Guides
A horse can be perfectly protected and still be turned away at a show. That is not a paradox, it is two different rulebooks, and the difference between them lives in the vaccination pages of the passport.
The veterinary minimum for equine influenza is an annual booster, no more than a year apart. That is what protects the horse.
Competition rules demand more. The FEI requires a booster within six months and twenty one days before arriving at an event, and never within seven days of arrival. British racing has required six-monthly boosters since 2023. National federations sit in between: British Eventing accepts twelve months, the Dutch federation KNHS accepts twelve months, British Showjumping follows the FEI-style scheme. Same horse, same vaccine, four different definitions of "up to date".
Miss a booster window and the consequence is not one late jab. Under KNHS rules, more than twelve months between boosters means the entire primary course starts again: two or three vaccinations, weeks apart, with no competing in between. One forgotten date can cost a season. This is the single strongest reason vaccination dates belong in a system that warns you, not in a head.
The FEI, British Showjumping and the KNHS all changed their schemes in 2024. A primary course started before 1 January 2024 stays valid under the old intervals. A course started after it follows the new ones: second vaccination 21 to 60 days after the first, a third within six months and twenty one days. So two horses in the same yard can both be correct on different schedules, and a website that prints one table without dates is wrong for half its readers. Always record which scheme a course was started under.
Tetanus is not a competition requirement anywhere, which is exactly why it gets forgotten. The label of the common combination vaccine is precise: first revaccination no later than 17 months after the primary course, then a maximum interval of two years. The often-heard "every two to three years" is not on any label we could find. Two years is the number.
For competition, an entry is only valid when it carries the vaccine name and batch number, the date, and the signature and stamp of a veterinarian. The FEI adds its own precision: corrections with a single strike-through and initials, no correction fluid, and since 2025 influenza entries also go into the FEI HorseApp. The Dutch rules put influenza in chapter VII of the passport and everything else in chapter VIII.
The passport stays the legal document. What a record of your own adds is the part the passport cannot do: it counts forward and warns you while there is still time to book the vet, instead of after the window has closed.
Australia eradicated equine influenza after its 2007 outbreak, and the flu vaccine is no longer approved for routine use there at all. Australian owners deal with a different threat instead: Hendra virus, with its own vaccine and its own schedule. If you move a horse between continents, the record travels with it, and the rules change under its feet.
Stablebook