Great numbers of horses are temporarily transported to and from Member states of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE) to participate in international equestrian events and races. It is necessary to mitigate the risk of disease spread affecting animals and humans in the context of these movements, while avoiding unjustified sanitary barriers.
The Public-Private Partnership between the International Horse Sport Confederation (IHSC) and WOAH has a main objective of facilitating temporary international movement of competition horses in equestrian sports and horse racing.
Reliable certification of horses according to WOAH Standards on equine diseases and diagnostic tests, including on the “high health, high performance” horse (HHP) framework, as well as the good quality of the Veterinary Services in charge of certification, are important to facilitate safe temporary international movement of competition horses. Public-Private cooperation between the National Veterinary Services, the National Equestrian Federations and the National Racing Authorities is also a key factor to achieve safe movement of competition horses.
On February 2019, WOAH and the IHSC co-organized the “Sub-regional workshop on temporary international movements of competition horses” to support further development of necessary capacities for temporary (sub-)regional movement of competition horses and to create a solid basis in the sub-region for ultimately enabling safe, temporary international movement of horses from the sub-region to the rest of the world. The workshop developed a roadmap for all target countries with actions for national stakeholders for the development of internationally-established guidelines for the temporary movement of competition horses in a safe manner.
