Sally Barbera has a long and successful equestrian history which began in the UK, where she showjumped professionally riding for various well known owners. Sally then did what so many young Brits do, and made the trip "downunder" to explore the beauty of Australia and this young Brit loved it so much she made it her home - she is now a fully fledged Aussie and passionately so!

Sally is far from the steroe-typical whinging POM - she embraced Australian life and became involved in the Eventing scene and then began to Coach as well. After the birth of her two sons, Sally became more and more involved in the Dressage scene. As well as competing, Sally is also one of the top Coach Educators, working with the steering committees which set up the National Coaching Accreditation Scheme (NCAS) and she is in demand throughout Australia for Coaching clinics.

Sally has a full teaching book, which ensures that she is well aware of the needs of students, making her a very hands-on Coach Educator in an industry where sometimes the Educators have been known to forget that they are teaching people to coach riders of all levels.

The EI crisis in Australia is about the horses and their well being but sadly many many equestrian businesses will simply not survive through the many hard months already seen and those yet to come - as Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia sit and wonder whether they will be lucky enough to escape the virus. New South Wales and Queensland pray they will otherwise they will be facing possible lockdowns till middle of next year.

The Barbera lifestyle changed dramatically when, within a 24 hour period, her entire income was halted with no light currently being seen at the end of the tunnel - EI hit Australia!

Sally tells her story:

This is a short story about what we went through with this disease at Maybelle Farm, an equestrian property about one hour north west of Sydney. Specialising in dressage training, we currently have 5 horses in work and the other 5 are either retired or here for a 'spell'.

I am an EFA Level 2 Coach and run a small business that includes agistment and training for riders and instructors alike.

Luckily the Barbera family have a glorious view - pictured right - from their back verandah, as this is where they have been in lockdown for 2 months now!

The story begins:

The first I heard of the EI being here was the evening of Friday 24th August. I had been at a Richard Weis dressage clinic all week with my horse Harvest Aragorn (Harvey) and on the Friday had taken him

and my other horse, Poldark for Nathalie, our Swedish exchange student, to ride in a lesson as well.

On the way home I got a text from a friend: "arrived in Parkes to a police escort and an angry mob! We apparently have the 'flu at CPEC and it's now in lockdown. They all hate us up here!"

From there on the phone ran hot. By Saturday it wasn't just Centennial Parklands (CPEC) that was in lockdown, it was the whole of NSW!

My first casualties were Saturday's lessons. All cancelled as I couldn't allow any more horses onto the property. No worries, an enforced day off and a perfect excuse to spend the day watching "5 Straight with Will & Grace", didn't sound so bad really!

By Monday I had to register myself as a 'suspect property' as I had received a Centennial horse onto my property the Monday prior to the lockdown.

I had also attended the dressage clinic and one of the other participants that we possibly had contact with was now confirmed as having EI.

To be honest, the severity didn't really hit at this time. It was all rather exciting really!

People were sending me text messages from their obscure places of quarantine, friends were on the telly or radio every five minutes, phone calls back and forth "did you see so & so on the telly, she's stuck in Moonbi/Parkes/Tamworth!!"

Besides, it wasn't that severe a disease after all was it? A few days of coughing and a bit of a snotty nose were not much to worry about. It was just the fact that it was so very contagious that was the problem surely?

Our 'CPEC' horse had been quarantined here on arrival and she had been here for 7 days and the incubation period was 5 days.

Now we only had to wait till next Friday to find out if we had caught anything at the dressage clinic and we were home and hosed. We really thought we didn't have much to worry about - I was convinced we'd escape infection for some reason! How wrong I was!!

By the Friday September 7th things were getting very boring. All lessons/clinics cancelled until further notice, we had put off our groom Sam, and yet all the horses were still fit and in work with normal temperatures and appetites.

Owners were told it was best not to visit, particularly if they had horses on other properties because there was no way I was getting this disease in my stables.

