I have a few questions for the YA Horse Forum.?

The horse passport is a UK device. It is mandatory for every equine in the UK.

YA has made anonymity easy. Unfortunately anonymity fouls up the ability of legitimate answerers to do research. I'll sometimes check how long the questioner has been here or what has been asked before. "Just this ONE question?" "Always asks trollish questions in all categories?" Now we can add, "Hides behind the Blue Face?" to our reasons for being silly, dismissive or crass in our answers.

As for hiding, I deliberately hide some of my activities, as well as my physical location. You can find those things with extensive research, but I prefer, for example, that when I arrive home after a day away, not to see an ambulance rescuing a child who was placed atop one of my horses for a photo. "You weren't here, but we thought it would be okay. We didn't know your horse was dangerous. He looked so cute and harmless."

The Brits created this passport system to keep the chemicals out of the slaughter house and to be able to track the history of all horses going in there. At one point, they were insisting that we also get a passport system because of the horses being shipped there. All owners of the horse must be named, their locations and all other pertinent information concerning the horse. Microchipping was also promoted. I don't know if it became mandatory, but the passport is mandatory. There is one important clause in there. It asks you one time if this horse is meant for slaughter or will it be cared for by a vet. People had to decide right then, that if their horse was on death's door, that what the owner had declared in the passport would rule and decide whether the vet would be called in to medicate or not. The passport has to stay with the horse at all times, different owners, even going down the road in the trailer. You won't get far if that passport is not literally with the horse at all times.

With all seriousness aside, those Brits are a bit odd. Not only do their horses have passports (I guess they're world travelers), they also drive on the wrong side of the road, have funny names for things (it's a truck, not a lorry, jeeze!), they also, kind of, talk funny. I could go on.

As for the anonymous thing, I'm guessing these people are criminals on the lamb, Either that or the have some kind of identity issues.

I freely admit that I, myself am a bit odd in that I actually use my real name. I'm not too worried though, because I haven't let you clowns know my last name or where I live. That would ruin me for sure!

Snezzy, answered the UK (and EU) horse passport system part of the question.

As far as anonymity goes, with governments and possible future employers using what you say on the internet as evidence against you anonymity, or at least a fake name makes sense.

If you own a small business it makes even more sense.

There are some really nasty wierd people out there and after having one of my halflingers deliberately killed and some of my goats stolen, I really protect my privacy.

By Irish and UK law all horses must have a passport - it's not sole proof of ownership but it does have important information. It has the typical details as you would find with papers - breeding (if recorded) registered name, owner's name etc

Passports also contains a microchip number, marking sheet and a list of vaccinations (signed off by a vet).

http://www.dspca.ie/equineidentification