Tattoo Search

Mark purchased another polo horse. She was in a polo lesson program in Newport, RI. Guess she was too much for the beginner students. It happens to be the same place where we bought Eva (Read "The $500 Polo Pony" 1-23-09). The first time I saw her, I thought "Arabian, how odd for a polo horse!". She has a dished face, and short back. I was surprized to see that she had a lip tattoo. Thoroughbreds are required to be lip tattooed in order to participate in an offical TB race.The tattoo consists of a letter followed by 4-5 numbers. A foreign born TB will have an asterisk followed by numbers. The letters corresponds to the horse's year of birth. 1971-1996/A-Z; 1997-2010/A-N. If the TB is 25 yrs old or older, it will only have a letter and 4 numbers. The Jockey Club is wonderful about helping with researching a lip tattoo. In the past it usually has only taken a couple hours from submission of a Tattoo ID Form to recieving the info on the horse. Sometimes pictures are required, but it is an easy process. Well, the new horse, who came with the name Saffron, had a horrible tattoo. Jenn, Mark and I all took guesses as to what it read. The letter looked like an F,P or H. This meant the year of birth could be 1976,1978, 1986, 2002 or 2004. The numbers looked like 4, 1, and 0. I submitted what little info I had, guessing the letter was an "F". Mark had been told she was 8 or 9. She definately wasn't 4 or 24! I also took a photo of the tattoo, and after a few emails back and forth with the Jockey Club, a match was found. The winner was/is F44602, and they were able to find this match with my submission of F_1_0_!! I was/am very impressed. Saffrons registered name is "West Ballerina" Born April 5, 2002 in Iowa. --insert soapbox--For those of you that think a slaughter plant in another state will not affect your horse here in MA, take note! Iowa! I also have horses from FL, TX and CA. A slaughter plant in ANY state puts ALL horses at risk.--off soapbox---Back to West Ballerina. So after all the research, we found out we have a TB from Iowa, who was an unuccessful race horse, who was from unsuccessful parents. Why oh Why do they breed these horse!! Well she was fortunate enough to find her way to Mark, is a great polo horse, very sweet, and Mark promptly changed her name to "Mudslide"!!!

How Not to Buy a Polo Pony

She was really a nice mare. And only $500. I told my son to call the owner back and offer the full price. Several calls were made by both myself and my son, and none of the calls were returned. A month had gone by. My son had given up on the mare. It was a couple weeks before Christmas. I wrote a letter , and followed it up by one last phone call. To my delight, the owner actually called back. He told me he had to leave the country, suddenly, to play polo in Argentina, and was surprised that after all this time I was still interested in the mare. Arrangements were made to pick-up the mare 3 days before Christmas. This was great timing, as my son will be away until Christmas Eve, so the mare will be a surprise. My husband and I drive the 2 hours to the farm, and wait another hour for the owner to arrive. He got "caught-up" at work. When he arrives, he brings us to the paddock where the mare is, and points to her. Now, I had only seen her for about an hour previously. She's pretty much a non-descript bay mare with a white star. I had written down the tattoo from her lip. The tattoo looked the same, though the letter seemed different. I didn't however, remember that she had a white spot on her eyeball. Maybe the sun had blinded me the first time I saw her? I asked the owner "are you sure this is her?" He, of course, after looking at me as if I had two heads, said "yes". Now at this point, the wise horse buyer says "thank you for your time" and goes home. We did not. We think : 1) Cheap polo horse. 2) Great Christmas gift. 3) We've taken the time off from work and driven all this way. SO,we load her onto our trailer after paying for her with cash. As we are driving out of the driveway I remember a bill of sale might be a good idea, so we stop and get something written on a scrap of paper. The mare trailers nicely, and is well behaved, though not very friendly. I'll have the vet check out that white spot on her eyeball as soon as possible! This is going to be the best Christmas present my son has ever received!