We’ve got a cute 15.1 hand bay gelding with a fortune cookie shaped star on his forehead who is said to be an OTTB. He’s estimated to be 8 or 9 from Vet records. His name was changed at some point to “Send Noods” , so we aren’t sure what his JC name was originally. The previous barn we purchased him from didn’t have any luck reading his tattoo either.
It’s a fun little mystery we are trying to solve. Does his tattoo look like he could possibly be an appendix instead of a TB?
You can request ID help from the JC here: https://www.registry.jockeyclub.com/registry.cfm?page=dotRegistryHelpDeskTattoo
An 8-9 yr old TBs tattoo would start with Q or R and I don’t think I see that? Maybe a Q? Q2…?
We don’t see a clear letter either. If the partial of the first number/letter is a partial q that could make total sense, but then he’s short a number. It doesn’t look like there is another number though. 
Re Appendix, check this out: https://www.americanappendix.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=395235&module_id=251551
are you sure that name changes was not to “Send Noodles” ?
To me it looks like Q2175 and maybe a faint 4 next to it.
Do not have the tattoo look-up handy to check that number and that’s going w/o editing the photo for contrast further, just looking at what you posted. It looks like a Q with a very short tail.
EDIT: The faint 4 is very far to the side of his lip and might actually just be some mottled skin.
Q217 refined to bay colts with stars (I haven’t yet searched geldings assuming he wasn’t yet gelded when racing but will check geldings) returns these descriptions - wrote the numbers I checked at the top for reference.
7 horses total for tattoo Q2x75x (x = no digit entered) bay colts no white on legs (did not search white on legs for either as OP didn’t mention whether there was white on legs), star.
Neither pedigreequery nor equineline are returning pedigrees for a Send Noods or Send Noodles.
Yeah, he was named that along the line well after his start in life. We aren’t sure how many times he’s been sold or his name changed. We’ve really only got the few numbers on his tattoo to work with to figure out any history.
He’s got no white on his legs. He’s all black even in his fetlocks.
The only white on him is his fortune cookie shaped star.
Thanks for thinking to try colts, we don’t know when he was gelded, I hadn’t thought of that!
Thank you! We are curious because we just can’t seem to see another letter or another number (the first like could be either 
), but 4 numbers are fairly easy to see still.
If you have a log in for lip tat look-up on the jockey club website (I believe it’s free, at least I’ve had my login for like, 10-plus years and have never had to pay) you don’t have to have the full numbers there’s an area with a drop down menu to put in what you think the numbers are or leave a wildcard for a number you can’t quite read, I’d try checking colts and geldings and maybe also try leaving the letter as a wildcard though to my eye it definitely looks like Q with a very short tail. What year would “O” be, it could be that?
Just counted, O should probably be about 2 years older than Q so that’d be a 2011 foal and two years off wouldn’t be impossible by what you describe of his background?
It’s possible his jockey club name never changed, IIRC it’s pretty tough to change a TB’s name w/the Jockey Club once they’ve raced, offhand I don’t know the exact rules and it can be changed but there’s a lot of restrictions like they can’t have won a race, can’t be breeding stock, etc. and most OTTB owners if they don’t like the jockey club name won’t bother to change it and will just show the horse under whatever name they decide to call it. Send Noods, if he was ever called that, could well have just been his show name at some barn he was at after the track.
EDIT: Looking at the photo again, the way the spacing looks I almost wonder if the missing number, if he’s not an appendix QH or pure racing QH who looks really TB-like (I worked as security at a track, racing QHs regardless of how much TB is in the recent part of their pedigree don’t always look like regular ol’ backyard QHs. Some actually do but others not as much. And then some just look like really short TBs) is between the 1 and the 7 as the spacing looks uneven.
EDIT 2: Forgot to mention, just noticed it’s probably worth checking both bay and dk bay/brown for colors.
