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COGGINS NEWS February 15, 2011
A WORD TO HORSE OWNERS: REGULATIONS REQUIRE A COGGINS TEST FOR ALL EVENTS WHERE HORSES GATHER
Contact: Elaine Lidholm, 804.786.7686 - Virginia Deparpment of Agriculture & Consumer Services
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) announced today that effective March 2, 2011, an updated regulation will take effect regarding the Coggins test for equine infectious anemia. The updated regulation specifies that “all horses assembled at a show, fair, race meet or other such function or participating in any activity on properties where horses belonging to different owners may come into contact with each other in Virginia must be accompanied by a report of an official negative test for equine infectious anemia.” For years horse owners have been required to have a valid Coggins test when horses are assembled, and the updated regulation clarifies this. Assembly of horses for a trail ride on public property such as a state park is an example of an activity requiring horse owners to have a valid Coggins report with them.
Starting March 2, rangers in state and national parks may check for Coggins papers, and owners without valid test reports could be charged with a Class I Misdemeanor and asked to leave the park. As is currently the case under existing regulations, owners presenting fraudulent paperwork can be charged with civil penalties as well.
“Equine Infectious Anemia is a serious disease,” said Dr. Richard Wilkes, VDACS State Veterinarian. “It affects all members of the equine species and is found in nearly every country of the world. All infected horses, even those that are asymptomatic, become carriers and are infectious for life. Infected animals must either be destroyed or remain permanently isolated from other equines to prevent transmission. The change in regulation is not drastic, but it is important and horse owners need to take seriously the need for a valid Coggins test each year prior to any assemblage with other equines.” Wilkes says that horse owners may get a Coggins test by contacting their local large animal veterinarian. They routinely pull blood samples and submit them for Coggins testing
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For more information, horse owners should contact their veterinarian or VDACS’ Office of Veterinary Services at 804.786.2483 or go to http://www.vdacs. virginia. gov/news/ releases- b/021511eiareg. shtml
(Note from the NHS: The Nokesville Horse Society requires current Coggins for all NHS events where equine are present. If current Coggins are not made available the equine must be removed from the event location)
Please be very careful when posting free or low cost horses. There is a woman in Scotland CT who has an accomplice from Ledyard CT and has successfully scammed people into believing that she is looking for a companion horse. She places ads looking for companion horses and scans all
of the craigslist ads from all over the east coast and gets them for free and sells them to the Canada slaughter house killer buyers at the auction in New Holland. She is a horse dealer on Gager Hill Rd in Scotland. She uses many fictitious names and email addresses (at least 5 that I know of). She
has no problem signing a contract with one of her fake names. Her stories are many but she does not have a husband, does not have a farm in Maine, is not looking for a companion horse. She is a horse dealer who also sells puppy mill puppies and claims to be the breeder. If your horse is sound she
will sell it. If it is not or has any problems that prevent her from selling it she will bring to auction and sell to the killer buyers - sadly this is the fate of most of them. She will tell you whatever she thinks you want to hear so Please be very careful if you don't want your horses to end up at the slaughter house. Take an application and make any adoptee sign a contract and check ID and references or send your horse to a legitimate rescue organization.
(Response in the course of that discussion from a horse rescue in Maryland):
"For what it's worth, we have a guy like that in our area. He's seen with NJ tags and a south Jersey cell #. He does the exact same thing. He travels at least into Maryland, possibly further. I personally know someone whose friend got scammed by him last February. The guy was naively advertising
OTTB. The scammer sweet-talked horse owner into letting horse go to a "great home" for next to nothing. Two weeks later someone is checking the tattoos on the TBs in the back Camelot pens, and the horse is there!?! Thanks to the help of the Camelot rescue people, a nice lady at CANTER, us here at Equihab, COTH, and others - the horse was pulled, shipped back to Maryland,
and nursed back to heath.
The thing is that this guy is REALLY persuasive.. . and part of that charm is to talking people out of doing contracts. So despite he's getting horses under false pretenses, it's almost impossible to nail him. He contacted someone else I knew about an inexpensive horse for sale, and we were going
to confront him when he came down - but he never showed.
I am not going to post the details of that scam here, but I know he's not the only one in the mid-atlantic region running this game. Horse sellers need to be really careful. And I may be biased in saying this, but horse rescues/shelters/ retirement farms should be better supported by the horse community so a desperate person never feels they "have no choice" but to take the chance."
