EHV-1 Quarantine Updates from Coast to Coast

Sunland Park

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In a multi-state East Coast effort to trace back the index case of the herpes-infected Thoroughbred whose illness touched off a quarantine of nearly 500 horses at Payson Park Thoroughbred Training Center in Florida, the state of Virginia on Mar. 1 imposed a similar quarantine on a training facility where the infected horse had been boarded prior to shipping south.

But unlike other states that have imposed quarantines this winter related to Equine Herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1)—namely New Mexico, Arizona and Florida—the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is declining to disclose the exact location of the facility that is under quarantine.

“This is still considered an ongoing case, because it really won't be closed until the quarantine is over,” said Elaine Lidholm, the communications director for the Virginia Department of Agriculture. “And there is an actual section of the code of Virginia that says the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services shall not reveal any details of an open investigation, inspection, or case.”

Lidholm did confirm that the property under 21-day quarantine is in Fauquier County, and that all exposed horses are being monitored twice daily for fever and other clinical signs. To date, she said, no other exposed horses in Virginia have shown clinical signs of the disease. One other exposed horse from the facility is known to have traveled out of state before the quarantine went into effect, and there were a total of six horses on the Feb. 22 van from Virginia to Payson Park (with four of them offloading en route, in South Carolina)

When asked to explain why a government agency with the words “consumer services” in its title would opt to keep the public in the dark about which property might house infected horses, Lidholm replied that Thoroughbred owners would have to rely on “word of mouth” to find out if their horses might have come in contact with the disease.

“I will say that the horse community in Virginia is very well connected, and I'm sure that they all know which facility it is,” Lidholm said.

A separate agency, the Fauquier County Agriculture Development, lists on its website 21 different farms within the county that specifically board Thoroughbreds.

In a related development, the Equine Disease Communication Center, which maintains a national database of updates and notices, on Wednesday retracted a notice that had been posted on Tuesday announcing a quarantine in South Carolina at the site where the four horses from the Virginia van had offloaded.

“The previous alert stating that premises in South Carolina have been quarantined was an error,” the EDCC reported.

The EHV-1 flare-up on the East Coast is occurring as a winter-long outbreak at Thoroughbred tracks and training facilities in the West seems to be calming down.

In New Mexico, 73 horses tested positive for the virus earlier this year. The outbreak brought live racing to a halt at Sunland Park between Jan. 23. and Feb. 25. Turf Paradise in Arizona was also under quarantine for three weeks, but racing there was allowed to continue among horses already stabled on the grounds

Katie Goetz, a public information officer for New Mexico Department of Agriculture, said that as of Mar. 1, only Sunland Park itself remains quarantined, and that the quarantine has been lifted at three nearby training facilities. No new EHV infections have been reported at the track since Feb. 24.

Within the racetrack property, Goetz explained, more specific quarantine areas have been established. As the state has dealt with the outbreaks that began in January, it has used the term “exposed barn” to indicate where a horse infected with EHV had been stabled. Once an infection was confirmed in a horse, that horse was separated from the general equine population by moving it to an “isolation barn.”

Goetz said a 14-day “quarantine clock” starts ticking at both the exposed barn and the isolation barn when any new case is discovered. As of March 1, there was only one exposed barn and one isolation barn remaining on the track's property.

“It is correct to say that so long as there is even just one EHV-1 positive horse onsite at Sunland Park, there will be no [shipping] movement to and from the racetrack,” Goetz said. “The quarantine will still be in effect.”

Sunland Park's two biggest races, the G3 $800,000 Sunland Derby and the $200,000 Sunland Oaks, are both scheduled for Mar. 20. —@thorntontd

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