Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Sisu West Ranch wrote:

> The alarmist reaction to proposals for animal identification shows 
> that there is a lot of fuzzy thinking.  Lets look at some of the fears 
> posted recently:
>
> 1. This is the first step towards chipping everyone which will be the 
> "mark of the beast".  There are constitutional issues with human 
> ID's.  Last time I checked we still had the Supreme Court in our 
> country.  No matter what unconstitutional proposal is made, eventually 
> it will get to this august body.  Our system has survived since 1789 
> and it works.  We are not in a dictatorship.  If we were this 
> discussion would not take place.

There are some in congress calling for a "federal standard" drivers 
license - of course the excuse being the "war on terror." The states 
have pretty much put their foot down on this as well they should. I 
suspect it will be a long time -if ever - before we even have a national 
ID much less national chipping.

> 2. We will have to wait in long lines etc. whenever we take our horses 
> etc. This is absurd.  Where would a government get the money to hire 
> enough people to check every horse or trailer or car?  It would have 
> to get the money from taxes, the taxes would have to be raised by 
> elected legislatures. It ain't gonna happen.  Now if you are talking 
> about endurance rides and horse shows that is a different matter.  You 
> already have to wait in line to pay your money, get your number, and 
> have your horse vetted in.  Scanning the horse would take perhaps 10 
> seconds.  Much less time than to actually look at coggins papers and 
> ID the horse visually.
> Right now horses are supposed to have interstate health papers, but 
> most states do not even insist that each horse trailer (or even out of 
> state horse trailer) stop at each truck weigh station.   They should 
> (it would possibly have stopped the VS outbreak last summer).  Even if 
> stopped most persons inspecting the horses would not have the skills 
> to actually figure out if the Sorel QH in the trailer was a mare, 
> gelding, or stallion let alone a particular horse as listed in the 
> papers.

We do have to stop in FL - more precisely you can't get across the 
Suwannee river without stopping. I have also been stopped in GA and KY. 
I've never been stopped outside those states. The chipping of a horse 
will make correlating with the health papers and Coggins faster and much 
more accurate. The owner won't also have to explain to "Barney Fife" 
that your horse really is gray like the Coggins says not white like he 
thinks.

> A couple of years ago, there was a thread about how the integrity of 
> the AERC competition was being undermined by the entering of "ringer" 
> horses. If my memory serves, many of the alarmists who now think that 
> positive horse ID is a threat to our American Way of Life, were 
> calling for the AERC to implement a positive ID mechanism for 
> endurance horses.  You can't have it both ways.
>
> Ed
> Ed & Wendy Hauser
> 2994 Mittower Road
> Victor, MT 59875
>
> (406) 642-9640
>
> ranch@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
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“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless 
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