How likely is it that unraced horse has tattoo? - UPDATED with probable ID post #11

[Peggy]

I’m trying to help a friend ID a horse. I have possible letters and numbers and was playing around in the JC tattoo lookup site. I need to get a better look at the position of his cowlick, but was wondering in the meantime how likely it would be that he has a tattoo if unraced? The best numerical match and a few other ones did not race.

We were told that the horse is about 20-ish. Vet who looked at tattoo today while the horse was sedated for dentals thought the first letter was a V (1992) or a Y (1995), if that makes any difference.

It is a plain dark brown (black?) horse with no white, which isn’t helping. He does have some crazy swirls on his body but only the face ones are listed when you search.

FWIW, vet said Y or V followed by 52487 (which seems to be impossible, since they don’t seem to reach a first digit of 5), but that the 5 and the 7 could be 2’s. I searched on both letters with the numbers 2,4, and 8. He came with a barn name of Gizmo and a show name of McDreamy, neither of which are probably worth much in this search, though I did find a Fabulous Charmer…

[Texarkana]

If he has a tattoo and didn’t race, he’d still be in the system. The tattoo is the last 5 digits of the registration number, so a horse has to be registered with The Jockey Club before he/she could be tattooed.

Horses are usually are tattooed when they get their gate card, so it’s not uncommon to have a horse that was race trained and has a tattoo, but never actually made it to a race.

If you go back to check the cowlicks, post pictures and I’m sure plenty of folks here will help you out!

Best of luck!

[Laurierace]

I couldn’t give you an actual percentage number but it certainly is possible and would not be unheard of. Lots of people get all the babies tattooed at the same time regardless of how close they are to a race.

[Peggy]

Yes, Texarkana, those were two of the top ones on my list. There’s also a Y32487 that is, ironically, Peg’s Boy, but I don’t know how easy it would be to mistake a 3 for a 5. This was a lot easier on the chromey chestnut that I helped someone with. That horse was also considerably more cooperative.

I won’t be back out at the barn until the end of the week, but will get photos then.

[Texarkana]

I took them out of my post, because I clicked and found a few others that looked promising when I switched from V to Y. :lol:

You’ll definitely need those cowlicks to solve the mystery!

[gumtree]

I can’t tell you how unlikely but I can tell you it would not be unusual for a number of reasons. We have 2 that are now 4 year olds. Both of which we bred, broke, trained at our farm and then sent to our flat trainer with the caveat, nice pedigrees, correct, good looking horses but they did not show me a they had a lot of "race " in them. So I was not interested in throwing too much more good money after bad. Their works remained moderate at best so I send them back to the farm. No interest in starting out near or at the bottom of the claiming ranks. Not good money management and not good for the horses.
Fortunately both have good minds, are good movers and are good jumpers. They will find good homes. We have had a few like the above over the years. And I know where they all are.

I am sure I am not the only one who has pulled the plug before getting in the gate. Especially with better bred colts and or gelding, or fillies with no pedigree that showed no talent. Horse that got hurt and needed a lengthy rehab. Horses that had like mined owners who didn’t give them away to bottom feeders.

Using a “black light” bulb usually makes reading old tats a lot easier. The will glow in the dark just like the posters I on had on my bedroom walls back in the day.

[Meany]

Just to make it more complicated, my guess would be timing varies some by location.

Usually I’d say most people wouldn’t bother tattooing until right before the horse runs. (Of course, wasn’t there a while there when you could actually get one start on the horse before you tattooed?) But I’m thinking that may vary by state.

I believe some states – Kentucky, at least – used to essentially tattoo for free so there was no reason not to do it? And, IIRC, in the last couple of years KY went to a system where you only had to pay for the cost of tattooing if the horse didn’t make its first start in-state.

But in, say, Virginia (you know, back when Virginia had TB racing), paying for the tattoo is out of pocket so there were folks doing it on raceday.

I doubt any of that helps in your friend’s quest to put a JC name on the old guy, though.

[gumtree]

Meany

It depends on where the horse is stabled and the time of year. The people that do tats come through from time to time. So, sometimes a horse might get it’s tat a couple of days after arriving or a month or 2 latter. Some places the “floater” does both. Some track won’t issue a gate card or list official works without a tat.

I had a horse that was tattooed not long after getting to the trainer and wish he hadn’t because I had a feeling he wasn’t much into racing. But could jump the moon. I jump all of ours before the leave the farm in case we need to move on to plan B.
He was 12th out of 50+ at his first Event at Fair Hill with no Dressage training. I was asked if he was for sale and the price. I said I hadn’t really thought about it, $15g? They asked about his breeding. When informed he was a TB they said too bad if he was a WB we could get $50g.
If he wasn’t tattooed I could have said he is a WB of unknown breeding like so many I read about.

[MadeYaLook]

My TB gelding is tattooed and he never started partly because of having a few chips in a hind ankle which they did remove while he was at the training center but mostly I sure because he wasn’t going to win a race if he had started the day before LOL. In his defense though I have heard that Waquoit babies don’t mature very fast and really don’t have any success as 2 year olds-which in his case was true as he really was quiet but didn’t seem to get a work ethic until he was around 5.

[Peggy]

I talked to friend today. She spent some time talking with and sending a photo to the vet’s office person and they think they have an ID, but she can’t remember the name they came up with. She does remember that he turned out to be 19 (so Y), was bred in KY, and ran in quite a few races. It’s supposed to be on the bill for the teeth floating that she should be getting fairly soon since the vet bills on the 23rd of the month.

[Peggy]

Talked to vet. Friend remembered one of the possible horses, not the likeliest one. Not only does Peg’s Boy have the closest number (3 instead of 5 as first numerical digit), but the swirl placement (slightly left at top of eye level) matches.

Direct link to pedigree - http://www.equineline.com/Free-5X-Pedigree.cfm?page_state=PROCESS_SUBMIT&horse_name=Peg's+Boy&foaling_year=1995&dam_name=&x=14&y=9&nicking_stats_indicator=Y