Adriana Zerafa, 21, a Prix St. Georges level dressage rider and her mother, Paola Lugari-Zerafa, paid $60,000 to have seven horses brought from France to Canada. The importer she hired arranged travel and applied for the necessary permits. For reasons unknown to her, the importer brought two of the horses, stallions, into Canada on temporary permits, claiming they were to be shown at the recent Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, she said. Five horses have been released from quarantine at the importer¹s government-approved facility, but the two stallions remain.
Zerafa said she has offered to put the stallions through whatever tests are necessary to obtain permanent permits. But she has been told by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) the horses must be returned to Europe and re-imported or be euthanized. The CFIA has strict protocol around importing horses to prevent the spread of equine metritis, a contagious venereal disease. It¹s never been transmitted in Canada and the regulatory body wants to keep it that way.
Zerafa is seeking an extension of an injunction granted on Friday to prevent the removal or euthanasia of the two stalliions, including the 18-year-old dressage stallion she planned to ride in competition. Her lawyer, Catherine E. Willson, has also filed a notice of application to the court for review of the CFIA’s removal order for the horses.
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