THE FEI Veterinary Department sent out an alert last Friday to the equestrian community following an Equine Herpes Virus-1 (EHV-1) neurological outbreak in France.

The outbreak is linked to a national event that took place in Le Mans on November 1st-3rd 2024 and, as of November 20th, has resulted in fatalities, and cases in three different French departments.

An FEI event took place at the same venue in the following week (November 8th-11th). The FEI horses were housed in different stables than the horses competing in the national event and there were no direct contacts between the national and FEI horses at Le Mans.

EHV-1 is an air-borne disease that can be transmitted up to five metres via coughing, but also through direct contact, via people and shared equipment. It can cause respiratory and neurological signs, abortion in pregnant mares and death of young foals.

In response to the outbreak, the FEI asked the community to be vigilant and monitor the health of their horses carefully.

Sir Mark Todd to

retire from training

OLYMPIC event rider Sir Mark Todd has announced he will not renew his racehorse training licence at the end of the season. After six years of training, Todd will wind up after Christmas. “We’ve only ever had a small team and I only ever did it because I wanted to have a bit of a new challenge, and that was that. I’ve been there and we felt now is the right time [to finish]” he told Horse and Hound.

A double Olympic gold medallist and four-time winner of Badminton, Todd retired from eventing after the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and returned to his native New Zealand, where he trains flat horses. He returned to eventing before the 2008 Beijing Games, and retired for a final time in 2019 aged 63, before again concentrating on racehorses. He trained his first UK winner on the track - Petit Bay - in 2020. Previous to this, his success on the track in the Southern Hemisphere included winning the New Zealand Oaks with Bramble Rose in 2003 and the Wellington Cup with Willy Smith in 2007.