We were by now surrounded by infected properties. My neighbour had phoned to tell me she had it and I knew it was at a property at the top of the road already. We were told that the virus could be airborne so there seemed to be no hope for anyone escaping it really.

But I stoically held onto the belief that mine were going to be fine and I was going to keep working because I was convinced that Harvey was going to win Elementary Champion at the Hawkesbury dressage championships in November!

It was beginning to look a bit like Custer's Last Stand round here.

And then, that day during the work session, two of the horses coughed. Nathalie & I looked at each other with an 'uh oh' expression and whipped them up to the stables, thermometers inserted and read…no temperature and horses looking particularly healthy.

Nah! It couldn't be, it was only one cough…who where we kidding, we knew we had it!

The whole place was put on a 'no work' rule as of that moment and the DPI was informed (a legal requirement) and they kindly gave us a 50 day quarantine order and the vet was booked to come and test them on Monday.

All our horses live out all year round so that at least meant that they were out in the fresh air and could therefore, hopefully, fight a respiratory disease with greater ease than their stable kept counterparts.

The next day these same two horses both had slightly snotty noses and I began a routine that was to last for the next 3 weeks.

Morning and evening feeds included temperature taking and recording and making a note of symptoms, if any, for all 10 horses on the property.

Any trips out to the shops, or feed store had to be carefully timed so that one could leave the property appropriately de-contaminated: showered, changed into clean clothes, washed hair, nose blown! (Apparently the virus can travel on nasal hair!!)

And then the car had to be sprayed with disinfectant. We had taken to leaving all the family cars outside the property so as to minimise contamination as much as possible and a spray pack and bucket of disinfectant were left at the gate.

By Monday September 10th, 7 of the 10 horses were coughing. The vet came complete with bio suit and a decontaminating routine that would please even the most confirmed germaphobe.

She swabbed two horses and left me with a box of Bute (for temperature spikes) a tub of broncopulmin (for the severe coughers) and a box of Sulpha T "just in case you get a secondary infection" (insert hollow laughter here!).

And off she went leaving me with the goodies and a cheery "good luck". I had no idea just how much of this stuff I was going to go through over the next 3 weeks.


By Tuesday September 11th, (day 5, we have all started talking about what Day we're on now) I had 9 of the 10 coughing, 8 had started the temperature spike thing and the snot production had now begun in earnest!

The feed up routine consisted of: load up the ride-on trailer with feed, medicine, wipes, disinfectant etc. (ensuring broncopulmin was added to feeds and dampened down), take temperature (ensure thermometer is cleaned and re Vaseline'd each time), record temp & symptoms on horse's individual sheet whilst he is eating, clean snotty nose with copious amounts of baby wipes making sure they don't blow away over the paddock and infect anyone else, give bute if temperature spiking.

No mean feat as by now the horses were a bit sick of getting poked in the bum and foul tasting medicine shoved down their throats. They had to have finished eating because they shouldn't have bute on an empty stomach and if you gave it to them before they ate most would stand and sulk with their cheeks sucked in and refuse to eat, (even though I told them it would take the taste away!) and if they still had feed in their mouth most of the paste would end up spat out, usually in one's hair.

Once back at the barn, all the snotty tissues and empty Bute containers had to be put in to disinfectant to soak for 24 hours before they could be disposed of safely as they couldn't leave the property in a contaminated state via our garbage bins.

This all took an average of two hours and half hours twice a day. The evening feed up routine often continued on after dark.

I became quite adept at carrying a torch in one hand and finding the appropriate orifice in which to insert the thermometer with the other (sometimes that became too much and I would abandon the torch and resort to just aiming. I'm sure I could become the local pub darts champion after all this practise!) then reading and writing the results down by the light of the ride-on-mowers headlights.

After evening feed up, I would then go inside for the evening, shower, change and put my clothes in a garbage bag and into the laundry. Most evenings I would then write an email report for all the owners to keep in touch with what was happening to their beloved ponies.

And ironically, the only horse still to show no symptoms was the mare that arrived from CPEC 3 weeks earlier.

