EHV-1

A quick post but an important one, today. Normal service will resume shortly!

As many of you are probably already aware, there has been an outbreak of EHV-1 confirmed at a racing yard a few miles away from us in north Devon.  We heard of the outbreak last week and there is more information from the BBC here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-20363114 and from BEVA.

Very fortunately (and unusually!) none of our own horses have been out hunting or had any contact with horses from outside Rockley for the last 2 weeks. Equally fortunately, the horses scheduled to arrive here are all from several hundred miles away and "no-risk" areas, so we have been very lucky.

The racing yard is hopeful it has been contained but at present its not clear whether the virus has spread to any other horses in the area. As a precaution, all hunting has been cancelled for now and those who have bridleways running over their land have asked riders not to use them at the moment.

I'll update you if anything changes but it sounds as if everyone has acted very quickly - lets hope it has already been dealt with. To be on the safe side, of course, we won't be letting the horses here come into contact with any "outside" horses until we are absolutely positive that there is no risk of infection.