NED Makes Swift Changes To Protect Horse Owners

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JuliaFSH

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Official Press release:

The recent emergence of several incidences of horses being re-passported when out on loan has prompted the National Equine Database (NED) team to introduce measures for reducing the opportunity for this to happen.

Cases coming to light recently have involved freezemarked horses being put on loan and subsequently sold on for slaughter with new passports, causing great distress to their owners.

Under European Union legislation it is not mandatory for Passport Issuing Organisations (PIOs) to collect freezemark information and supply it to NED, although many of them do. Recent cases of re-passported horses have revolved around freezemarks associated with horses original passports either not being marked on those passports, or not supplied to NED. When the second passport issuers checked NED to see if there was already a passport for a horse with that freezemark, they did not find one.

To minimise the chances of this situation recurring, Defra is due to suggest to all PIOs that they check NED for existing freezemarks and microchips before issuing passports to adult horses. However, to strengthen the response, NED is launching an online facility for horse owners to notify NED directly of their horse's freezemark and/or microchip details. This information will clearly be marked as data which has been entered by owners, rather than supplied by PIOs, but it will mean that a warning flag is raised if a second passport is applied-for and will indicate to the PIO that further investigation might be required before a passport is issued.

"The success of this initiative relies on horse owners making sure that they have checked and entered security information for all the horses they own on to NED"?? says NED spokesman Jan Rogers, "NED is clearly the place where all horse information comes together to protect and inform the horse owning community and we are pleased to be able to work with horse owners to deliver the service they need by constantly reviewing what NED can offer".

Additional information

From July 2009 it will be mandatory for all equines to be microchipped at first registration.

The microchipping of adult horses with pre-existing passports is strongly recommended by Defra. The supplying of microchip information for such horses by PIOs to NED is also strongly recommended.

NED: www.nedonline.co.uk
Defra: www.defra.gov.uk
 
Useful idea, but you need to pay NED to become a member, in order to update your horse's profile.
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Useful idea, but you need to pay NED to become a member, in order to update your horse's profile.
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Yes - it's a massive £1 which is being donated to equine charities during the launch period - so again NED is helping the general equine community.

A charge has to be made for fraud prevention purposes - that's the law. A financial transaction creates a mechanism for tracking anyone who behaves illegally on the site. It's required by law that we do this.
 
Hi Julia, just wondering if you could explain something to me

I have two ponies, one registered Weatherbys ID, and the other SPSS.

I can't find the Weatherbys mare listed at all, under either of the names on her passport, and I can find the SPSS filly under her BEF competition record through the Futurity but not her passport - is that because its only recently been issued (November 2008)?
 
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Hi Julia, just wondering if you could explain something to me

I have two ponies, one registered Weatherbys ID, and the other SPSS.

I can't find the Weatherbys mare listed at all, under either of the names on her passport, and I can find the SPSS filly under her BEF competition record through the Futurity but not her passport - is that because its only recently been issued (November 2008)?

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It could well be that your November 2008 passported horse is not on there yet. Either the data may not yet have been sent to NED or it's awaiting processing. I know the NED team are wading though a number of data loads right now. With respect to your Weatherbys ID horse it should be there.

You cannot add passport data to NED - NED will only accept data for verified sources (currently PIOs and the 3 disciplines plus Weatherbys).

What I would suggest you do is click on the Feedback button on the homepage of NED and report your issue. The NED team will then look to see what has happened to your data, and provide updates to you.
 
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I have a utility horse passport from the Irish Draught Horse Society, but none of my horses etails seem to be on there. I searched when it first went live and there were 2 horses matching his description - 1 in 1996 and 1 in 1997, but they are now not on the search.
How can I add him??

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As per my previous reply - please could you use the Feedback button on the Homepage of NED to report the issue. Only the NED team can look for issues with data.
 
one of my ponies isnt registered on the NED database. I emailed them ages ago about it, via the feedback button. I've just emailed them again.
 
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Useful idea, but you need to pay NED to become a member, in order to update your horse's profile.
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Yes - it's a massive £1 which is being donated to equine charities during the launch period - so again NED is helping the general equine community.

A charge has to be made for fraud prevention purposes - that's the law. A financial transaction creates a mechanism for tracking anyone who behaves illegally on the site. It's required by law that we do this.

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Well, call me cynical, but I am one of the few (special) fools who registered her animals with the British Horse Database, many moons ago (for a fee too), so my new policy is 'Don't pay'.
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Well, call me cynical, but I am one of the few (special) fools who registered her animals with the British Horse Database, many moons ago (for a fee too),

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Me too! It cost me £40 11 years ago!! Any compensation when they went bust? Don't be silly . . . .
 
"...the sins of the father..." comes to mind.

The fundamental strength of NED is that it is supported by a requirement for all UK PIOs to supply the mandatory data as stipulated by Defra. The BHD did not have the luxury of this backbone.

As PIOs HAVE to supply the aforementioned data to NED, in partnership with the NED team, it's not such a massive step to provide the additional 'voluntary' data where it's been recorded. I therefore have great hopes that NED will outlast BHD, and be bigger and better than BHD was able to be. Lessons have been learnt but above all, having a mandatory element to data provision to NED certainly goes a long way to securing its future.