"Grace" finally succumbed on day 6 with a cough and a snotty nose and now we had a full house!

The horse's reactions to their treatment were as varied as their symptoms.

From Deek who stood resolutely throughout with a long suffering look on his face (even when he went onto twice daily injections due to a severe secondary infection), to Grace who, bless her, would walk backwards whilst I wiped her nose or stuck bute in her mouth. Never violent, she just walked backwards with me hanging onto her nose, sometimes for the whole length of the paddock!

Harvey had obviously read the "side effects' leaflet of the broncopulmin jars. Particularly the bit that said 'excitement' was a possibility. Have you ever seen Katherine Tate's 'screaming woman' sketch? Well that was Harvey! I ducked through the fence, he 'screamed' and ran away, the headcollar touched his nose, he 'screamed' and ran away, the bute top popped off…he 'screamed' and ran away! I would march after him, gnashing my teeth and uttering obscenities. I'm sure he thought he was hilarious.

Romanza (Reg) decided the best form of defence was attack so would use his head as a weapon. I could often be seen hanging onto Reg's nose, feet flailing in the air whilst he lifted me up and chucked me around. Never moved his bloody feet once! Run away?? Oh no! Running away is a girls game, much better to just toss the offending human out of the way!

Pictured right - Sally and Deek (grey) and Poldark in happier times - when competitions were permitted!

Day 9 and we had a visit from the DPI who gave us QUARANTINE AREA, KEEP OUT signs for our gates, red and white tape exclaiming "DANGER" and some more disinfectant for the car tyres etc.

The signs particularly amused my two sons who thought it was to warn people about me!

By now I had also received my official quarantine certificate in the mail.

This was starting to sink in, it was Day 9 since we contracted the virus, 3 weeks since I'd done any teaching and it looked like a good few more weeks before I was likely to do any more.

Not to mention my lovely fit dressage horses that were starting to go so well were now looking at 3 months off! The Hawkesbury Dressage Championships had now been cancelled, along with any other shows in NSW right up to Christmas, and I had been 'sacked' from presenting at an Instructors workshop south of Sydney because we had the dreaded lurgy and they wouldn't risk me being on their property.

This was particularly sad as a group of us run these workshops and we all work well together…not to mention it was the only teaching money I was likely to see this side of Christmas.

Of the 10 horses we had some varying responses over the next few days.

Horse's temperatures continued to 'spike' erratically. One horse had a temperature for 8 nights in a row, despite being treated with Bute, another had one 'spike' and then nothing more, and the two highest recorded temperatures were my 3 year old, Romanza and my old 25 year old pony, Bubbles both of whom had one spike that went to 41.

Harvey had an outpouring of mucous from his hooter the like of which I have never seen before. He literally left a trail wherever he went and his front legs were covered in copious amounts of dried, crusty snot where he had been wiping his nose on his sleeve!

Our dear old retired eventer, Deek, had all symptoms and all very strongly, he went off his food and a course of anti-biotics were started. Two horses had nose bleeds and we now had 7 of the 10 on anti-biotics due to possible secondary infections.

We bought numerous tubes of Bute and tubs of broncopulmin. Our vets on a Saturday morning resembled a Cole's check out with people queuing out the door! They had actually run out of medication the night before!


I had gotten used the heart sinking feeling of taking temperatures and have 9 come back normal, teasing me with the hope that this was over, only to have the 10th horse return a temperature of 40.5.

I had gotten used to all the horses marching steadfastly away from me with "Jesus Christ, here she comes again' expressions whenever I ventured anywhere near them. I had gotten so used to wiping up snot that when neighbours drove past whilst I was in the paddock cleaning various nostrils I hardly noticed the horrified expressions on their faces as I waved them a sticky 'g'day'.

When we sat on the veranda in the evenings the normal night sounds of frogs, birds, insects, were punctuated with the sounds of horses coughing. It became a night time ritual of identifying the coughs…'that was Deek' 'oops, that sounds like Reg'....'uh, oh sounds like the neighbours have got it now that was too far away for one of ours'….


