Trainer Kevin Ryan's North Yorkshire yard has been temporarily quarantined after a horse in his care tested positive for Equine Herpesvirus (EHV-1). The outbreak has thus far been isolated to the one case, but the stables of Bryan Smart and Michael Herrington have also been quarantined as a safety measure due to their close proximity to Ryan's. Ryan withdrew three runners on Thursday while Smart and Herrington scratched horses on Thursday and Friday.
David Sykes, director of equine health and welfare for the British Horseracing Authority, said, “Cases of the neurological form of EHV-1 are occasional and, while the disease can be extremely serious for the affected horses, with proper surveillance and disease control the virus can usually be effectively contained. While the risk of the virus being transmitted in a controlled raceday environment is relatively small, it is in theory possible that horses from the yard in question may have been infectious some time before the disease was diagnosed. For this reason we have taken measures to alert trainers, as well as racecourses and veterinary surgeons, to be vigilant to the clinical signs. The decision to close the further yards is based on the identification of risk factors, namely the proximity of yards and the sharing of horse boxes. These measures have been taken as a precaution, with the safety of the horse population very much in mind.”
Trainer Jean-Claude Rouget was the subject of an EHV quarantine in mid-April, with two of the 57 horses in his Pau stable dying of the disease.
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