Beginning Dec. 1, microchips will be mandatory for all horses competing in U.S. Equestrian Federation-licensed or -endorsed competitions. The new rule, intended to improve biosecurity and increase traceability, has the potential to do so much more. It could help provide a safety net for former show horses in need of a soft landing.
This new rule significantly expands the reach of a previous rule, in effect since late 2017, which has required microchips only for horses competing in the hunter and jumper rings. What excites me the most about a USEF “microchips for all” policy is the opportunity it gives for our national federation to truly step up in a meaningful way for its registered horses. When a USEF member looks up a registered horse, they already can access a large amount of data about the animal, including current and previous owners, breeding, breeder, breed registry affiliations and show record. But what if USEF followed in the footsteps of The Jockey Club and the U.S. Trotting Association by enhancing its database to also link a horse to previous owners, breeders, or other connections who are willing to help in a time of need?
The Jockey Club, which is responsible for verifying the identity and provenance of every racing Thoroughbred in North America, established Thoroughbred Connect in 2011. The voluntary program allows people interested in providing aftercare to a particular animal to link their contact information to the horse’s record. Given that any Thoroughbred trained for the track should have either a lip tattoo or (since Jan. 1, 2020) a microchip, identifying animals is generally easy; any owner or rescuer can search the Thoroughbred Connect database with a free log in.
Standardbreds who are registered with the U.S. Trotting Association have the Full Circle Program, established in 2012 and modeled after similar initiatives spearheaded by the American Quarter Horse Association and the American Morgan Horse Association. Any person, USTA member or not, interested in providing a safe landing for any Standardbred can simply submit the Full Circle application form to the program. Standardbreds are typically identified by a unique freeze brand on their neck, which can be looked up for free on the USTA website; if a horse is registered with the Full Circle program, its logo will appear next to the animal’s name on his record, and the USTA will provide the relevant contact info upon request.
People working in equine welfare will tell you that some of these groups were forced to step up in this way, for the simple fact that their animals were readily identified due to their tattoo or brand. Although not externally visible, microchips are also a fairly permanent and unalterable form of identification. With their use now mandatory for any horse destined for a USEF show ring, all of these competition mounts—some of whom would have been much harder to trace otherwise—can readily be identified. When those animals end up in marginal circumstances, the horse-loving public wants to know who to blame, and why nothing was done to help.
A professional quality microchip scanner costs between $300 and $400, and many rescue groups and other equine advocates are beginning to use them routinely. If USEF were to create a method for their registered horses’ records to include a list of “equine emergency contacts” who would be willing to provide a safe landing for that animal, such a list could provide a starting place for owners, rescues, and others who network horses at risk to connect with the people most likely to help.
Thanks to ongoing research provided by the United Horse Coalition’s Equine Welfare Data Collective, we know that the most common reasons horses end up needing assistance from outside organizations all have to do with the owner. When an owner’s health, finances or living situation change, they are often faced with difficult choices regarding the continued maintenance of their animals large and small—and one thing animal advocates will tell you is that bad luck does not discriminate. An outstanding pedigree, a 50-page show record, even a history with some of the best in the sport, cannot prevent a horse from falling through the cracks.
If you don’t believe me, read our recent story about Flicka, a former champion 3’6″ hunter who was identified in a Texas auction pen thanks to her USEF microchip. Another recent situation involving a retired performance horse named Devout is still ongoing—and perhaps could have been avoided altogether with an accessible USEF-managed database of “equine emergency contacts.”
Devout’s Story
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On July 5, a volunteer with Auction Horses Rescue, a Southern California-based non-profit, was at Mike’s Livestock Auction in Mira Loma, California, when she noticed a handsome gelding wearing corrective shoes who seemed a bit out of place. Representatives from AHR try to identify as many animals as possible at sales through brands, tattoos or microchips. This tall, elegant fellow didn’t have a tattoo, but he did have a microchip.
AHR founder and president Megan Gaynes knew the chip number did not belong to The Jockey Club, as its chips all start with the same four digits, so they suspected he might be registered to USEF. But Gaynes is not a USEF member, and she couldn’t initially figure out how to use a microchip number to look up a horse on the federation’s website. Instead, she texted several contacts she knew to be members. One, Shannon DeBuiser, was able to match the chip number to a 14-year-old gray Thoroughbred gelding named Devout. They soon learned he had a USEF horse report 11 pages long, with results in everything from adult hunters to equitation classes to international hunter derbies.
