Horse is an athlete
Horses are now considered athletes under Italian law
With the Legislative Decree No. 36 dated February 28th 2021, sports horses have at last been assigned the status of athletes and are in every way legally acknowledged as such.
This is an important achievement and essential for the creation of rules to be established to protect animals that are bred and live as athletes together with their riders. This new decree, which in addition to horses also protects any animal involved in sporting activities, envisages a number of interesting obligations established to protect our equine friends.
A horse can be considered an ‘athlete’ when having the three following requisites:
- registration with an ID
- declared as not being destined to food production
- registered with the ‘registry of athlete horses’ with the Italian Equestrian Sports Federation, FIPM or FitetrecAnte, or an Entity for the Promotion of Sport
The Italian state has now proved that it wishes to protect all sports athletes, including animals: no longer a ‘mean’, but a ‘member of the team’
Full article on this month’s issue
