EyeD for horses.
Old horsemen will tell you that if you look a horse in the eye you can tell a lot about the animal, well at the American Paint Horse Association that couldn’t be more true. Welcome to Open Range , I’m Susan Allen stay tuned. Since man found he could train and ride horses , there has been many methods to identify equine ownership most notably using some sort of branding. Mustangs are freeze branded on their neck , The Jockey club requires that Thoroughbred race horses be tattooed on their upper lip. So if you end up with a thoroughbred you know nothing about, you can actually find out its race record by those few numbers. Most ranchers I know typically freeze brand the hip of Quarter Horses but now the American Paint Horse Association is intent on introducing a new concept of identification, one they call eyeD. Like a human finger print each horses iris has it’s own identification code, which the APHA hopes will soon become as important to registering a Paint horse as photographs. The group has been working closely with Global Animal Management a subsidiary of Merck and Company and plan to offer this new technology to riders who compete in the American Paint Horse Association World Show November 10 and 11. The APHA feels certain that the eye print taken by a special eyeD camera is the most accurate and secure identication and they cite the fact in a recent Press Release, that an eye photo is less stressful on the horse than any other type of branding or tattoo.
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