strictly Hanoverians and is a member of the Hanoverian verband in Germany, says that she was part of a survey about branding a few years ago and has put a great deal of thought into the issue. “I think it’s lifesaving,” she says. “Look at the situation in
Florida, for example. I was in Georgia in the early and mid- 1990s when there were rustlers who would go around and pick the biggest, fattest horses they could find and steal them—without fail they would leave behind the ones that were branded. That’s when I became convinced it was essential.” “I think branding is a lot safer,” she says. “For
the six seconds or so of pain it causes, it’s kind of like giving vaccines; it offers a lot of protection. A lot of people, especially today, listen to their friends or see things on Facebook, and instead of doing the research themselves they take infor- mation at face value. I think a lot of the move- ment against branding comes from people’s perception.” Maryanna, like many in the equine industry, is also a big
proponent of “one horse one ID” microchipping. There are potential problems with microchips, however.
Many breeders aren’t interested because chips and scanners aren’t transferable using the same standards. Microchips are placed subcutaneously, or under the skin, on the horse’s neck. They are not visible after they have been inserted, which is appealing to those who do not wish to alter the appearance of a horse in any way—but that also means
Maryanna Haymon
the information on the chip is not available without a scan- ner. In addition, the scanner used to read the chip must be compatible with it, which is not always the case. This means that scanners at a slaughterhouse may not always be able to read it. Maryanna saw an issue with a microchip firsthand at last summer’s World Breeders Federation Young Horse Championships in Verden, Germany. “A Spanish horse’s passport and chip didn’t match, and it took a lot of convincing that the mistake was in the reader and not in the microchip and the passport,” she recalls. “It turned out that the reader was from a different company, and it came up with the right amount of numbers but read it differently. It was only one out of 60 horses that had a problem—so they’re not infallible.” As long as she is allowed to brand her
horses she will, she adds, and if the breed organizations stop branding, she says she would make her own brand to save her horses’ lives. “If the FEI said branded horses couldn’t compete, I’d stop, but there are so many branded horses out there they can’t do that,” she says. For identification, prestige and safety, branding continues
to serve a purpose in the sport horse world. While microchip- ping may eventually replace branding for purposes of identi- fication, it is certain that we will continue to see horses with one kind of brand or another for many years to come.
26 January/February 2016
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