MANE PLAITED - CHIRK WREXHAM

[jj1966]

If horses arent stolen then why do the police come across horses in the carparks at ferry teminals on occasions, left wandering especially on a day when passports and microchips are being checked. I have had chats with crime preventions/police officers that have come across this on occasions and the horses turn out to be stolen.
I would rather stay on my guard in the hope that I never have to go out to the paddocks and find my precious horses gone!

 

[Marydoll]

Id rather be extra vigilant than heartbroken

 

[Queenofdiamonds]

If horses arent stolen then why do the police come across horses in the carparks at ferry teminals on occasions, left wandering especially on a day when passports and microchips are being checked. I have had chats with crime preventions/police officers that have come across this on occasions and the horses turn out to be stolen.
I would rather stay on my guard in the hope that I never have to go out to the paddocks and find my precious horses gone!

No one said it doesn't happen, But it is rare for a completely random horse to be stolen.

 

[ponypilotmum]

No one said it doesn't happen, But it is rare for a completely random horse to be stolen.

Not as rare as you'd think.

There's forever stolen horses being listed on local tack shop walls.

It is possible that some of these plaits are fellow liveries winding others up, but who's to know that it is something to ignore.

 

[cptrayes]

Shall we get this in perspective. There are EIGHT horses listed as stolen in the entire country on this register this year and more than half of those have been recovered. There was less than 1 horse a week recorded in 2011. There is no record of how many of those were stolen on loan.

http://www.stolenhorseregister.com/index.php3?Option_ID=Stolen&Menu_Level=1&Option_Number=1


There are NO teams of people going round marking horses and then sending in others to do the actual theft. Everyone is simply repeating and repeating a myth until it is sounding like the truth. I've been around horses for over thirty years and I have never known a horse stolen from at or near any livery I've been at, and I've never met anyone who has had a horse stolen. It really is NOT common. And marking them first - even less so.

 

[xxMozlarxx]

Hahaha..imagine all these 'robbers' flailing around in the dark with torches trying to find a hidden 'plait' Get real...

 

[Queenofdiamonds]

Not as rare as you'd think.

There's forever stolen horses being listed on local tack shop walls.

It is possible that some of these plaits are fellow liveries winding others up, but who's to know that it is something to ignore.

The majority of thefts are during some sort of loan/lwvtb arrangement, or a domestic situation. They are very rarely targetted by randoms nowadays!

I understand being vigilant, But people who hype over plaits or random things in stables that could have a number of explanations annoy me, Mostly because in my own experience, The people starting the hype are people who leave their horses in unlocked fields, blatantly deserted locations, no microchips/freezemarks etc.

Freezemark your horses, Advertise the fact that they are marked, Lock your fields, Put an alarm on the gate.

All those things are better than hyping over a plait that could have been done by the horse itself, A passer by, children etc.

 

[loisb501]

Hahaha..imagine all these 'robbers' flailing around in the dark with torches trying to find a hidden 'plait' Get real...

Get real? I'm pretty certain i posted a few pages back that this actually happened at my yard, and if it wasn't for the owner being extra vigilant her horse would more than likely be gone. I'm sure that's pretty real?

I agree that although statistically the chances may be low, this doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Maybe they don't all arrive in the dead of night, but this is what happened in our case.

 

[Ladydragon]

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/3016/straight_from_the_horses_mane.html

Thanks for the link... A fun read...

 

[xxMozlarxx]

Get real? I'm pretty certain i posted a few pages back that this actually happened at my yard, and if it wasn't for the owner being extra vigilant her horse would more than likely be gone. I'm sure that's pretty real?

I agree that although statistically the chances may be low, this doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Maybe they don't all arrive in the dead of night, but this is what happened in our case.

She saw the torch and the trailer at the bottom of the drive in the dark? She bravely scared them off....it's a good story, I'll grant you that...

 

[Queenofdiamonds]

Get real? I'm pretty certain i posted a few pages back that this actually happened at my yard, and if it wasn't for the owner being extra vigilant her horse would more than likely be gone. I'm sure that's pretty real?

