Walsh: relax horse medication regulation

TED WALSH has called on the government to bring the law pertaining to the administration of medication to horses, which he says “crucifies the racehorse man,” into line with other animals slaughtered for human consumption or risk pushing the industry underground.

At present, if a horse is given certain substances, a vet must put a stamp on its passport that it is not fit for human consumption which lasts for a horse’s lifetime, even though the Irish Equine Centre insists that residue from even the strongest medications are gone 14 days after administration.

Similar treatments for cows, pigs and sheep cause a ban on human consumption for those animals for a specific time period.

“The stamp crucifies the racehorse man,” said Walsh yesterday at a meeting of the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee.

“A horse gets a bit of colic and the first thing he is given by the vet is bute. The vet has no option but to put the stamp on the passport and that’s it; he might get that as a three-year-old but at 17 he can’t go to an abattoir.

“It’s terrible then that the horse has to suffer because of the owner. There are owners who have had great horses in training and when they’re finished say ‘put him down’ or leave him starving. So I think it’s a common sense thing.

“Nobody likes going to the abattoir. If you have a racehorse, you hope it will die peacefully up in the field. I had an old fella, Barney Burnett who died at 28 a couple of years ago, but a lot of people don’t do that because they’re tight.

“So you have a poor old horse standing by the side of the ditch that’s starving with the hunger. It looks bad especially for a country that prides itself on the tourism.

“I’m here from the welfare of the horse side of things but if you don’t bring this thing into line with beef, pork and lamb you’ll drive it underground and you’ll have a criminal aspect to it.”