The big if.

The galloping housewife is in self imposed isolation at the moment due to a contact of Mr galloping housewife being tested as having the current plague. Calm down, fans, the galloping housewife family have long been taking this all very seriously indeed, and this contact was outdoors, brief and not close at all. On the scale of high risk to no risk at all, this barely registers. It’s just that we’re not at all prepared to risk the health of any of our onward contacts. In any way.

The first thing the galloping housewife did was contact the yard where Perfect Percy is kept. All contact with the staff there is extremely low risk, too. We don’t get close and apart from the occasional crossing of paths in the tack room, we’re not indoors at all. They don’t even have an indoor arena, which the galloping housewife has yet to come to terms with fully, but that’s a different blog.

In conjunction with the yard owner, the galloping housewife has decided to stay away for a week, just in cases. At that point it would be two weeks after Mr galloping housewife meeting his mate, the accepted maximum incubation period for this bug. Of course, it all may be moot after this afternoons press conference, but it did get me thinking... does your yard have an isolation policy and strategy in place?

Have you made plans about what you’d do if you get sick or if your staff get sick? Who would quarantine, how long for and who would look after the horses? What about if one of your clients test positive or, more ambiguously, one of their close contacts does? Have you had the chat with them about how you’d expect them to behave and how long you need them to stay away for?

Do you have a list drawn up of what absolutely needs to be done in terms of feeding, mucking out and exercise if you needed to cut back to the bare minimum due to illness or staffing numbers? Do you have an emergency list of who you could call and step in for you if you really needed it?

All this is highly unlikely, we are very lucky to have a very low risk sport, where we can get away with minimal interpersonal contact. But there is a chance, and the last thing you want to be thinking about when shit hits fan, is who will look after your horses.

The yard where the galloping housewife keeps Perfect Percy does have this in place. In the first lockdown they all hunkered down with everyone living on site, and no one who was not completely essential was allowed in or out, including clients who had their horses there. It may seem extreme, but it kept them safe. It may not work for you, but if you don’t want to go down this route, all the more reason to have a plan in place for when someone in your circle, or in their circle, or in their circle, tests positive.

Stay safe out there!