The European Commission (EC) has adopted a decision of the EC Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed to treat horses in the equine disease-free zone (EDFZ) in Conghua, Guangzhou, on the Chinese mainland, as having equivalent health status as horses in Hong Kong SAR.

This means that horses at the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Conghua Training Centre (CTC) will be treated the same, for residency purposes prior to temporary export to the 28 member countries of the European Union, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France, as well as all horses currently at Sha Tin Racecourse, in Hong Kong.

The EC decision followed a site inspection carried out in December 2017, in conjunction with the International Conference on the Equine Disease Free Zone (ICEDFZ), which was jointly hosted by the Hong Kong Jockey Club and the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) of the Hong Kong SAR. Alf-Eckbert Fussel, DVM, deputy head of the animal health and welfare unit for the EC’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, represented the commission at the ICEDFZ.

“The European Commission’s decision formally recognizes that the racehorse population at the Conghua Training Centre within the EDFZ will have exactly the same high-health status as horses stabled at Sha Tin,” said Andrew Harding, executive director of the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Racing Authority. “Such a decision will continue to enable the temporary movement of horses between all of the member countries within the European Union and Hong Kong for international races held at Sha Tin and vice versa. The EC decision reaffirms the platinum-standard of the biosecurity arrangements which have been made to support our CTC operations