[honeyend]

There seems to be a huge disconnect about horse passports, they want us to have them and the majority of us have but when there is a problem with horse welfare they will not use the passport regulations that are already there.
This facebook groups is lobbying DEFRA, MPs and MEP to start change and get Trading Standards and DEFRA to enforce existing regulations.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Help-the-horses-of-Fosse-Park-Leicester/215018828693901?fref=ts

[sabrina]

There are still horses and ponies being sold without a passport. Why is nothing being done about this. I had a Shetland colt gelded just over a week ago and my vet wanted to sign his passport to say he had gelded him. Could not do this. I have to fill in a form which my vet must sign, said it back to the Society and pay another £10 for them to add the word gelding. I can see why new owners do not bother to change passports when they buy a horse or pony. The whole thing is a farce.

[mowhaugh]

I think it is pretty flaky of breed societies to charge for transfer to gelding with the way things are with breeding just now.  Luckily the Highland Pony Society have more sense and transfers to gelding are free.

[landroverroy]

Seeing as (allegedly) the main reason for passports is to stop drugged animals going into the food chain, then it seems pretty irelevant whether the animal is castrated or not.
It also appears to me a licence to print money to for the issuing authorities to charge for change of ownership. They charge enough in the first place for a passport, and what does it matter who owns the animal, if it has a valid passport that ties up with its microchip number.
There's far more cattle go into the human food chain than horses and the records and passports are managed much more efficiently with no cost to the owner. It's about time the whole thing was sorted out with one offical issuing authority. Anyone wanting to register a breed can still do so with the relevant society, like we do with cattle.  But why should the rest of us subsidise breed societies etc that are of no relevance to our particular equine?
(I have a mule with a Richard Steele passport and if I want to register her change of ownership I have to do it with the Lippazaner Society?!)

[Sbom]

My passport been at the Lippazaner society since January! Long, long story but they don't seem in a hurry to sort it.....

[landroverroy]

Yes I heard it takes for ever for them to send the new passport out, and when they do it's very poor quality and amatuerish. As I'm taking her to a show on Sunday and need to have a passport for her, I'm sticking with the old one.