Vaccinations

Why are we not informed when trainers vaccinate their horses as we all know they don't perform to the best of their ability after the shot

How often are horses vaccinated in a year. Are they vaccinated when they are ill or is it a precautionary vaccination to prevent horses from acquiring other diseases.
IMO the horses should not be in a competitive race if the vaccination is going to hinder their performance.

Mandatory meds are Flu vacs, African Horse Sickness vacs and dewormers - those are the most basic medications that horses are required to have. All depends how 'careful' you are. You can add on all sorts of additional things to babies going to sales for the first time, equine herpes virus (respiratory disease) jabs for horses that travel and regularly mix with 'foreign' horses, etc.

Flu vacs are done on a 6 month cycle - usually the horse has an 'easy' the day after, but should be fine by day 2.

African Horse Sickness only every 24 months, but most people like to do it annually. It consists of 2 injections administered 3 weeks apart. Each jab is 'active' for a 3 week period. The difficulty / danger with AHS is that it's a live virus and can be 'triggered' by various things. As a rule of thumb week 2 of each jab is the 'danger week' and you tend to ease off the horses (try not to work them hard, or raise their temperatures enough for them to sweat, etc) and then pick up again in the weeks either side.

You should also deworm a horse quarterly (give or take, depending on environment) and some people believe that dewormers can also affect an animal.

Hope that helps !

zsuzsanna04 Wrote:

---

> Mandatory meds are Flu vacs, African Horse
> Sickness vacs and dewormers - those are the most
> basic medications that horses are required to
> have. All depends how 'careful' you are. You can
> add on all sorts of additional things to babies
> going to sales for the first time, equine herpes
> virus (respiratory disease) jabs for horses that
> travel and regularly mix with 'foreign' horses,
> etc.
>
> Flu vacs are done on a 6 month cycle - usually the
> horse has an 'easy' the day after, but should be
> fine by day 2.
>
> African Horse Sickness only every 24 months, but
> most people like to do it annually. It consists
> of 2 injections administered 3 weeks apart. Each
> jab is 'active' for a 3 week period. The
> difficulty / danger with AHS is that it's a live
> virus and can be 'triggered' by various things.
> As a rule of thumb week 2 of each jab is the
> 'danger week' and you tend to ease off the horses
> (try not to work them hard, or raise their
> temperatures enough for them to sweat, etc) and
> then pick up again in the weeks either side.
>
> You should also deworm a horse quarterly (give or
> take, depending on environment) and some people
> believe that dewormers can also affect an animal.
>
> Hope that helps !


Thank you zsuzsanna04

Thanks very much that was very informative

FYI , African horse Sickness vacs have to be given annually to all racehorses and only by a vet. Also any horses wanting to travel into the Western Cape

Yes, NHRA rules require all registered horses to be given their African Horse Sickness vaccinations once per 12 month period. You would be foolish to race a horse, or work him hard, during the 3 weeks after each of the AHS vaccinations, because the horse could become sick. You can give the 2 vaccines to the horse at different stages (eg. Give Vac 1 now, and then Vac 2 in 2 months.) It is a protein synthesized "live" vaccine. Most horses can stay in light work over the vaccination period. So a return to proper fitness, like after any layoff, would be in question here.

Equine Influenza vaccines are not "live", and do not require any major rest/ low intensity exercise period.

It is debatable whether either causes a "performance drop off" in horses. In my personal, and anecdotal experience, if the horses are managed correctly during the vaccination period, it will not affect performance whatsoever.