I agree that although statistically the chances may be low, this doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Maybe they don't all arrive in the dead of night, but this is what happened in our case.

You're missing the point. It is incredibly rare! It really truly is so rare, And there is a difference between being vigilant and hyping! I'm sure we all know someone who's had something unusual happen on their yard. It doesn't mean it's worth the hype.

Why not concentrate on making it harder for people to steal your horse? Freezemark it - What sort of idiot is going to take a horse that has a visible brand on it?! Alarm gates - Not hard, My shed has an alarm on!, Invest in good quality locks and chains that would take a good while to break through - The longer someone is attempting it, the more chance of being seen! Plus an alarm if they do break it, they're most likely going to scarper!

 

[FionaM12]

Here's a link which makes me giggle as it puts the "plaits" down to "pagans, gypsies and rocking horse manufacturers"


http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/08/mane-attraction/

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

BHS mounted an investigation into this a year or so ago. It was found to be absolute rubbish. As others have said, don't have nightmares, sleep tight.

 

[SaharaS]

Neighbours of mine had one of their horses manes "plaited", not the coloured cob though which if someone was planning to steal would be the one expected, the police did take it seriously, they were told to let everybody know, more seriously than I did when they went round warning everyone that there were horse thieves in the area.

I'm not so far from Be Positive and had definite plaits in mine.one had no plaits but was tied with elastic band but under mane.one horse also had a triangle mark clipped into his neck under his mane and that night the vicar overlooking the field under his bedroom window called the police to report men in the field with torches and they were trying to catch the sports horse colt & my other colt a flaxen mane and tailed flashy nf...anyway,there was a commotion and suddenly alot of swearing, the vicar ran down and they sped off..I would think (hope) they got hurt(men not my horses). they were woken again a couple of hours later someone had come back. There are alot of scare stories but when you have proof someone did try to do something and attempt to take them it is not a laughing matter & a horrible feeling to experience I can assure you. No luckily they didn;t succeed and I was lucky I could move them all quickly too. The police took it very seriously again as BP mentioned. I will add tho, it happened around the glastonbury festival time tho we are not that near and horses certainly weren't.police advised I was not the only yard disturbed that night. I was the lucky one, no tack or horses taken.others were hit hard(goods not livestock) and were hit again 10 days later when everything had been replaced.
OP I hope it comes to nothing and try not to worry, secure everything as best you can, worry won't achieve anything but stress x

 

[hairycob]

Cptrayes has given a link actual data (not anecdotes from a friend of a friend) that shows that horses are hardly ever randomly stolen. Most horses that are stolen disappear on loan. The next most common group of thefts follow relationship breakdowns & are therefore personal. There will be a few that are reported stolen but turn out to have actually been PTS under circumstances where owner couldn't claim on insurance. Some will initially be reported stolen but will turn up locally having just escaped. Very, very few are random thefts. Tack etc gets stolen all the time.
Get you horse freezemarked, then if it does escape/bog off after you fall off the owner can be traced easily.
Postcode mark your tack
- if it's stolen it's likely to be dumped nearby & can be traced back to you.
- if someone caught with it it can be proved stolen. The thief can be charged & you can get your tack back.
- if it's not marked you won't get it back even if it recovered if you can't prove it's your - & that distintive scratch/stain won't count
If you mark low value items that get left lying around, like buckets etc, a lot of snoopers will assume anything of value is marked & will leave your yard alone.
If I thought my horse had been "tagged" the first thing I would do would be take a pic with my phone to show the Police. I did ask in an earlier post if anyone could post a picture of these "real" plaits. I am not at all surprised that no one has.

 

[HeatherAnn]

All you have to do is a quick google search and there are sites with quotes from the police saying that no horse has been taken after a plait has been found.
I can't help but feel sorry for the people who believe this. Would I rather plait a horse and pray my friends can find it in the night OR take a picture on my mobile phone? This is 2012 people...

