Working Equid Disease: A South African Vet’s Perspective

Veterinarians must consider both athletic and working horses when preventing equine disease in South Africa.
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“The country of South Africa wouldn’t be where it is today if it wasn’t for the working equid,” said Alan Guthrie, BVSc, MedVet, PhD, director of the University of Pretoria’s Equine Research Centre, in South Africa. “It was developed on the back of the working equid. And one of the interesting things is that neither horses nor donkeys are native to Southern Africa. They were introduced in the 1600s and have … played an important part of our development.” 

Guthrie, who studies equine diseases such as African horse sickness, spoke with The Horse at the first Havemeyer International Workshop on Infectious Diseases of Working Donkeys, held Nov. 19-21, 2013, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His vantage point on the issue of disease in working equids is unique in that his country is one of the wealthier countries on the continent (considered largely an upper-middle income economy) and has very large populations of both high-performance horses and working horses.

“We are fortunate where we are in South Africa, we have a very well-developed infrastructure,” he said. “The level of veterinary science is very high, we have good facilities, we have good support, and we’ve had active research programs … going on for hundreds of years.

Historically, veterinarians in this country were focused on diseases of working equids—whether used in the military or on the farm. “Nowawdays there’s a lot more emphasis on the sporting horse, but we still have very important equids out in the field that are working equids,” Guthrie says. “And for the people who own those equids, it’s their whole livelihood. It’s not only his business; it’s also his motorcar. So when they lose one of those animals to an infectious disease, the impacts, it’s not only on that animal, it’s (the) possibility of a person now being unemployed and homeless

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Written by:

Stephanie L. Church, Editorial Director, grew up riding and caring for her family’s horses in Central Virginia and received a B.A. in journalism and equestrian studies from Averett University. She joined The Horse in 1999 and has led the editorial team since 2010. A 4-H and Pony Club graduate, she enjoys dressage, eventing, and trail riding with her former graded-stakes-winning Thoroughbred gelding, It Happened Again (“Happy”). Stephanie and Happy are based in Lexington, Kentucky.

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