? But there's also no doubt there's an Act in Australia called the Trade Practices Act, and there's anti-trust legislation in America that means basically if you introduce AI, you could not enforce any limits in terms of numbers. So you could have Redoute's Choice serving 700 mares in a season. While you might think that would cause a reduction in the fee, and it might - it probably would - the gross revenue would increase markedly for the stud that stood him, but it would cause a significant narrowing of the gene pool, in my opinion, and it would also reduce the opportunities for new stallions to be discovered, because everyone would want to go to the stallions that actually worked. Look in a perfect world if you could introduce AI with strictly enforceablelimits, I think that would be wonderful, but I know that you can't under thecurrent legislation in Australia and certainly not in America. The other thing is this, Susan, that even if one wants to be a bit of a radical and introduce it in one country, we're all members of the ISBC[International Stud Book Committee] and the minute one breaks away, their horses will not be eligible for the International Stud Book, therefore blacktype or anything else would not be relevant. And I think that's just too big a price to pay for introducing it."

The ISBC need to sit down and formulate a solution. Change the legislation. This can't go on. Limits on books etc....It can be done if they really want to do it. The Australian gov't should take charge (for a change) and insist on it. This is one hell of a learning curve. The whole country is going broke over "it all being TOO hard!"As far as I'm aware AI hasn't destroyed any other sector of the horsebreeding industry. Honestly the TB service fees are quite frankly ridiculous and considering the Hunter is pretty much the only horse industry (besides racing) to be going about their business (and figures indicate theywill be able to fulfil about 80% of their breeding obligation) it might be time they set about righting a few wrongs. After all it is their practises that have led to mess in the first place.

And how the hell is 14 days quarantine, no supervision of standards, contracting everything out, going to protect Australian shores? It is also pretty obvious that AQIS needs to be rebuilt from the ground up!
Jo