Side note- riders not riding same horse in all phases

[OverandOnward]

I think it was 2010 or 2011, there was an absolutely epic thread on COTH, finding a horse that was inadvertently switched with another horse during transit, so the two delivery addresses both got the wrong horse. But didn’t know it because the almost-plain brown WB’s with small star were so similar in appearance. (Although it was gradually discovered later that there were some significant identifying differences.)

Anyone remember the Good Guiness thread? The two brown warmbloods, one a GP jumper, and one – not?

It was the first time I saw a crowd-find in action online. COTHers dug in and FOUND the actual location of both horses using online resources. In about 12 hours, if I remember correctly.

The switch was discovered when the former-trainer/rider of the GP horse went to visit his former partner horse at his new location, months after delivery. And got into a bit of an uncomfortable dispute with the barn staff and current-trainer as to if this was, in fact, the horse he had come to see. The current-trainer was able to verify that this was the horse delivered to them, while the former-trainer was freaking over where was the GP horse that he had actually sent them, because this horse was not it.

If there is a repository for epic threads, it is one of the most epic. For the most part, it’s COTH at it’s best.

[Willesdon]

Carl Hester purchased a group of young Dutch horses of similar age, height and breeding. By mistake, he sent the one he had selected for himself to a client. By the time the swap was discovered, the client was very happy with her new horse so CH kept Nip Tuck. He says Nip Tuck has a long back, his hind leg were naturally always out, he didn’t really have a walk because he was so tight, he really didn’t have a canter because he was so tense and he was always trying to run off - and his trot had to be developed. "Everything that goes into a Grand Prix has helped make him a better horse…I just love the generosity of the horse " Together they went to the Rio Olympics and the Europeans. Hope for us all…

[Old_Mac_Donald]

Great, my new horse has BCS. I thought I was going nuts as she is growing more by the week!

[K_VanOlst]

@OverandOnward

Anyone remember the Good Guiness thread? The two brown warmbloods, one a GP jumper, and one – not?

I would love to read this if anyone can find it! The search function always fails me

[trubandloki]

@K_VanOlst

The search function always fails me

Me too!
The search function on this forum is very not useful.

I could not even find a post I made, that I had a good idea of the content, using the search function.

[LCDR]

Forget the COTH search function. Just Google “Good Guinness Chronicle of the Horse” and these are the first two hits:

https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/good-guinness-returns-home-after-brepic-identity-mix/

Good Guinness Missing

Figured I’d help by posting something here. Call Patrick Seaton with any info 12 year old 17hd Black ISH Gelding Last seen in September at showpark before traveling from LA to New York. 415 797 0186 - patrick seaton

[jvanrens]

COTH was also instrumental in @Calvincrowe getting her horse back too!! Though that wasn’t a mix up in identity.

[fargaloo1]

Another favourite story I read here was from a trainer who retrains a lot of TBs… I’m going to get some details wrong but the gist of the story was that she got 2 TBs shipped in at the same time, and was told that the bay gelding has just come off the track, but the chestnut mare had been let down and restarted, already doing some small courses. The trainer was taking some clients to a show, had room on her trailer, so figured why not take the mare, ride her at the show grounds, and maybe enter her in the puddle-jumper division. Afterwards, she was kind of unimpressed with the mare — the mare got around everything, behaved herself, but seemed a lot greener than expected. When the trainer reported this to her track contact, she heard “omg, no, the GELDING has been restarted; that mare has never been ridden off the track!!” . That’s when the trainer realized the mare was something special and kept her for herself.

[Cassi1125]

Just think if you have a grey horse who has whitened out enough that NONE of the markings are readily visible.

(Over the years until his passing, the markings noted on my grey gelding’s Coggins test became fewer and fewer. The last time his Coggins was done, the report came back with “Arabian; Grey; No white markings”. He had a star, strip, snip, upper lip and underlip on his face, a high white stocking (almost to the knee) in front, and a white sock behind. The good thing about Arabs is the dark skin - get the light colored ones wet where it counts and you can clearly see the outlines. Of course, the two white feet would’ve given something away, too.)