Okay, I’m bored and have a lil’ time to look up some horses so I’m going to post a few descriptions that seem plausible:
COLTS - 2013:
| Horse Name | Weigout |
|---|---|
| Tattoo | Q21270 |
| Year of Birth | 2013 |
| Dam Name | Judy’s Prospect |
| Color | Bay |
| Sex | Horse |
Weigout Description: Irregular star, mostly to right in forehead. Median cowlick at eye level.
| Horse Name | Spanish Brigadier |
|---|---|
| Tattoo | Q21579 |
| Year of Birth | 2013 |
| Dam Name | Spanish Decree |
| Color | Bay |
| Sex | Gelding |
Spanish Brigadier Description: Small slightly curved star, slightly to right low in forehead. Median cowlick low in forehead.
| Horse Name | Highway Run |
|---|---|
| Tattoo | Q21671 |
| Year of Birth | 2013 |
| Dam Name | Eastlake Avenue |
| Color | Bay |
| Sex | Gelding |
Highway Run Description: Rounded star. Cowlick slightly to right at eye level. EDIT: Pedigree Query pedigree for Highway Run indicates he broke down while training in 2018 and says “RIP” so we can rule him out as a possibility: https://www.pedigreequery.com/highway+run2
| Horse Name | Byrdstreetparty |
|---|---|
| Tattoo | Q21730 |
| Year of Birth | 2013 |
| Dam Name | Absolutely Cindy |
| Color | Dark Bay or Brown |
| Sex | Gelding |
Byrdstreetparty Description: Star rounded on top, slightly pointed at bottom, to right in forehead. Feathered median cowlick below eye level.
NOTE: I’m pretty sure I ticked the box for “colt” but a lot of these are listed as geldings, thinking maybe they got registered as colts and were gelded later on and someone actually took the time to update that?
EDIT 2: Searching gelding seems to return the same results as colt so I’m going to try a couple number combos based on what I can read and try dk bay vs bay as I’m just curious now. 
EDIT 3: Bay and dark bay with the same numbers are returning the same results so don’t need to do full separate searches by color.
I like this rabbit hole you went down! It really does seem like an entire number should be in that space. It’s an odd spacing. Thank you for doing some searching!
Here’s a side view of him. Girth sweat line and all. He likes to cool down and stop and stare at himself in the mirror. His personality is super fun.
The letter almost looks like it could be anything the more I look at it. I thought it was a Q but looking again I half wonder if it’s a 1 or an I as the rounded part that made me think Q is pretty faint…
EDIT: “I” would be an '05 baby and when I searched by the clearest 3 numbers it returned 3 results and none of the markings descriptions sounded quite right.
I think I’m gonna throw the towel in on this for now, too many bay geldings and I’m getting no results when I do various letters w/12175 and if I put the 5 or the 7 in certain slots it returns nothing.
EDIT: Heck I’m curious I’ll play with the photo contrast a bit.
EDIT 2: Fired up Photoshop and cranked contrast to 100 and brightness to about -70. Fairly certain that first shape on the left is the letter and it’s either a Q or an O. The first number is definitely a 2 followed by a slightly crooked 1. I’d say there could easily be enough space for another number between the 1 and the 7 and the last two digits are most likely a 7 and a 5, unless lip tat 6s are flat on top. (the first horse I ever owned was an OTTB who turned out to be an '04 foal and he had a really really clear lip tat and two of the digits in it were a 5 and a 6 and unfortunately I don’t have any pics of his tat to compare number shapes to - and if I did it’d probably be slightly different anyway.
Not sure if this means much more than the tat fading but the 1 looks really spindly relative to the other numbers.
EDIT 3: If he’s a racing-bred QH I’m no help, don’t have AQHA lip tat lookup access and don’t know anything about how their tats work beyond that they have four digits not five.
Alright - still curious and realized half the tat numbers I found the first search didn’t match the numbers I can read at all. Note Jockey Club markings descriptions are detailed and spot-on, at least they were with my horse years ago down to the ermine marks so if these aren’t a perfect match then it probably isn’t the right horse but.
Here’s one where the tat number seems pretty close:
| Horse Name | Unshakeable |
|---|---|
| Tattoo | Q21375 |
| Year of Birth | 2013 |
| Dam Name | Sweep Princess |
| Color | Bay |
| Sex | Horse |
Unshakeable Description: Star pointed at bottom. Median cowlick at top of eye level in star.
(I think we can rule Unshakeable out - his pedigree shows a photo and the distance makes it hard to be sure but his star is not shaped like a fortune cookie: https://www.pedigreequery.com/unshakeable2)
Looking at this picture more I wouldn’t totally rule out QH either but it’s really hard to say. Racing QHs look a lot like TBs (I mean, a lot of them have a lot of TB blood in them) and I’m far from an expert on TB lip tats.
I think if you can get someone who has access to look up QHs and try that, also, you might have some luck figuring this out. Most of the tat is clear!
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