They are not in the county where we live or show… But it definitely makes me nervous.
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Eastern states don’t have border checkpoints or brand inspections, you can pretty much just throw any horse on any trailer and cross state lines and never get checked. The venue checks for Coggins make total sense under those circumstances.
Most western states have strictly enforced controls on movement. If you want to haul over state lines out west you need all your paperwork up to date and one of their accepted forms of ID with current ownership or you risk huge fines and threats of seizure. Brand inspection requirements can even apply instate. Under no circumstances am I throwing my barn buddy’s new lease horse on my trailer and crossing into OR or AZ for a schooling show.
Almost all, maybe all, western cases of in the last several decades have been related to smuggling/ bush racing and generally those horses are illegally crossing the border in Texas.
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I guess to me I don’t understand why a facility would not require that. Is it fool proof? No…not even close.
But at least you know the horse’s have been under a vet’s care at some point. So EIA risk or not, I guess in my mind the shows requiring at least a negative coggins are likely to be more aware of safety/sanitation protocols and so would the clientele. And help keep anything from spreading, in general.
But it’s all risky of course.
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I posed a similar question last year as well for my state (California) and half the people didn’t believe that coggins wasn’t required here and lots of people thought that owners should get it done anyway “because it’s the right thing to do,” especially when you’re showing. No one here gets a coggins, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
We didn’t have any EIA cases near my part of the state and I wasn’t showing at the time, so it was less of a concern for me. I think it would matter exactly where the cases were, how many there were, and what circles those horses ran in (I do h/j schooling shows so if the horses were racehorses or western pleasure horses I’d be less concerned).
When we had the EHV outbreak a few years ago, it was very much in the circles I was in, plus in my county, so I didn’t leave home even to trail ride for over a month.
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I’m in FL. We do have border check points here and last I checked we’re still in the east.
Georgia has rovers who can and will pull you over to check paperwork. It’s happened to me 3x in the last 5 years…
Anyway, in FL it’s required to haul. People move horses often without one but it’s not something you want to get caught doing. It happened in North Florida to some newbies who bought a horse and didn’t know any better and were trailering it and they happened to get caught. The state Department of Ag impounded the horse, the trailer, the truck, and everything else until the paperwork came back and the new owner got a pretty chunky fine.
I’ve actually also been checked on the trail in the state and natl forests in FL.
I’ve never gone to a show, clinic etc where it wasn’t required. I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t. Yes its not foolproof, and a horse could get infected the very next day after the blood draw but it’s all we have.
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It’s a pretty useless document, IMO. Just because a horse didn’t have EIA last year doesn’t mean it doesn’t now. It’s a bellwether for maybe the horse having some vet care, I suppose.
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It’s “useless” in providing proof that a horse doesn’t have EIA at any point other than the time of blood draw. What it’s useful for is controlling spread–if all horses that potentially are moving around the country get tested annually, the theory is that you are catching asymptomatic carriers and culling them before they can spread it to other areas. It would be more useful if it was required to be done closer to the time of travel, but then compliance becomes more difficult (i.e. no one showing regularly wants to have to get a new Coggins every month) and you will have more people taking the risk that they won’t get caught and not doing it at all.
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I am in the southwest and do Coggins every year, same as all the other horses in the barn. But I’ve never had to provide proof of a negative Coggins, even at major shows where many horses have hauled in from surrounding states. In fact, at one prominent showgrounds, there’s a sign at each entry gate stating a negative Coggins is required to enter and be stabled. But has anyone ever checked my paperwork? That would be no.
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They probably expect horse people to be responsible adults and care about the safety of horses.
It such a devastating disease and it’s hard to believe that anyone would take such a chance with the lives of their (and other people’s) horses, but here we are. Apparently some people will.
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