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INDUSTRY entry to Europe. He then spent the mandatory 30 days in the cold climes of the UK before arriving in Hong Kong in early December, less than two weeks before his target race, the Group 1 Hong Kong Sprint. That he beat some of the world’s top sprinters like Rocket Man and Sacred Kingdom, and left many pondering what South African thoroughbreds could achieve if the playing fields were level. If the quarantine measures and travel restrictions J J the Jet Plane was subjected to were not bad enough, they are currently even worse. The last outbreak of AHS in South Africa’s AHS Controlled Area in late February 2011 saw exports from Kenilworth Quarantine Station in Cape Town being suspended. The alternative option for South Africa’s horse exports is via Mauritius which requires a 21-day isolation in Johannesburg followed by 90 days quarantine in Mauritius before undergoing a further residency of 30 or 60 days in the EU en route to Dubai or Hong Kong, meaning the journey could take upward of 150 days! The sport horse communities in other countries are probably oblivious to the barriers their South African counterparts face as their travel restrictions are a doddle in comparison. This is despite AHS arguably posing less threat than some diseases from other countries. South Africa accepts horses directly from one of its chief thoroughbred trading partners, Australia, yet Australia has never recognised South Africa’s horse export protocol. Their requirements are that South African horses spend an additional 60 days in Europe before entering Australia, making the journey time 120 days! The export protocol history goes back to an outbreak of AHS in the Middle East in the 1950s, by which time South Africa was thought to have exported 350,000 horses overseas largely in support of the war effort in the First and Second World Wars. The Middle East outbreak raised global fears of AHS and the international community deemed Africa to be endemic with a resultant embargo on the
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“De Kock illustrated how ridiculous the export protocols pertaining to South African thoroughbreds are by comparing them to a South African sportsman being banned from playing overseas due to a risk of passing on AIDS”
JJ The Jet Plane won Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint (G1), at Sha Tin Racecourse last winter despite spending 90 days in quarantine
movement of horses out of Africa for the next four decades. The exception was the USA which accepted horses from Africa on the basis of a 60day post-arrival vector-proof quarantine. Following a combined initiative of the broader equestrian industry, scientific, and veterinary sectors, the EU ratified the export protocol 14 years ago and South Africa has since exported close to 1000 horses from Kenilworth Quarantine Station in the AHS Free Zone in Cape Town. The value of South Africa’s horse exports is worth an estimated R250 million (£19-million, or €22-million) per annum in revenue, a fraction of the global market. However, the temporary suspensions of imports from South Africa every time there is an outbreak is clearly an unsatisfactory scenario and one that is presently impacting the international ambitions of South Africa’s horseracing fraternity and their 2012 London Olympic bid. A setback to negotiations is often found in the 1980s Spanish outbreak of AHS, as it proved that the disease was not confined to within African borders. In fact a recent study of emerging diseases predicted that outbreaks of vector-borne diseases like AHS are likely in the near future and that non-infected countries should be developing safeguards to defend against them. The quarantine restrictions South African horses are subject to are chiefly due to an inherent lack of logic and understanding of the real risk of introducing the AHS virus to another country. Given the nature of the disease and the layers of protection measures in place pre-export, the chances of passing AHS to another country are practically nil. AHS is a non-contagious virus transmitted by the culicoides midge. The midge can only breed above a certain temperature, so its activity is completely suppressed in the winter months and, therefore, there is a natural window which occurs every year during which the risk of infection is zero. During the summer months outbreaks occur annually (endemic) in the North Eastern Provinces, which are greater than 1000kms