RE The Horse Thefts..........PLEASE READ AND MAKE YOUR COMMENT SO WE CAN DO SOMETHING

fairlady

fairlady

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Jul 14, 2007
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Bristol
Was talking to a Girl tonight who is a friend of the Owner of the Stolen Mares.

All sorts of suggestions being made that they are 'still in Bristol' to probably
in Ireland by now...............

SOOOOOOO.............IF they are in Ireland How the Hell are these stolen
Horses getting out.......they must be going thro' a port on a Ferry so WHO
'ISN'T' doing their jobs and checking horses on the Lorries match with
Passports etc., cos you could bet top dollar if you or I wanted to take our
Horse to Ireland or anywhere else every check would be made...........

'RUMOUR' has it that they turn up with a lorry of say 7 Horses on and say they only have 4 on board and produce 4 Passports, therefore 3 nicked
Horses are getting through......

Something or 'Somebody' is failing miserably in their duties so WHO and what can 'WE' as Horse Owners do about it ???????????

We all know 'coloureds' are the favourite for theft but it could be any one of us and just imagine how you would feel, we know this is happening all over the Country and just maybe we can help tighten up the checks. I can't help but feel we 'all' say 'how awful, hope you find them' etc., etc, but nobody seems to be questioning how the hell they are getting them OUT of the Country in the first place, let alone bringing any of them back in with false passports !
 
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In all honsety, i dont ever listen to stories like this (I dont mean the horses getting stolen part, i mean the 'horses getting out of the country, taken to ireland' part). We just instantly 'assume' all these stolen horses are taken out of the country, as you said people have been saying everything from 'there still in Bristol' to 'They'll be in Ireland now'. We dont really know.
I think its exactly what you said it was, a rumour.
 
Agree with above. You never hear the follow ups on these type of stories. The only follow up I have heard is something like 'the horse was found a few fields down the road'.

I've also heard about people who have stolen loan horses on the other hand and have heard of people buying horses without passports and not questioning this. So it could be a problem exacerbated by people not having the knowledge.
 
Well I do know for fact of a Coloured Cob that WAS stolen and taken to Ireland a few years ago.

Owner had 'travelling' relatives and after lots of 'negotiations' DID get
his Horse back !

They told him that this is how they do it, say they have 4 on board when they actually have 6 and show 4 passports !

So unfortunately its a fact not just a rumour because I actually knew
this Chaps Dad x

Both these Mares are microchipped and in foal, so should they need vet treatment down the line chances are they may be picked up anyway.

More and more people are having Horses microchipped than freezemarked now, in fact as you are aware to be passported now Horse/Pony needs to be chipped, but is it as efficient/effective as freezemarking which is so 'visual' and are the necessary checks being carried out to see if
Horses/Ponies going out of the Country are chipped and have relevant documentation.............OR..........

IS IT ALL TOO MUCH TROUBLE, TIME CONSUMING AND THEREFORE EXPENSIVE ?
 
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passports are pretty useless at preventing horses from being stolen or taken out of the country. eg. 4 grey or black mares, all about the same height - who's going to spot the fake passport? unless they're microchipped and that is also mentioned in the passport and whoever is checking bothers to scan and whatnot ....

i've encountered several horses with passports which weren't theirs (eg owner of passport was PTS, another unpassported horses looks similar ....). it does happen, unfortunately. horses are also still sold on without passports quite often - it's impossible to keep track of every horse being sold or given to someone, with or without a passport.
 
Whilst I can totally understand its impossible to keep track of Horses being Sold etc., I do expect them to keep track of the number of Horses being taken out of the Country and in all honesty am horrified that they can hand a certain number of passports over saying they only have 3 or whatever on board when they actually have a couple more...........

Why are they not being checked more thoroughly?
 
costs - no doubt the customs ppl dont have the time, and horses are of much less interest than people.

I put a dark brown run on my coloured pony and hopefully his markings dont show - he looks like he is all white with the rug on - well, i hope he does.

But we have five coloureds on our yard now, in the spring there was only one - my Maxy. So it is a bit of a worry.

But when we had two thefts last winter (we got them back) it was a black section D and a NF pony that were taken
 
@fairlady - cost savings again I suspect - not enough people, not enough time :( my point was that even if they did check, they'd probably just let them pass. if a lorry load of comes came in, i doubt they'd count the cows either ....
 
I actually do know of a certain lorry that left here last week with at the very least 10 donkeys on board. Not one had a passport - supposedly heading for the UK - for what purpose God only knows? :devil: Can't imagine they are worth anymore there than they are here at the moment.

My friend was tipped of by the driver that he thought he had a donkey she had sold in good faith a few months back in the 'shipment' - she met him and yes her little donkey was on board - it is now back home with her and won't be going anywhere again. No questions asked and all that old squit that allows this sort of thing to continue.

You tell me how they got a lorry load of them through customs without a single passport??? Who's not doing their job, or worse, being bribed to look the other way maybe?:banghead:
 
Unfortunately I doubt customs do a thorough check!

I know the WPCS requires all foals to be microchipped now, but again all this is useless unless people check paperwork properly.

If all horses were to be chipped and had to have travelling papers in their passports i.e some consent from the owner registered on the microchip for the horse to leave the country then maybe it could be cracked down on....but this still relies on checks being done properly. Unless customs do their job it will never get better!
 
This is why the passport system is good in theory, but sadly not in practice.

Each one of my five is micro-chipped and passported, and never, ever, ever in all the journeys I have made have I had their passports checked. This is at shows, lessons, clinics - even some regional and national championships.

Once I was pulled over returning from a demo with two ponies in the back, but only so the police could check that the car and trailer were both mine (it was in the weeks running up to Appleby). I could've had anyone's horses in the back, they were only interested in the vehicle and box :rolleyes:
 
Perhaps we should lobby for all horses to be micro-chipped? After all, all sheep going through a market unless they are killers now have to have the tags that can be read through a reader.

Microchipping is only about £20 a horse, and as we all know, that is nothing in the scheme of owning a horse.

Then any movements of horses - particularly abroad - should be scanned.
 
sjp1 said:
Perhaps we should lobby for all horses to be micro-chipped? After all, all sheep going through a market unless they are killers now have to have the tags that can be read through a reader.

Microchipping is only about £20 a horse, and as we all know, that is nothing in the scheme of owning a horse.

Then any movements of horses - particularly abroad - should be scanned.
Click to expand...

This will only be effective if there are tighter checks though, otherwise it will be the same as passports....
 
We have to lodge passports with the ferry company, but, to be fair, if I stick 4 black colts on the boat, all with no other distinguishing features than a face whorl , pectoral and stifle whorls, who will tell them apart if they are not chipped? (all ours are) but I have seen 15hh bays come up with a 13hh skewbald's passport!
 
I think it all points towards the fact that Microchipping/Passporting was never ANYTHING to do with identifying Horses and always more about any
Horse ending up in the foodchain to identify chemicals within that animals body !!!

I guess I am being really naive........we have THOUSANDS of illegals
entering the Country every year thro' the Ports etc., so why on earth
are they going to worry about a few 'pinched' Horses leaving ....
 
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