Kentucky Embargo Against Virus
May Cost It Team Roping Finals

LEXINGTON, Ky. —(AP)— State officials are defending an embargo that threatens to keep the quarter-million dollar regional finals of the U.S. Team Roping Championships from returning to Kentucky next year.

The event has been held at the Kentucky Horse Park for the last seven years, but the state's stringent regulations against a livestock disease indirectly eliminated some contestants from the current show.

Under the embargo, no livestock or exotic animals are allowed from states with an outbreak of the virus vesicular stomatitis. Right now, that includes Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Animals from states that border those with outbreaks — in this case Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California — must have a veterinarian's certificate clearing them.

Since most of the 1400 competitors are from other states and travel the team-roping circuit throughout the West, many have to prove their horses are clean.

Only 200 to 300 who were unable to get the blood work done in time were eliminated from the competition this year, said the show's producer, Dan Stewart of Louisville.

"We understand the reasons. Kentucky is one of the most, if not the most, stringent states with regard to equine health," Stewart said.

But Stewart confirmed that the national organization is considering moving the event to a state with more lax regulations. And, he said, he's had plenty of offers.

"We don't have this problem anywhere else," said John Findlay, marketing director for U.S. Team Roping Championships, headquarters in Albuquerque, N.M.

In this year’s finals, the paperwork was compounded by the late addition of Arizona to the embargo, which meant horses from California and Nevada also would need certificates.

Testing for antibodies to the virus can take from three days to a week and costs less than $15. In Kentucky, the test is free.

"We're not complaining about the town, the people, the facilities," Findlay said. "Just about the paranoia from the state Agriculture Department and this disease that doesn't kill. You can put a huge gold star on Kentucky for overreacting."

But state officials think it is only because Kentucky has taken such a strong stand that it hasn't had a confirmed case of the virus in the last 10 years. Western states have had significant and swift epidemics in the last three years.

"I know Kentucky has come in for criticism for what has been seen as a harsh policy," said Dr. Peter Timoney, director of the University of Kentucky's Gluck Equine Center, "but few states have as much at risk in terms of both beef and horses than what we have in this state. We can ill afford to take that risk."

The virus, found primarily in the Americas, causes vesicles, or blisterlike lesions, in the mouths and on the udders and feet of affected animals, Timoney said.

"Our position is that the embargo protects the health and economic well-being of Kentucky's livestock industry," said Agriculture Commissioner Billy Ray Smith.

Animals can become dehydrated and malnourished because their mouths are too sore to eat, and they can become lame from foot sores.