News

EI UPDATE FOR INTERNATIONAL YEARLING BUYERS

16th Jan 2008

Following several months of turmoil and uncertainty, the equine influenza (horse flu) outbreak in Australia is under control and on track for early eradication, and will therefore have no impact on the conduct or quality of Australian yearling sales in March and April this year.

Australia’s Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Andy Carroll said that due to successful control programs undertaken by New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland (QLD) veterinary authorities, the actions of Australian horse industries and individual horse owners, the disease is contained and large populations of horses have fully recovered.

“Since reaching a high of some ten thousand infected premises in October/November last year, we now have less than one thousand infected premises indicating that our strategy in combating the disease has been highly successful,” Dr Carroll said.

The number of infected premises is continuing to rapidly decrease with no new detections of the disease reported since December 22. Movement restrictions have been eased dramatically over the past week with Victoria opening its borders to recovered horses from NSW and Queensland without the need for quarantine.

Inglis managing director, Mark Webster commented that, “International yearling buyers planning to visit Australasia this year should think carefully about where they buy the bulk of their yearlings. Back in August 2007 Australia and New Zealand were both EI free and had naïve horse populations and no vaccination program in place. In hindsight both countries were vulnerable to EI. The best outcome for Australia following the EI crisis is that we now have an EI immune thoroughbred population, which will prevent a re-occurrence of this crisis. This is important for buyers from countries such as Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Africa as they often leave their yearlings in the country of purchase for several months before exporting. If they buy from Australia’s EI immune population of yearlings there is no risk of those horses being locked down in Australia due to EI following this year’s sales.”

“Hong Kong buyers should particularly note that Inglis will be offering large numbers of yearlings from world class stallions that have proven themselves in Hong Kong, plus a mouth watering selection of young sires. We have 64 yearlings by Sacred Kingdom’s sire, Encosta de Lago, at our Easter Yearling sale commencing April 20 and another 9 at the Melbourne Premier sale commencing March 2. Lucky Unicorn’s sire and Australia’s champion sire Redoutes Choice will be represented by 80 yearlings at Easter and another 6 in Melbourne. Zabeel, the sire of Vengeance of Rain will have 25 yearlings at Easter, Flying Spur 32, Elusive Quality 21 and Rock of Gibraltar 40. Sire of Floral Pegasus and Haradasun, Fusaichi Pegasus, along with proven Hong Kong performers Anabaa and Danehill Dancer will each have 13 at Easter and good representation in Melbourne. Exciting young sires Exceed and Excel and Lonhro will have 41 and 22 respectively at Easter and good numbers in Melbourne. Across Easter and Melbourne Premier, Danehill’s freshmen sons Fastnet Rock, Elvstroem and Al Maher will have 67, 62 and 46 yearlings on offer respectively. This is clearly a very impressive line up of yearlings.”

Arrangements for the re-opening of Australia’s export markets are progressing very well with Biosecurity Australia and the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service negotiating conditions with Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. The United States, United Kingdom, Ireland and the Republic of Korea have remained open to Australian imports despite the EI outbreak. Inglis is also assisting the Hong Kong Jockey Club to export horses purchased at Australian yearling sales earlier this year and is very confident that all export markets will be open in time for the Easter Yearling Sale.