I know some of us were burnt by the sad failure of the BHD but could we please possibly suspend our sceptical / cyncical / pessimistic sides for just a little while and give NED a chance to demonstrate its power over the next months and years rather than sabotaging it in it's fledging stage before it's had a chance to demonstrate its durability and worth?
 
Forester - I'm glad I'm not alone, do you think we'll get a refund?
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JuliaFSH - I understand the laudable aims of NED, but think the first problem originated when Defra approved 50 plus PIOs, and allowed horse owners to complete their own IDs.
I am impressed that my reluctance to pay £1 could be construed as 'sabotaging it in it's fledgling state'; I must be more powerful than I thought.
It just seems to me that NED would be better entering into an agreement with the Freezemark companies, and the PIOs to include freezemark information on the ID forms, rather than relying on owners to supply accurate information individually.
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How much will it cost new members to register after the initial reduced period has passed?
 
I've just registered and paid the £1 fee....and to be quite honest, i think NED is a joke
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Both my horses are fully papered and registered with the BSJA. They are both microchipped and every injection they've ever received is on their passport...which the BSJA have a record of. Yet NED doesn't even know what colour they are ! Crazy
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How do you expect individuals to maintain their own data when you can't even agree a means of importing the data that is already readily available from the various bodies !?
 
then I too am guilty of sabbotage as I too refuse to pay why should we we have all paid for passports which it would appear are worthless as anyone can sell a horse without one or just apply for another ned online details are incorrect as far as my horses are concerned I have contacted them 2 weeks ago but nothing has changed so what are we paying for????????????????????????????
 
I was speaking to our vet the other week about passports. he'd come to do annual vaccs. He couldnt believe that horses can be stolen re-passported at auction and so sold on ,maybe into the human food chain. I told him it goes on all the time. Just goes to show the "authorities" are not intouch with the grass roots.
 
The passport system is a completely separate debate from NED. Defra established the system and NED are working with it in the best way we can. We're also trying to improve matters to help close the repassporting loophole (which wasn't created by NED).

To give you a little context in case you've not already read this somewhere else, and to try to help you to understand where NED is, here's some background information:
1. NED was funded by Defra - Defra were only interested in UK passport information - not foreign ones and not breeding or performance data.
2. The BEF have worked hard to gain Defra's agreement to support to development of NED to be more than just a passport system and to fill the void on equine data left when the BHD collapsed.
3. NED takes data feeds from c.100 organisations - studbooks, ID-only PIOs and performance disciplines. This in itself is a technical feat given the tiny team of people working on NED, and the multitude of different systems in use.
4. A number of studbooks either did not have computerised data or did not know how to extract it. The NED team made visits FREE OF CHARGE to these organisations to assist them.
5. There have been a vast amount of data quality issues originating from the PIOs. The NED team have again had to write programs to sift out duplicates (even within a single studbook's records), as well as between studbooks (due to overstamping), and have also written programs to build pedigree trees, because only sire and dam NAME is passed to NED.
6. Only the basic passport data is a mandatory requirement. Freezemarks, microchips, breeding data, etc.etc. are all voluntary and therefore not all studbooks have as yet provided it. Even where they have, if there are issue with it, NED cannot force them to correct it.
7. Many studbooks rely heavily on volunteers and therefore even where NED reports errors to them, they may simply not have the manpower to fix it - and if they do, it will take a couple of months to wash through the uploading and cleansing routines.
8. There is little NED can do about the quality of historical data, but we are working very hard to try to get improvement in the way data is recorded and passed to NED in the future.

It would be great if we could wave a magic wand and fix all of these problems, but NED is a hugely complex thing from both a technical and political pespective.

I hope this explanation helps give an understanding of why NED is currently imperfect, but outlines what we are doing to improve it quickly.
 
In all fairness, NED is really pi55ing in the wind until DEFRA gets it's act together and sets up a controlled PIO system.

It is a total nonsense in the UK that there is no one governing body that controls all the registrations and breeds.

It's not as if the idea is new, Wetherbys has it under control for TB and those on the NTR.

What is needed is a COMPULSORY umbrella authority that works on microchipping and every breed society can process the details and then send the details to be registered at the end site. A fee needs to be paid, as it does for Wetherbys, but it should be a legal requirement. Until it is a legal requirement for every equine to be chipped, whatever their age, stolen horses will continue to happen. Abattoirs should only be allowed to accept chipped horses, and will be required to note the chip number of every equine booked in at the time of booking, and refer them back to the database to ensure the person booking them in is the legal registered owner. If not, then that the registered owner is contacted to confirm all is well. This will only inconvenience the lowlife dealers, not the responsible horse handlers.
In France, the horses have a chip, with the number written on the passport, along with their breed type and pedigree, all issued by the National Stud, the French version of Wetherbys. (Equines with no papers or history are chipped and registered, but as 'unknown'. Other than that , they have the same safeguards.) Issued alongside this, there is also a separate certificate of ownership with the same details, which must never be kept with the passport. Without this certificate, it is nearly impossible to transfer ownership of the horse. This allows the horse to be travelled by a transporter, or rider or other with his passport, but the owner retains the proof of ownership.
There is now a 400€ fine for anyone in France who owns an unchipped unpapered equine.
There was a lot of upset when this was introduced, but ultimately it has to be the way forward.

