Yesterday, Italian Horse Protection association petitioned the Procurator’s Office of Nuoro, the Prefect of Nuoro and the Health Ministry regarding the very serious harming of three equines by unknown individuals happened on 2nd August. Two of the wounded animals had to be put down.

As there are valid reasons to believe the episode is connected with the use of the above animals in some folkloristic events (more in detail, one of the horses was scheduled to take part to the palio of Fonni, held on 5th August, known to be the Sardinian palio with the highest prize money), our association urgently asked to stop the running of the palio of Fonni and start a serious investigation to discover the responsible and the motive of the atrocious act done in Gavoi.

There are also other reasons behind our request to stop the palio, connected with the no respect of the Health Ministry Ordinance of 21/07/2011, which set a series of rules “to discipline folkloristic events, public or private, involving equines held outside of courses officially authorized by the competent authorities”.

More in detail, we asked to the Prefect and the Health Ministry’s task force for animal welfare to verify the following:

- As far as we know, the organizers didn’t ask for the Ministry’s authorization (as required by section 1 of the Ordinance);
- In the palio rules – attached to the petition—there is no mention of any procedure for the identification of the horses nor of veterinary check-ups (a violation of the Ordinance): one just need to present the application form and pay 200 euros the day before the palio;
- There isn’t any mention of anti-doping controls (in violation of section 3 of the Ordinance)
- As far as we know, no horse ambulance has been scheduled to be at hand during the event as required by The Ordinance.

We are expecting and urgent response from the Authorities, to put an end to this disgusting behaviour. In 2011, 20 horses were killed for retaliation in Italy, 18 of them in Sardinia. It’s not possible to keep on ignoring the strong ties between those events passed off as cultural traditions – which are instead races and exhibitions without any control and vigilance – and many criminal acts committed against animals. It is time to enforce – at least -- the minimal requirements set by the Ordinance.

We remind that IHP has launched the NOPALIO campaign (www.nopalio.it) a few months ago, to ask for the ban of the use of animals in palii and folkloristic events, where only the people should compete, as a true historical tradition would ask for. So far more than 11.500 citizens have signed to support this request.