FIRE BRANDING OF HORSES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27089, 11 July 1953, Page 4

FIRE BRANDING OF HORSES

PROPOSAL DEFEATED

RACING CONFERENCE’S DECISION (From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, July 10. A proposal that horses be fire branded before they could be registered with the New Zealand Racing Conference was defeated at the annual meeting of the conference in Wellington today. The remit was sponsored by the executive committee, Mr H. R. Chalmers (president) and Mr T. C. Lowry speaking in support of it. The main opposition to the proposal was expressed by Mr D. W r J. Gould (Canterbury Jockey Club), and the motion was easily beaten on the voices. Mr Chalmers said the proposal was designed to prevent mistakes in the identity of horses being registered. Australia was the only country to use fire branding, and the system worked very well. "One or • two cases of the switching of horses have been found out, but I think there have been many not found out," said Mr Chalmers. "There has been great difficulty at times in identifying young horses on the death of an owner or a stud groom.” Mr Chalmers said the conference had investigated the system of lip tattooing as was done in the United States. It was a very complicated system, and most of the information available was unsatisfactory. It was the executive committee’s wish that the horse should be branded, the brand going in with the horse’s registration papers. Mr Lowry said there was a danger of mistakes being made on stud farms, where the memory of the stud grooms or studmasters was the only real tag. Branding of mares would be a great help to studmasters on the farm. Three thousand foals were arriving each year, and about 1700 horses that were not racing were not seen by racing officials each y< Mr Lowry said the chief objection to fire branding was from the humanitarian point of view. People said fire branding was cruel, but overlooked that cattle and sheep were branded. Branding caused pain only for a minute or two, he said. Mr Gould said that, although experts could brand horses efficiently, there were many more breeders unable to do so. He had seen cases of disfigurement and cruelty in deep branding, and he thought that before “this retrograde action’ was taken more thought should be given to the matter. , Mr Gould said he* favoured the Idea of all yearlings being registered on December 31 in the year after foaling. He said that England, France, the United States, and several other countries carried on quite satisfactorily without branding. Mr M. Millar (Manawatu) supported Mr Gould. He said branding could be a very cruel and complicated business. In such a small country as New Zealand there was little danger of horses being mixed, said Mr R. G. Hosking (Auckland district clubs). Mr Chalmers said he failed to see where the system would be complicated, and disfiguration would come only from the result of faulty branding. Most stud cattle, draughts, hacks, and every horse leaving the country were branded, ne said.