 

[SaharaS]

Yes undoubtedly you will find annecdotes,dishonest owners,tricks,weird ex partners,insurance claims,faked thefts after deaths..but really when everything is marked,locked,cctv covered,padlocked,microchipped,signed AND foresnsic evidence taken by the police after the attempt which matched the other local breakins on the same night...then that is a very frightening place to be.is very real and very 2012. Alot of people will think its funny to go out scaring horse owners,some may even be other owners in the same livery yard messing about and some may be the wind. BUT there are incidents when thefts attempts are genuinely made,some successful some not-tack or animals..it does not make their owners deluded freaks or loonies or scaremongerers. Millions of people get burgled and the chances are if you have been once you get hit again. I speak from genuine experience of having been burgled at home, at yard and again at yard shortly after..and once at another yard after moving them and having the attempt made to take my horses. I've always done all I can to avoid making it easy but if someone really wants to take something, nothing you can do will stop them.If I can email a picture and someone can post it here I am happy to show the clip mark that my horse had in his neck by afternoon-will try find it today on my back up hard drive thing as different laptop to the one i had at the time. He hates being clipped and the vicar had seen a woman and teen girl in the field patting him and him freaking suddenly and a man taking pics the week before.he was unsettled when i arrived and that night the men were disturbed i the field...I am lucky and still have him, because of circumstances meaning someone got disturbed. it DOES happen, successful or not just as houses are broken in, dogs are stollen, sheep are russelled.I wish the world in which we lived WAS fluffy and it didn't and that it was just all hocus pocus. I thought it was till it happened to me

 

[cptrayes]

I'm sorry but I find it completely impossible to believe that anyone would take clippers into a field to mark a horse and then ask someone else to go out and steal it. My horses frequently have marks on them that could have been a clipper but are actually rubs on the walls or scrapes from other people's teeth.

If this is happening AT ALL, how come only 32 horses were recorded as stolen, for all reasons including the most common - theft on loan - in the whole of 2011?

If this myth were true, hundreds of horses would be disappearing after being marked.

Yes, people lose tack but you don't see a cross painted on the wall of the tack room a day before it disappears. Yes, sheep are rustled - but you don't see a sign put on the gate the day before to indicate which herd. Yes, horses are sometimes, rarely, randomly stolen, and from the looks of it they are more often gypsy cob types than any other, but I am certain as certain that not one of those horses had its mane plaited, a bit clipped out of its coat, or parallel sticks left in its stable before it disappeared in the dead of night.

It's a myth!

 

[FionaM12]

I wish the world in which we lived WAS fluffy and it didn't and that it was just all hocus pocus. I thought it was till it happened to me

But, however much it freaked you out, yours is just another anecdote which doesn't prove anything. All that seems to have happened was:

1. Someone (allegedly) took photos
2. Someone said they saw someone in the field
3. There was a mark on your horse: you don't know it was clippers
4. Someone was seen in the field at night.

Even if all these things happened (I'm not saying you're lying, but you didn't see all of them yourself) they could have been unrelated odd incidents. You don't know anyone was trying to steal your horse, and if they were, there's no proof the others incidents had anything to do with it.

 

[HeatherAnn]

@ SaharaS, not debating whether people get burgled but did these burglers draw a big X on your front door? Did they paint a stripe on your wall so they knew which house to burgle? No. They are unfortunate, yes but unrelated to this.

 

[hairycob]

SaharaS

Sure things get knicked. Things get knicked all the time. But horses rarely get knicked from the field/stable. I can assure that the people trying to do the reassuring on this thread are far from fluffy.

 

[HashRouge]

The idea that thieves go around plaiting manes then come back several nights later to steal the horse has always seemed absolutely implausible to me. Why on earth would any horse thief worth his salt warn the owner of what he was about to do? More to the point, why not use a more foolproof method (you know, like photographing the horse )? Plaits are all well and good until the owner (almost invariably) goes and undoes them! Or why not just note down the horse's basic markings?
I'm with the "it's the wind, or kids" brigade. I've found twisted plaits woven into my horse's mane and I'm fairly certain it was the wind. No-one ever stole her, anyway!

