Down Under

Irecently had a chance to make a quick tripto Australia. And I mean a QUICK trip. Ihad barely recovered from the jet lag be-

fore I had to return. However, I was able tolearn some interesting bits and pieces whilethere. Certainly, the outbreak of influenzahas greatly impacted equine activities, particu-larly in New South Wales. One of the veteri-nary clinics that I visited indicated thatbusiness for the season was about half of nor-mal because of the inability to move animalsduring this outbreak. Lack of stringent importregulations appears to be one of the major rea-sons for the outbreak. It seems to be takinga while for governmental regulations to beput in place, as well as scaling up to haveenough vaccine for all of the animals.

I was interested in visiting the area aroundTamworth, because this is considered theCutting Horse capital of Australia. The localand federal governments have made a tremen-dous investment in a first-class equestrian facil-ity in Tamworth, scheduled for completion inAugust, which will be used to hold numeroushorse shows and sales. The Quarter Horse in-dustry in this area is similar to that in Texas,and the area is home to the Cutting HorseFuturity.

Similar to the United States, there appearsto be a shortage of equine veterinarians inAustralia. The number of veterinary schools isquite small compared with the United Statesand, just like the United States, the numberof students that elect to become equine practi-tioners is a relatively small percentage of thestudents that are being graduated. Thus, thereappears to be an opportunity for US vets towork a season in Australia, because their breed-ing season is the opposite of ours in the north-ern hemisphere. If you get a chance to visitAustralia, you will find the veterinarians ex-tremely hospitable and interested in what ishappening in the United States.

Dr. Ed Squires

FROMTHE EDITOR

Edward L. Squires, PhD

202 Journal of Equine Veterinary Science � Vol 28, No 4 (2008)