Promoting 'Best Practice' and why this is important to the outside world
/Article by Paull Khan
There has perhaps never been a time when it is more important for European trainers to be aware of what is happening politically in Brussels.
It is likely that, by now, readers will be aware of the review being undertaken of the European Union’s laws on animal welfare. The EMHF has, for some years now, been keeping a close watch on developments with the first strand of this review – that relating specifically to welfare in transport. We have been making representations – in writing and by visiting key decision-makers in the European Commission and Parliament – in order to try to ensure that well-intentioned legislative change does not have unintended consequences, not only for our industry, but for our horses themselves. Wherever possible, we have sought to join forces with our sister organisations, to present a unified front across an industry whose political influence is all too often weakened by internal differences.
For the most part, these efforts have borne fruit. Thankfully, the Commission’s proposals for the new laws would, if adopted, give us the continued ability to transport our racehorses in the frictionless way that we have enjoyed for decades and which we doubtlessly take for granted. However, despite specific requests to allow the same freedoms to horses being travelled for breeding or to go to the sales, those journeys have not been included in the Commission’s plans. We continue to fight, alongside the European Federation of Thoroughbred Breeders Associations and many others, for the inclusion of breeding and sales – if we fail, there will be devastating impacts.
There is much less awareness of the second strand of this EU review – and this one threatens to have yet more far-reaching implications for trainers and the way they operate.
This second focus is on the keeping and protection of animals – their husbandry. Work is just beginning on this workstream, but already the Commission has given a strong hint as to the areas that it will be looking into. The review covers a broad range of animals, but the Commission has asked the body to which it turns for scientific advice in these areas – the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) – for a scientific opinion specifically on the protection of horses and other Equidae. The Terms of Reference it has given EFSA are illuminating and arresting.
First, they make clear that EFSA should specifically consider horses kept for breeding, and also ‘working’ horses, which are to include those kept for competition (eg. racehorses). They will be reviewing the most common husbandry systems in place and then identifying welfare consequences of the above and making recommendations to prevent or mitigate those welfare consequences.
For example, EFSA will be assessing, from a welfare perspective, minimum space allowances for the boxes in which horses are housed, the air quality, temperature and lighting in those boxes, the degree to which they can see, hear and smell other horses and the amount of outdoor access and opportunities for grazing and free movement that horses are allowed. They will also be looking at the nutrition and feeding strategies that are used.
They will be considering locomotory, gastro-enteric and metabolic disorders that are found in horses and identifying ‘animal-based measures’ by which those disorders may be identified.
In relation to training, they will be looking at the age at which horses may start to be trained, the temperatures in which training takes place and whether there should be a maximum and the duration of effort and whether there should be a minimum resting period. Practices such as gelding and thermocautery of the limbs (firing) will also come under the spotlight.
In the breeding arena, they will be doing similarly with gestation and weaning conditions, including the age at which weaning takes place, the age of a mare when she is first bred, the number of gestations a mare has and whether there should be a maximum, the period of time between pregnancies and whether there should be a minimum and the practice of Caslick’s procedure.
A presentation on the tasks that EFSA has been set can be found at trainermagazine.com/efsa.
While EFSA has been given until the end of next year to deliver its report, and more time will obviously pass before legislation is agreed and introduced, it is never too early for industries affected to start preparing.
The EMHF is keen that trainers (and others, including breeders) are aware of this activity and is grateful for the opportunity to publicise it through this magazine. Trainers should be given the chance to consider the possible implications of this, to reflect on their own practices and to give thought to whether and in what ways they might look to adjust those practices to ensure maximum welfare benefits for the horses in their care.
It is important that, collectively, we are aware of how things currently work. What are the husbandry practices that are adopted in the training of racehorses, across Europe?
To answer this, we are launching this Questionnaire, which readers are strongly encouraged to complete and submit.
This magazine offers a good way to help start discussions, to pool ideas and expertise so that our industry can, in due course, speak to the European institutions in as informed and measured a way as possible.