 

[pookie]

Whether myth or not (I've never had a distinct plait happen to me, I've no idea one way or t'other), it seems some police are warning owners of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-14013511

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8644044.stm

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/local/consett/5001063.Plaits_may_be_thieves____calling_card/

I can understand why some owners would listen to warnings from police and believe it to be a genuine thing.

 

[OldNag]

The idea that thieves go around plaiting manes then come back several nights later to steal the horse has always seemed absolutely implausible to me. Why on earth would any horse thief worth his salt warn the owner of what he was about to do? More to the point, why not use a more foolproof method (you know, like photographing the horse )? Plaits are all well and good until the owner (almost invariably) goes and undoes them! Or why not just note down the horse's basic markings?
I'm with the "it's the wind, or kids" brigade. I've found twisted plaits woven into my horse's mane and I'm fairly certain it was the wind. No-one ever stole her, anyway!

This! Especially with mobile phone cameras. Why not take quick pic and run, rather than stand there and plait? Seems nonsense to me....

 

[FionaM12]

I can understand why some owners would listen to warnings from police and believe it to be a genuine thing.

Yes, I think that's unfortunate. I think prpbably most police have either never heard of mane plaiting or also believe it's myth. However, it seems according to the media they posibly sometimes do "give warnings". If you read pookie's third link, a police spokesman is quoted as giving his source of information as a "horse lovers' magazine"!

 

[hairycob]

The police pass it on to cover their backs & because these warnings are usually sent out by admin staff - if you check with the local officer dedicated to dealing with horse issues (& I did when they were doing the rounds before) they will probably tell you that they wish they didn't because it's a scaremongering PITA (officers words not mine). The funniest thing was when a Police Force that shall not be named to spare their embarassment PM'd ME to ask if the story about the horse from various parts of the country abandoned at Holyhead was true! I suggested they contacted the relevant Police Force who confirmed to them that it was not.
I had a conversation with an officer who was a specialist contact for horse related crime in her area. In 10 years she had dealt with 5 cases of horses reported stolen.
1 had escaped & been put in a random field. It had already been reported to the Police as found but because it was not freezemarked they had not been able to trace the owner until they reported it "stolen".
1 (coloured cob mare) had been stolen but was found abandoned in a field about 25 miles away the next day - presumably because they had taken the rug off & seen the freezemark. The rug wasn't recovered.
2 were stolen whilst on loan.
1 had been PTS due to lameness & the owner was claiming stolen so she could claim on insurance.
So in 10 years she had dealt with 1 horse in her area (about 1/3 of the county) that had been stolen from the field. When I asked her what she thought of the plaiting myths she gave me the response above, but slightly more frankly!

 

[SaharaS]

Well I am obviously a deluded freak then..thank you all for totally not getting what I'm saying.thank you all fro assuming I imagined it all...and doubting me. I am clearly completely wrong and have ot got a clue about what HAS happened in my own life and yes it was defiitely clipper marks. If anyoe wants acopy of the email with pics I sent to horsewatch/police then pm me before you throw more stones. And the padlocks being cut also was purely my imagination too then. Idiots

 

[hairycob]

Why don't you just post them rather than asking people to PM you?

 

[SaharaS]

Why don't you just post them rather than asking people to PM you?

I can't post pics on here it doesn't seem to work & have tried before...did opffer above if anyone will do for me I can email them...

and i asked for a pm as people doubt the incident and i will fwd email-there will clearly be my details etc all over it which I have no wish to broadcast to the world...and this would also be proof of it having happened so no one will turn round and say i did it for effect- my offer still stands for both as clearly i am the one in the wrong/fubar/deluded anecdote hype mongerer extrordiaire.Love it

 

[hairycob]

If you can email them you can post them