Page 37 - Speedhorse Canada Spring 2020

THE ADVANTAGES OF MICROCHIPPING
For Lenz, instilling consumer confidence is the biggest benefit of using a digital tattoo to identify a horse.
“You know that horse is that horse,” he said. “There’s no way to falsify records or use another horse’s health certificate papers or another horse that looks like it. It can’t be changed. It can’t be altered. It’s there.”
Specifically, microchipping a horse prevents one horse from being mistaken—or, in a worst- case scenario, passed off by a disingenuous individual—for another horse of similar size, color or markings.
Convenience is another significant advantage of microchipping a horse.
“You can tie your computer system and your horse’s records to that microchip,” Lenz noted. “The horse enters the show grounds or the track or the training facility, you scan that horse, you can Bluetooth that information to your computer. Now when you check a horse in, especially at a horse show, they have to look at the horse’s papers,
they have to look at the horse, tell them what stall to put it in and all that. With a microchip, you can just scan its neck and that information comes up automatically based on its chip number. You eliminate a lot of paperwork and time.”
There are also health and welfare benefits to using a digital tattoo. Those are two issues that are near and dear to the heart of Lenz,
who recently retired after more than three decades as an equine veterinarian. A former president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP), he also is
a former chairman of the AAEP Welfare Committee and still serves on the AQHA Welfare Committee.
“If there’s a disease outbreak and you’re scanning the horses when they come in or off the track or in and out of the training facility, then you’ll know exactly which horses are on the grounds and exactly which horses were there,” he said.
Lenz also noted the potential
risk of infection or transmission of disease with lip tattoos—in addition to them often being painful for the horse. He observed that lip tattoos also often fade with time and become more difficult to read.
MICROCHIPPING IS HERE TO STAY
The use of digital tattoos isn’t some new or a sudden trend. Louisiana has required microchips for the past quarter-century, which proved very helpful following the hurricanes in 2005 that displaced hundreds of horses. The California Horse Racing Board also requires mandatory microchips for any racehorse, regardless of breed. As of January 1, 2020, the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau now mandates digital tattoos, citing
a standing measure from the Jockey Club mandating horses to be microchipped as part of that registration process.
As Lenz noted, one would expect that microchipping soon will be required across the Quarter Horse world as well.
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