Finally, on the October 2nd (Day 26) it appeared that the temperature spikes had abated, the coughing was dying down, and the noses were drying up.

I heaved a sigh of relief and wrote to the owners that it seemed like we were on the mend and just had to now wait and settle down to the long and boring process of letting them recover (apparently at least a month after the last symptom).

And then that night, from over in the mares paddock came two deep coughs....

October 4th (Day 28) was warm right from early on in the morning.

Deek spent all morning wallowing up to his chest in the dam and looking sad & sorry for himself. He couldn't be persuaded to come out, there was nothing for it but for me to wade in and take the old guys temperature.

And there it was 39.4 and the reason why he wouldn't come out of the dam! He's a wise old bugger that one.

That same day Harvey resumed production in the snot factory as if it were going out of fashion and was walking stiff legged around the paddock as if he had tied-up, Romanza had swollen back legs, Grace swollen front legs, ALL Deek legs were swollen….I trooped up to the vets to get more drugs! Two more back on anti-biotics, vet back out to take blood tests, and nearly every horse had yet more Bute when they got one or more swollen limbs. Was this never going to end?

Pictured left - photo taken when teaching was an everyday occurence throughout Australia - it all seems so long ago for so many!

It's now 42 days since the first symptoms really showed on this property. All our horses are now over it as far as I can tell although Harvey and Deek still had slightly wet noses yesterday.(October 18th)

Our official quarantine would have run out on the 29th of this month.

However, this was superseded by the new zoning some weeks ago.

We are in the Purple Zone, which is a highly infected area, once you get in you can't get out until the quarantine on the whole zone is lifted.

They say this is usually 30 days after the last horse recovers and shows no symptoms.

As my story tells, for some this can be over 30 days, so then 30 days more quarantine on top of that.

The thing is, they are letting clean horses INTO the purple zone as we speak…for breeding purposes.

We ain't getting out of here in a hurry!!

Footnote: The Financial Cost
This is difficult to ascertain in real terms as all the vet bills haven't come in yet.

So far the treatment has cost around $160 per horse. Plus further $50 for sundry supplements like vitamins to help boost the immune system.

However, we do have another bill in the offing with 2 more blood tests at around $70 each for 2 horses who came down with secondary infections that had the vet worried and they both had further courses of anti-biotics, one of which they warned me will be 'expensive'.

They have also recommended that performance horses may benefit from a blood test and check up before they resume work.

The loss of income to me personally is around $5,000 so far.

I won't be able to go back to teaching for around another 2 months at the earliest and even then it's not going to go straight back to full on work.

It will depend on each student's horse as to when they can return to work, when they are fit enough for a lesson and when the riders can afford it again!

By the time most get back on track it will be Christmas. Not a great time for business traditionally, all the shows stop (not that we have any planned this year!) and the weather gets seriously hot. Most people spend the best part of the Christmas school holidays at the beach, not at the barn (apart from the showjumpers, but they're a barmy lot!!).

Realistically I fear things aren't going to pick up until around the beginning of March. My business has to rely solely on agisting horses for the time being.

We are being warned that feed prices are to rise again as the drought takes another hold. Much of our feed stock comes from outside the purple zone.

Once a feed truck comes into a purple zone and has contact with an equine property they need a permit to get out and have to go through a full de-contamination routine. This is going to seriously hike the feed prices up too.

But hey, as our EFA Chairman has told us, let's look on the bright side…think of all the money we are saving by not competing!!

Editors note: And Sally look on the even brighter side - the EFA CEO has sent out the link for the newly released FEI computer Horse Game, so maybe you can use this to brush up on your competition skills while sitting at home wondering how you are actually going to find the money to pay the vet bills!

We know that there are many stories like this throughout the country right now and we thank Sally for taking the time to tell us her personal story - our thoughts go to all those suffering right now and we pray along with the whole of Australia that the EI virus is contained within NSW and Queensland and that things can get back to normal as quickly as possible once the war is over!