Question re: tattoos on racehorses
 

Anyone know what exactly the first letter stands for? Friend is looking at an exracehorse and has the first letter of "U". People selling say horse is only 8 years old and have papers to prove it. Friend doesn't really care about the age, but if the horse is really older, then she wants the price to go down.

I believe that "U" means the horse was born in 1991.

kid knows her ish

http://web.vet.cornell.edu/public/cuerp/tbtattoo.htm

I didn't know much about the tattoos only that they had them to identify each horse. Funny thing is that the owners of the horse now say they have papers stating he is 8 yrs old. Why would anyone want to lie about it when his tattoo obviously states that he was born in 1991 making him 15, which by the way the vet said he was. Well techincally he said 13-15 yrs old. hmmm... Not like this horse is a HUGE price either. I don't get it.

I dunno... but the tattoo won't lie. The grooves in his teeth should tell (ballpark figure) what his age is also. I'm assuming that's how the vet figured out the 13-15 age bracket.

I haven't had that much interaction with the horse. So I don't know if they checked or not. The age doesn't really matter to the friend, but she does think that if the horse is 15 instead of 8 she should get a cheaper price.

Definitely.