Instructions
Lift up the horse's lip and look for the tattoo number on the inside of its mouth. Tattoos can fade over time, so it may be necessary to use a flashlight to read the entire number. If you are unable to read the entire number, write down as much of the number as you can.
Log on to the Internet and visit the home page for the horse's registry. For instance, all American thoroughbred horses are registered through the Jockey Club, and this popular registry provides a free tattoo lookup database at its website. Owners of thoroughbreds can research their horse's ancestry and track down former owners by visiting registry.jockeyclub.com and entering the tattoo number.
Check with the grooms, trainers and jockeys at your local horse racing track for additional information about specific horses. Trainers often remember horses that they have owned and trained, even years after the fact. If you are only able to get a partial tattoo number, you may want to take some good pictures of the horse and start asking around at the track. If the horse in question has a local history, chances are good that the grooms, trainers and other workers at the track will know something about him.
How to Find an American Horse by a Tattoo Number
Registration papers are an excellent way to identify and protect horses, but they are of no use if they become separated from the horse in question. Without those papers it can be difficult to determine the parentage of the animal, and it can be even more difficult to reunite a stolen horse with its owner. That is why tattoos are routinely used to identify horses. These tattoos provide a permanent record of the horse, its pedigree and its current owner.