Flying Springboks Overcame A Logistical Stumbling Block
The 747 which transported the horses to the USA (supplied)
The “Flying Springboks” have received coverage in the most widely read publication across the horseracing world, the Thoroughbred Daily News USA.
It should be pointed out that the direct flight was allowed not due to a protocol change, but through an orchestrated effort to overcome a huge logistical stumbling block.
The protocol for direct flights to the USA has actually been open since 1958, but nobody has been able to use it for the last twenty odd years because since 911 co-loading of freight and passengers to the USA has not been allowed coupled with the fact that there are no scheduled cargo flights from South Africa on that route.
Therefore, a plane has to be chartered and enough horses, together with other freight if feasible, have to be gathered to make the flight financially viable.
Through the orchestrated efforts of a few dedicated industry people, enough horses were gathered to at long last take advantage once again of this export protocol.
It was the first direct export flight from South Africa since 2003 thanks to the determination of this small group of dedicated men and women to take South Africa from its current domestic isolation into the broader world.
Post arrival quarantine for the eleven horses will be 60 days in New York.
The one major difference between the American and the European protocol is that with the former the quarantine process is post-arrival and with the latter it is pre-arrival.
The European protocol at present does not allow direct flights, but Adrian Todd, the MD of the South African Equine Health and Protocols (SAEHP), remains confident that, following the audit done by the EU last year on the measures taken in SA to control the spread of African Horse Sickness, the protocols would soon be changed for the better.
