Equine crime
Yard security • Loose horses • Possession of stolen goods
Q My friend’s yard was robbed recently and tack and other items were stolen. What can I do at my own yard to help prevent theft of our valuables, or even of our horses? Sarah Parker, Co Durham
Stuart says... It’s a huge source of anxiety for horse owners when spates of yard burglaries seem to be taking place. However, take some comfort from the fact that actual horse theft is far less common than you might think. In recent years, panicked owners have seen comments on social media about such things as mysterious plaits appearing in horses’ manes as a ‘marker’ for a later theft. But not one of these crimes has ever come to fruition or been reported in North
Yorkshire, nor, according to police research, nationally either.
That said, general horse theft does occur occasionally, and theft of tack is common, but there are a number of sensible measures you can take to make a thief’s life harder.
Layers of an onion
Treat your yard’s security like layers of an onion, starting with fences and boundaries. You need to make it as hard as possible for strange vehicles to gain access as it’s much harder to steal animals or heavy valuables if transport isn’t close by, ready to be loaded. It goes without saying that all fencing, doors and gates should be 100% secure, and gravel drives can be a very useful auditory deterrent! Gates should actually be locked. Buy anti-lift locks or weld gate pins so that gates can’t be lifted off their hinges even when padlocked.
Barns and stables
A determined thief will come in through any weak point of a building, including roofs, skylights and windows, so fitting metal bars to areas like this can help. Your tack room ideally needs to be ‘armour-plated’. Brick or concrete walls and heavy duty mortice locks are advisable — indeed, anything less than this may invalidate your insurance.
If your yard facilities don’t include this, check whether there’s at least an alarm and/ or CCTV system, and that areas are well lit with security lights. If you have CCTV, it’s advisable to film the entrances to the property to catch strange vehicles’ number plates. CCTV cameras are much cheaper these days and many operate using wifi, so if wiring in a camera system is putting you off, there’s now a way around this.
Your valuables
When it comes to your animals and your possessions, make them less appealing to thieves by marking them. Freezemarked horses are visibly more difficult for thieves to sell on as it’s obvious that they can be identified, but freezemarking and microchipping also allows vets, abattoirs and dealers to discover whether an animal has been rightfully sold on.
Dot Peen marking tack, trailers and clippers can make them less attractive to take too, and certainly more identifiable. A Dot Peen machine can be used on a variety of materials, including leather and metal,
and it hammers a symbol, word, or number of your choice onto your belongings. Painting distinguishing marks onto trailers makes it much easier for police to spot them if the theft is reported early on. Painting the postcode on the roof is a useful tactic, but never have the address of where the trailer or horse is kept on the vehicle as this will tell thieves where something that has caught their eye can be found.
Keep records
Keep an inventory of all your tack and include photographs as well as descriptions. Take plenty of photos of your horse from all angles too — and in both summer and winter when his coat looks different. Photographs will help police identify stolen animals and possessions more easily, and they can help users of social media keep a lookout too. Local websites and forums, WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages can help equestrian and rural communities to stay safe, so consider using them to keep abreast of what’s going on in your area. It’s amazing how useful they can be to the police when investigating a crime too.