How are racehorses, greyhounds, and other animals that engage in competitive events on which bets are struck, identified?
For example, imagine I am an unscruplous trainer, and owner of ‘Uncle Cecil’, the fastest racehorse in the west. ‘Uncle Cecil’ will be hot favourite for any race he competes in. However, cackling with evil intent, I turn up to the race course pulling a trailer containing ‘Glue Factory’, a no-hope nag with a passing resemblence to ‘Uncle Cecil’, and enter the hapless quadruped under the favourite’s name. Obviously, if the subterfuge works, I can clean up on the betting markets, either by backing the other horses, or (since I’m in the UK) laying the horse on one of the many on-line betting exchanges we have this side of the pond.
I’m sure photo ID and vital statistics are used to confirm the identity of horses, but- come on- horses do look pretty much the same, don’t they? Is DNA testing used? Are horses ‘chipped’? And how about the relatively louche world of dog racing? I find it hard to imagine that the average dog track has a geneticist trackside with a shotgun sequencer analysing doggy DNA. So, gambling Dopers, what’s the story?
BTW, the biggest substitution scandal in Oz, when Bold Personality was substituted for Fine Cotton in 1984, was picked up using only that simple id info.
In North America, racehorses are identified by a marker tattooed into the inside of their lip. If you walk out to the paddock while the horses are being saddled before a race, you can see the racing secretary open the horses’ mouths and verify their identity.
The American thoroughbred’s lip tattoo is checked before every race to verify identity.
While some have fairly distinct markings, the vast majority are some variety of bay (dark brown with black mane, tail, and legs) with a minimal amount of white markings. This can make things confusing, even for a trainer.
I recently read in Horse of a Different Color, a book chronicling the story behind 2001 Derby winner Monarchos, that a trainer purchased two horses at a sale and promptly got them confused. He trained them for months thinking each one was the other, never bothering to check the lip tattoo. When he went to run them, the Jockey Club caught the error and he had to rename them (not to mention retrain them!). Whoops!
Greyhounds (racing type) are indentified by tattoos placed on the inside of each ear.
On the right ear is has 3 characters: The first one for month, the second for year, the third for place in litter. On the left side it’s a serial number that is unique to the litter the dog was born in.
