If you were looking at a racehorse, how would you know for certain you were looking at the newest Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah? In the high-stakes world of race betting — or any gambling, for that matter — mistaken identity is not unheard of.
In California, in the not-too-distant future, your best bet probably will be to scan the horse’s neck and read a tiny embedded microchip. The California Horse Racing Board, the regulatory body for the industry in the state, is testing just this technology at two Northern California racetracks: Golden Gate Fields and Alameda County.
The board, along with the California Department of Food and Agriculture — which tracks equine disease — initiated the pilot project in 2014. The goals are to improve racehorse identification and develop a process for inventorying and tracking the movement of horses among California’s licensed racetracks and facilities.
The system uses an RFID microchip, scanner and handheld computer. When read, the ID data from the chip can be uploaded in a matter of seconds to a software module developed by InCompass, a company founded by The Jockey Club, which maintains Thoroughbred records in the U.S. The Jockey Club announced in August that starting in 2017 microchips will be required when registering all foals.
To date, 124 horses have received a microchip at the two California racetracks, board staff reported at its meeting on Thursday. The microchip comes in a prepackaged syringe and can be injected by a veterinarian or a trained technician into the horse’s neck ligament. It’s done within seconds, board staff said, and no complications have been reported so far in the pilot, which is scheduled to be finished in 2016.
The California Horse Racing Board says it would need to develop new rules and regulations to fully implement the microchip program statewide by 2017.
Regulatory bodies for horse racing in Britain and Ireland have been using microchips since 2012. In the U.S., horse tattoos have traditionally served the function.
