South Africa’s multimillion rand horsebreeding industry is big business for logistics specialists with 2017 Cape Met winner, Whisky Baron, the latest export to leave our shores – and begin the process of entry into his new home at Newmarket, England, from where he will compete worldwide.
Horse logistics is a complex process that involves road and chartered air transport to get the animals to their destinations fit, healthy and safe, says managing director of Global Bloodstock Logistics, JJ van der Linden.
“This journey is up to four months long as every horse must undergo a quarantine stop due to fears about African Horse Sickness. There are other time-consuming elements in the process to legalise the horses in either France or England where we deliver them.”
All horses due for export, if originating out of the African Horse Sickness free zone in the Cape, are road freighted to Beaufort West in the Western Cape where they are contained for 14 days for tests and declared clear of the African Horse Sickness. From there they are assembled – up to 50 at a time for 21 days’ pre-export quarantine.
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