WITH plenty of focus on the current difficulties swamping equine movement between Ireland, Britain and mainland Europe, some help may be on the horizon in the shape of the new digital E-Passports and Smartcards.

Simon Cooper of Weatherbys outlined developments in his address to the latest webinar hosted by the International Thoroughbred Breeders’ Federation (ITBF) which took place last Thursday afternoon (January 21st). From a 20th century printing company, Weatherbys has evolved into a 21st genomic technology company, focused on business intelligence.

“Most importantly is the work we are doing on digitising the passports and this spring, in the UK and Ireland, Weatherbys will launch the first digital passports, including details of vaccination and movement. There are 36,000 historical horse vaccinations in the system for the UK and Ireland, logged in by over 1,000 trainers with new vaccinations logged in by 1,200 veterinary surgeons in a collaboration across the UK and Ireland. The data to pre-clear all vaccination entries has been updated. We can send trainers reminders about the next vaccinations coming up.

Vaccinations

“Internationally, we have created a Data Share Agreement to allow digital records be transferred across the two jurisdictions between the UK and Ireland and we are extending that to breeding stock vaccinations for mares visiting stallions for example. On the movement side, this has been used for the last year or so, we have recorded about 4,000 movements, including for international movement.

“We are trying to get to a place where we can pre-clearance at the departure point rather than by the man with the clipboard at the port. We don’t need pages and pages of documents to travel. The Export Health Certificate is 11 pages long, requires about 25 stamps and signatures, and in 2021, this should not be necessary.

“The final part of the functionality of the E-Passport is breeding stock and owner/ownership transfer details – the same way as you would have changing your car, plus identification for all horses in training. And this technology is transferrable across all species – horses, dogs, cattle, sheep, etc.

“We see ourselves as long term providers for the industry – the challenges are not getting any easier and the E-Passport is just one example of how we can do this,” outlined Simon Cooper.

Roll-out of Smartcards

In the first quarter of this year, as the legislation requires a physical asset, Smartcards will be issued which are, in effect, a horse’s E-Passport. It can be used by tapping an iPhone or using the numbers on the card to connect to the database. Older horses will be logged in to the system after Weatherbys process the foal crop for 2021.

In terms of equine international movements, the new system will help with a certain proportion of what now needs to be done to move horses post-Brexit and the present difficulties with equine international travel is something that Weatherbys is working on with relevant authorities.

“You can notify for breeding/racing, etc., but as we are all discovering how much more complicated, in the first few weeks of 2021, how difficult this (equine travel) is now, we are working on this and are in discussions,” concluded Cooper.