[OverandOnward]

@LCDR

Forget the COTH search function. Just Google “Good Guinness Chronicle of the Horse” and these are the first two hits:

https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/good-guinness-returns-home-after-brepic-identity-mix/

Figured I’d help by posting something here. Call Patrick Seaton with any info 12 year old 17hd Black ISH Gelding Last seen in September at showpark before traveling from LA to New York. 415 797 0186 - patrick seaton

Thank you !!!

And here we go again in that 2009 thread – the description of the horse that we are all supposed to be looking out for: 17h black ISH gelding. Call ___.

How many thousands of horses could be reported in just on that.

But then more description was added: "GOOD GUINNESS is a dark brown Irish horse, unbranded, with a star that has roaney edges, he has a super hind end and can be a bit strong, very careful… "

We horse people are not good at this.

[TheJenners]

All of these!

I’ll (generally) defend LE but when it comes to pets? Anyone who follows me on IG knows the number of pictures I take of my animals and I have pictures to show to prove ownership in the instance that someone with a chip scanner* isn’t around. Sure my grey pony is obvious to me and horse people to be a specific grey pony, but non-horse-people? Too hard. She has no markings, just a “plain grey,” and as we know their color changes every year so a picture last year won’t match this year (she was dark grey with black legs to the body and black mane and tail and dark dapples when I bought her in 2019 and starting last year she is nearly white with medium grey points and fleabites are coming in heavy already), but she has two forehead whirls and a lump of scar tissue on her back by her wither. These are things we need to know.

*chip scanners: please be aware that the chip battery can die, and recheck them at your annual appt assuming your vet carries one. My 8 yo Aussie was chipped around 5 mos and earlier this year we rescanned him and nada. So he got chipped again.

[banmharcach]

Most pet chips do NOT have batteries!

[Janet]

@TheJenners

please be aware that the chip battery can die,

Microchips are passive devices, and do not have a “battery”. The Battery is in the scanner.

Microchip implant (animal)

A microchip implant is an identifying integrated circuit placed under the skin of an animal. The chip, about the size of a large grain of rice, uses passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, and is also known as a PIT (passive integrated transponder) tag.

[TheJenners]

Well we all learned something. Regardless, we used two scanners and scanned his whole body, nada.

[Arelle]

Random tangent: there’s a paint horse who has done very well this year at both APHA and NSBA and is a crazy example of birdcatcher spots. I can’t imagine tracking it year after year - WILD.

[Willesdon]

Has that image been photoshopped? Something about the colours and focus look slightly odd to me. Could be my phone, of course.

[FlightCheck]

Late to this, but to clarify: the riding of similarly colored horses is allegedly for SALE horses- so that perhaps each “plain bay no markings gelding” that is for sale has a great show record- because each horse was used for the part of Eventing it excelled at.

~Allegedly, people- don’t sue me~

[DogWithBigEars]

Are we talking about an isolated case of one rider - allegedly - doing this with sale horses, or is this a thing with multiple riders (allegedly)?

[Shasta_Daisy]

I have had two stallions that I’ve used for breeding that stamp their babies into (almost) identical images of themselves so much so that it’s scary. Down to the exact markings for one. The only ones easy to distinguish were the mares from the geldings. Or geldings from their father, not each other though.

[rothmpp]

@inca

I can’t even tell you which hind leg has the white ON MY OWN HORSE. Lol I know she has one white sock. Right or left? Let me look at her or look at a picture and then I will tell you.

Lol - I showed up for a lesson on my OWN horse one day. I normally do my own grooming and prep. I pass the outdoor arena on my way to the barn and saw said trainer lunging a horse. Who I thought was my horse. 16+hand bay gelding with 2 rear socks and a blaze. Nope. Got all the way to the arena before said trainer says “you know know this is Dobbin, not Blaze. right?”. Whoops.

@enjoytheride

The idea is that without bridle numbers you could get away with riding one horse in Dressage and another in XC. Although it sounds pretty far fetched to me. You could in theory just put your bridle number on your other horse. Although I really doubt it happens.

I come from the dressage world (used to event way back in the day). We get issues at least once a show with a rider, usually a pro, with multiple horses entered and they’ll manage to get by the ring steward with the wrong bridle number on the horse.

If a rider is so determined to cheat by riding two different horses that look enough alike at a glance, they’re willing to do quite a bit else to get that ribbon. Other than microchip scanning at the start of every phase once microchips are required, the only other thing I can think of is banding a horse ala concert wristbands that they must wear throughout the competition.