“The trainer was asked to leave after many protests and she wouldn’t leave so she challenged them to test the mare”
I wonder how many of those complaining filed an official protest with USEF.
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I’m not sure where you are in the country, but I’m in the SF Bay Area, and the lack of education the owners have here is appalling, as is the control the trainers have over the owners/horses. The owners don’t know any better, and even if they wanted to skip a show they’d get so much backlash from the trainer they wouldn’t dare speak up.
I came from Florida where trainers treated their clients well and clients were educated and moved their horses somewhere new if they didn’t like something. That almost never happens here.
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I noticed the Equine disease communication center and the CFDA have not updated with a report of a positive test in Murietta. Both are a good source for finding fact-based data on positive cases etc. I would assume if there was a positive test Friday it would have been recorded by now. It’s puzzling. What does everyone think? I recommend both resources for staying UTD.
Edit; CFDA website has been updated and noted a positive test in Sacramento area. See website for information.
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CDFA often doesn’t update over the weekend. And they are probably the source for the other site.
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You are saying that the owners of these horses, despite being at the AA-show level, don’t know the first thing about this very high-profile disease and the protocols, all of which can be found via Google? And even if they do, they are so afraid of their trainers that they wouldn’t advocate for their own horse’s life? I just…I can’t believe that’s true. Or don’t want to believe it’s true.
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I would say that a majority of people have no idea about disease protocols and sterile procedures. Just because you can read it does not mean you know how to actually do it. And given how many folks treated a pandemic, it is clear that even if they read about it, they may not even care.
How many folks actually understand foot bath, gloving, hand washing, masking procedures? Many. How many actually know how to do them in a proper method? Very few.
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Adding to what @RAyers said, my personal experience with barns in SoCal have terrible basic biosecurity practices. I’m sure part of it is due to land costs, but others seem to mostly be lack of care.
Isolating new horses, even if they’re not from some sketchy auction? Nope, they go right into the barn with everyone else. It takes space and manpower to have a true isolation barn and most barns just don’t bother.
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But they didn’t have to know all that. They only needed to know that it was dangerous to take an exposed horse to another show.
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The riders are hobbyists. The trainers are running a small business with tight margins and are in a discipline that takes calculated risks with horse welfare every day. The owners are not in a position to question their trainer’s decisions, since the trainers control medical care, feeding, and transport. Think how many owners have claimed to have “no idea” after doping scandals erupt.
I expect trainers are used to being skeptical about rules in general, and obviously underestimated the infectiousness and seriousness of this outbreak.
I think they should be held liable for damages and fines. But am I shocked and horrified? After 2 years of watching super spreader events and SorryAntiVaxxer death stats in a human pandemic where folks risk their own lives? No, this seems to me like typical behavior in the absence of an enforced lockdown or shutdown. People behave in ways that seem to them expedient and disaster occurs.
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I can’t argue against that (the part about self-serving behavior).
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We were at Murieta (spectating) last weekend. The show was lightly attended compared to shows later in the season, but we saw many horses from that trainer’s barn in both the hunter and jumper rings. There were the usual bunches of horses clustered in the gate area, so tons of potential exposure, especially at the hunter derby. I hope Murieta doesn’t turn into the equine version of a super-spreader event.
I wonder if EHV is like Covid–i.e., not that transmissible through casual outdoor contact?
And now it appears the same mistake has been made again as occurred at Thermal. Plenty of horses were potentially exposed at Murieta, and have now all scattered to various home barns and even other horse shows.
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LAEC has quarantine stalls in a separate area, but the facility where I board has none, and no open stalls either since the new trainer moved in (the one who was stabled in close proximity to the euthanized horse.). It’s a topic that needs to be addressed. They have room for it.
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This:
And this:
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There’s no doubt that Lula is very special to Milo. “People wonder how I can go to a show with just my horse when I have a whole business,” she said. “I let them know that I just have to ride this journey while I’m on it, because it’s not going to be forever. We have no idea in the horse world when things will end, or when they will change. This is my horse of a lifetime, and I’ve got to ride it out while I can.”
This didn’t age well
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I think what we have learned about EHV-1 so far is that it spreads easily through casual contact, surfaces, etc. It cannot be compared to COVID but it seems to spread much easier than COVID. It’s spreading even with trainers thinking they are taking all the necessary precautions. The trainer at MEC thought she was doing all the right things but clearly she was too cavalier in her thinking. No excusing her behavior - there is no excuse for putting all the horses at the show in jeopardy.
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Yes, the quarantine stalls are the show stalls. LAEC is having all new horses that come on property use those for 2 weeks but the normal protocol is not that (I’ve worked on the property for years and in different barns). Those stalls are usually for horses coming in to show or as emergency stalls for evacuations.
I can’t think of any barn I’ve been at that had a proper quarantine barn that was used as such (new horses go in there for X days). I can only remember one that had a separate barn/area that could be used for isolation, but I can’t remember them doing that with the few new horses that came on property (which was rare).
We have one. We quarantine horses at the barn I am at all the time…
If they come from Europe they quarantine at UC Davis, then they quarantine at our barn. Also if they come from another barn, they quarantine as well…for 10-14 days.
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particularly glove removal
i worked my last 16 years in a high Q facility. setting up a barn protocol is not likely within the skill set of the average trainer/barn owner/ barn worker
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Would have to look it up but I believe it was CDFA’s website that posted the horse from thermal that went to Murieta tested positive. If you go deeper (in hearsay) what has been said and backed up from another is that the trainer refused to leave after complaints were made and the offer to test the horse to prove it was not positive backfired.