Phew........off soapbox...........
 
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How much will it cost new members to register after the initial reduced period has passed?

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Since Passports were first spoken about, OH and I said that it should all be done by ONE body only. We also felt that it was wrongly introduced, and that it should have originated with all newborns being microchipped.
I am in daily contact with the PIO officer of one PIO, who has advised me of just how few people are involved with the manual transfer of Data from PIO's to the NED database. They have my sympathy.
 
There must be loads of unchipped unpapered equines in France!!

My THREE vets NEVER check passports or m/chips. In fact the only time he got the reader out of his car was when I said 'Aren't you supposed to check the puce?'

Do you mean an umbrella organisation like Haras Nationaux?

Which sits on the passports of imported horses for 3-6 months when under EU Legilstion which THEY have signed up to they should be returned in 45 days.

This of course means that horses who have been given drugs may enter the human food chain or horses with notifiable diseases may enter the UK with 'clean' passports and put the UK equine herd at risk.

An organisation which has ignored THREE communications from my own Breed Society in the UK, sent over a period of 7 months, and all the other UK Breed Societies who sent information THEY (HN) had requested.

Which has ignored letter sent out by European Parliament last September, which stated, they had no right to demand new Identification papers for horses imported from other EU States.

An organisation which does not recognise Irish Draft, Dales, Cleveland Bays, Shires and Clydesdales as pedigree horses, but thinks the Selle Francais - open stud book circa 1958 is?

An organisation that took 11 years to recognise the Freisan as a pedigree horse?

An organisation which CURRENTLY states on its website in French that British Stallions ARE NOT DNA tested.


Does not sound very efficient to me.

It does of course protect French breeder provided they don't have British Natives.
 
Rollin, or Shadrack, can I call you that?
I do believe you have a major bee in your bonnet regarding the fact that the HN won't accept Cleveland Bays onto their database with immediate effect. That is on a par with asking Wetherbys to accept a Selle Francais when they have no parentage recorded. If the stallion or mare is recorded and accepted onto their database, as origin inconnu, then any further offspring will be recorded as related.
Why should one stud book recognise another on demand? This demonstrates the total lack of breed recognition and databases in the UK, because if they had pursued proper channels and set up DNA testing, this would not be an issue in France.
 
I personally have campaigned for this for over a year with many petitions and meetings with trading standards and police. I think it is great but will need much fine tuning and yes should have one main company like dvla
 
Dear Gone to France,

As you already know the European Commission do NOT agree with you.

HN cannot deprive horses of their pedigree status.

They have no right to demand new registration papers for imported horses in possession of EU passpots.

They have no right to insist that horses born in France have passports issued exclusivley by themselves. Breeder may obtain passports from their own Breed Socities,

The Commission wrote to all Cheif Vets last September reminding them of this.

Have you ever read been onto the website of the EU Parliament and read the legislation on Registration of Equidae?

This is not a British issue - there are plenty of French breeders who are at logerheads with their own National Stud. A French journalist whose son will is one of the top event riders in France has also offered to help me.

As for 'immediate effect' The many British Breed Societies affected (not just Cleveland Bays) sent documents to HN which HN requested 15 months ago. In spite of follow-up letters and meetings they have NOT had the courtesy of a response from HN.

It took 11 years for Hn to recognise the Freisan as a pedigree horse and 7 years for the Fell to acheive breed recognition.

Noting immediate about that and I have been dealing with this issue for THREE years.
 
And this is a discussion about the UK problems, not another arena for you to clamber on your soapbox and vent your personal gripes.
With every system there are glitches. IMO, the French one is correct for FRENCH horses. Wetherbys is correct (since compulsory chipping) for British horses.
If the British Breed Societies had had their houses in order in the first place with blood typing and DNA testing, then you would not be in the position you are in now. You chose to move to France, why on earth should the French Stud Book recognise you onto their stud book with a pedigree?
I appreciate it's a PIA for those without Wetherbys passports, but, as I said before, in the UK, Wetherbys won't accept a horse on the TB register without all the proof, so why should the HN accept a breed it know nothing about?
I accept that for breeders it would help promote the various breed, but the British breeds ar not indigenous, so I don't get why you think France is so wrong to refuse to recognise bloodlines that it knows nothing about?
Good luck in your fight, but don't knock what is a good system because it doesn't suit your particular demands.
 
Just to show what a farce the passport is I own a pony and have been trying to trace some history.I telephoned,e-mailed and wrote to the PIO ,The British Percheron Horse Society, trying to find out who signed the sillouette.
They still wont give me a straight answer, as far as I was aware it is supposed to be a vet or similar,but the stamp is hardly readable all the PIO will tell me is it is not signed by a vet.
Even though I own the horse I can`t get information off the passport that I want.
 
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