11/20/2025
🚨 PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR HORSE OWNERS & EQUINE PROFESSIONALS
There is a major Equine Herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) outbreak happening right now, and it is not the kind of thing you can “hope away” with positive thoughts. This virus is extremely contagious, spreads in more ways than people realize, and is already responsible for sickness and death across the country.
Before anyone panics or says “but my horse looks fine,” here’s what everyone needs to understand:
🔬 HOW EHV-1 SPREADS (AKA: HOW THE VIRUS WINS WHEN WE GET LAZY)
• Airborne droplets: A cough, a snort, or a friendly nose-boop between horses can move the virus. It’s basically the world’s rudest sneeze.
• Direct contact: Nose-to-nose greetings = viral speed-dating.
• Indirect contact: Buckets, grooming tools, tack, halters, lead ropes, hands, clothing, boots… if it exists, a horse can sneeze on it, and boom it’s contagious.
• PEOPLE CAN SPREAD IT: You don’t have to touch a horse to carry the virus from one barn to another. Your clothes, your gear, and even your car can play Uber for pathogens.
• Latency: Horses can carry EHV-1 silently. They may look totally normal while shedding the virus like it’s free confetti.
⏱️ THE SCARY TIMING PROBLEM
• Incubation: 2–10 days (your horse can spread it before looking sick)
• Shedding: 7–10 days, sometimes up to 28 days
• Horses can be asymptomatic, meaning they’re contagious with zero warning signs
• Stress (travel, training, PEMF, shows) can reactivate the virus in carriers
Translation: “Cutting back on barn visits” won’t magically protect your herd.
⚠️ IF YOU WORK IN THE EQUINE INDUSTRY, PLEASE READ THIS TWICE
Trainers, PEMF practitioners, massage therapists, chiropractors, farriers, bodyworkers, photographers, and anyone bouncing between barns:
Reducing your workload is NOT the same as proper biosecurity.
If you have horses at home, simply doing “fewer barns” will not eliminate your risk to your personal horses and others.
If you have horses at home and you are touching multiple outside horses the exposure potential skyrockets.
Professionals with horses on their property should consider temporarily suspending multi-barn travel unless biosecurity is airtight. One contaminated halter, one sneeze, one forgotten sleeve rub… that’s all it takes.
Meanwhile, photographers (like me) who don’t handle horses directly and don’t keep horses at home have a significantly lower transmission risk but even then, I am limiting myself to one barn per day and disinfecting between shoots, because biosecurity is everyone’s responsibility.
😬 WHY THIS MATTERS: THE NEUROLOGIC FORM (EHM)
EHV-1 can turn into a neurologic form called EHM.
That’s the one that causes:
• Incoordination
• Hind-end weakness
• Loss of bladder/tail control
• Inability to stand
• And in severe cases, euthanasia
This is why barns are locking down. This is why events are being cancelled. This is why people are scared. And honestly? They should be.
🧼 WHAT WE ALL SHOULD BE DOING RIGHT NOW
• Limit barn-to-barn travel
• Change clothes and disinfect boots between locations
• Keep separate equipment per barn
• Wash hands after every horse interaction
• Do not share buckets, tools, tack, cross-ties, or the sacred communal barn brush
• Isolate any horse that has traveled, even if they look fine
• Take temperatures twice daily
• Communicate honestly no secrecy, no pride, no “it’s probably fine”
💬 BOTTOM LINE
This outbreak is serious. It spreads fast, it hides well, and it’s absolutely capable of wiping out thousands of horses if people aren’t careful.
Biosecurity is not optional.
Transparency is not optional.
And “doing a little less” is not enough.
Protect your horses. Protect other people’s horses. STOP SHOWING, STOP TRAVELING, STOP HAULING OUT.
