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The Passport Debacle
| 17 January 2010
Let’s face it the government insistence that all horses and ponies should have passports has been a total failure. Those of us who tax and insure our cars, made sure that we had passports for our horses and we keep them in a safe place and dutifully take them with us when we travel. However, when you can take a horse to the local market, who has somehow become a Passport Issuing Authority, you can get a passport there and then for about £20, enter the horse in the sale and sell it all on the same day. If you nicked it the previous day in Leicestershire or Lancashire, no-one knows and no one cares - except the poor genuine owner who has no chance of recovering their beloved horse when it has been through several hands in a few days and now appears to have a perfectly legitimate passport.
Yet, despite this, as a perfectly legal owner, I have twice fallen foul of the passport fiasco. The first time at a show, I was told that the representative from the local council would be going through the living to horses’ door to inspect the two ponies that I had on board. I pointed out that the one nearest the door did not take kindly to strangers and I would get him out for her. Ignoring my advice, she opened the door, only to be met with a flurry of teeth and hooves. She fell backwards down the lorry steps and the upshot of this was that I was threatened with being sued for damages by the council.
The second time, I was stopped on the motorway. I was asked for the horse’s passports. I pointed out that in fact I had fifty bales of shavings in the back and they didn’t need a passport. The official insisted on moving all the bales around in case I had a pony hiding there somewhere. It would have to have been a Shetland foal but still we had to get the bales out and put them back in. No mean feat.
The only other occasion when I was asked for the passport, I was taking just one pony into a show. When I got the passport out to hand it over I realised I had bought the wrong one. I said nothing and was waved in without the pony even being looked at!
So as I said in the beginning the passport system has failed. What on earth will the government impose on poor horse owners next?
