Plait found in mares mane Beds/bucks/herts Borders Warning!!

[Tinseltoes]

Common sense will tell you a thief is NOT going to warn you with a tag,hes about to steal your horse.He will just come,get your horse and take off.Especially with all with nonesense about tagging horses to steal,Im sure he wouldnt want to take thew risk!!!!!.I got an ear bashing on another thread on here all because I said there no no evidence that plaits were associated with theft.

 

[the watcher]

I've just had a look on Google putting in the phrase; On Monday (2 Nov) night my friend’s horse was stolen from a field in the Guildford area.

It generates 17,800 hits including some very reputable sites - not bad for something that isn't actually true, but this is how rumours spread.

 

[DebbieCG]

mother_hen

Ok have to report back that I have spoken to Constable Dave Hart, (Shropshire) and he did say that he could not validate the report and he did mention horsewatch/rural watch info, so looks like your version may be closer to where he got his report from.

'suspect he got it from the email that has been circulating on the internet and took it as gospel, in the interests of spreading crime reduction information and when the information appears genuine, misinformation is often accidentally spread. I have seen the same story on Horsewatch bulletins - which is why I decided to check it out.'


Still, it would be good to get to the source of all these claims, and why on the internet? At least it does make people a bit more vigilant and hopefully getting their horses freezemarked etc.

I do speak from experience though as a victim of horsetheft after my beautiful chestnut gelding, Ballymoss, was stolen from a secluded country lane yard in Hertfordshire (nobody on site at night) in the early 1980s. Ballymoss was not freezemarked as freezebranding was just beginning to be established then.

 

[the watcher]

One could also ask why do people start the urban legends that involve children having their hair cut in supermarket toilets..or East europeans photographing horses

Funnily enough many of these rumours are racially based.

Often they involve members of minority groups doing bizarre bad things that put the indigenous population at risk. Since I have no idea of who starts these I cannot say it is deliberate and the conspiracy theory I have that extreme right wing groups might actually make some mileage out of spreading these rumours may just be my paranoia...but you could see how it might work.

 

[Zebedee]

One of our local PCs rides, & when she received last years "must have" text re Red Toyotas & men who looked as if they might sound eastern european she duly passed it on in good faith before investigating any further. Because of what she does for a living people immediately assumed the information was true because she passed it on. It was only when I told her it was all a load of rubbish that she looked in to it further & then sent out a text & email apologising for causing any inadvertent alarm & confirming that no reports of the above being sighted had been registered after all.
The point I am slowly getting to is that when people of good standing forward spurious information in good faith we end up with these hysterical posts. Horses do sadly get stolen, but not on the scales these rumour mongers would like us to believe, & as CC points out its not as if there is exactly a shortage of horses either in Ireland or Europe.

 

[netposse]

It is easy for one to think that what they see on the Internet is the gospel. Even as mistrusting as I have become over the years because of what I deal with on a day to day basis I find myself still wanting to believe what I read. One reason we have such an rigorous reporting format is to help us weed out the stories that are not true or that have been greatly expanded upon as it was passed along. This is also one reason we work closely with law enforcement agencies.All of this helps but even that is infallible in the US.

 

[netposse]

And you are right. That is why we don't use email reports anymore. When we look into cases we find that what is often written in front of us is not the entire story or not one at all.