Improvements to equestrian transportation
The International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) and the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) have produced an action plan for the safe transportation of sport horses.
The three-year plan is in response to high participation in equestrian competitions, which has resulted in demand for cross-border movement of top-level sport horses.
Proposals under the plan include a full-time secondary senior veterinarian at the OIE headquarters in Paris. This vet will help define a new population of high health, high performance sport horses.
The new sub-population is planned to be integrated into the existing biosecurity systems of countries that have been created to protect animals and human populations against the risk of disease spread.
FEI and OIE also propose to develop communication tools to underline the value of equestrian sport to governments. It is hoped that this will help to improve import and export procedures for sport horses.
Dr Bernard Vallat, director general of OIE, said: “Over the last ten years, the OIE has worked in close partnership with the FEI to identify the key elements needed to bring about a more practical, but safe, introduction of national Veterinary Services requirements for the international movement of sport horses, and for the application of biosecurity measures on all sites where competitions take place."
FEI signed an official agreement with OIE in 2002 and the two organisations have since co-hosted joint summits on the international movement of sport horses.
FEI President HRH Princess Haya explained: "The FEI is looking forward to building on the achievements of its ten-year partnership with the OIE, and to providing dedicated expertise in the joint pursuit of sustaining and promoting the international growth of equestrian sport, and everything it stands for.
"Together, we will help to provide much better government awareness about the competition horse, and establish a commonly-recognised biosecurity approach that will allow international equestrian sport to flourish far into the future.”
With Strangles Awareness Week just around the corner (5-11 May), vets are being encouraged to share a survey about the disease with their horse-owning clients.