Having recently taken in several special-needs cases, the organization was not in a position that night to assume the care of another auction intercept, and with the monthly sale scheduled to begin in just a few hours, time was of the essence. Gaynes posted Devout on the AHR Facebook page in hopes of quickly reaching any of his former connections.
“We posted all his info, and the name of his last show connection, which we normally don’t do,” Gaynes said. “We didn’t want it to be taken we were blaming her, we were just trying to get in touch with her.”
And through the magic of social media, word did get back to one of Devout’s last contacts, who responded to AHR’s pleas as soon as she heard them. But it was already too late. The auction ran ahead of schedule that night, and Devout had been sold.
In the days that followed, word reached many of the other names on Devout’s record, and they also came forward with offers to help. The good news is that, at least for now, Devout is safe with the buyer, and AHR is working with them and the staff at Mike’s Auction to hopefully reunite the horse with one of his former “people.” But Gaynes said if she had known Devout had a long list of former contacts willing to take him back, she would have handled things differently that Saturday night.
“I would have figured out a way to pay the fee, and count on the fact that somebody was going to want him the next day,” Gaynes said.
After learning about Devout’s story, I reached out to USEF and asked if they would consider making their microchip lookup readily available to non-members. Natalie Voss, corporate communications director for USEF, replied via email that they are a supporting organization of the American Horse Council’s microchip look-up service, which allows anyone to search a microchip number across horse registry databases.
“If a number entered matches a horse in our database, the user will be told we have a match and will receive the most current information we have about the horse, including registered name, sire and dam, foaling year, sex, and color,” Voss shared. “Owner information is accessible to users who log in with a USEF membership. You can sign on as a ‘fan’ free of charge, which allows users to see the last known owner information for a registered horse.”
But Gaynes only learned about the USEF fan membership option after the fact, and even once they knew who he was, not being able to directly access contact information for any of Devout’s “people” further slowed the process.
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“It took time to make the post, it took time for people to see it, then to get a hold of the people it was regarding,” Gaynes said. “I think every one of Devout’s prior owners ended up contacting us, and they all wanted to rescue him. Can you imagine if all of their names and numbers—if all of that was there? We could have quickly reached each and every one of them, and had multiple homes lined up for him.
“They need to make it an easy thing to find, with a drop-down menu at the very top of the page,” she continued. “All the rescues can click on that, look [the microchip] up, and find out immediately who the horse is.”
The Time Is Now
Even with the availability of programs such as Thoroughbred Connect or Full Circle, there likely will always be horses that slip through the cracks. But my hope, if the USEF should choose to create a similar voluntary program of their own, is that we can catch more horses before they end up in nearly impossible circumstances.
Imagine for a moment that an owner of a USEF-registered horse suffers an unexpected life setback and needs to rehome him—and they can easily access a list of people who cared enough about that horse to offer him a permanent safety net. While the onus will always remain firmly on the owner of record to make the right decision for their horse when the time comes—whether the placement is with a former owner, an aftercare program, an equine rescue, or another situation—such a database gives them a starting place, a list of names most likely to be willing to help.
I will be honest: I’m pretty excited about this idea, and I asked USEF if it was feasible to create a searchable database of former owners with contact info, linked to a registered horse’s record. Here is what they had to say:
“Currently, US Equestrian does not have a field in a horse’s registration that would allow someone to attach their name and contact information to the horse’s record as a lifetime care contact,” Voss wrote. “Since receiving your inquiry, this idea has become a topic of internal discussion across departments as we figure out how we could potentially deploy an option like this to assist horses in need of a soft landing.”
Almost every former owner whose horse ends up in a marginal situation will tell you that they never imagined it would happen to them. The time is now to take this vital step, to change the end of the story for horses like Flicka and Devout from challenge and despair to hope and love.
Chronicle contributor Christina Keim writes the Chronicle’s popular “From Rescue to Ribbons” digital series, and the author of the new book “Unwanted: The Causes and Effects of America’s Horse Population Crisis,” available now at www.trafalgarbooks.com.
