No pony passport

[anydreamwilldo]

Hi hope you can help me. I'm planning on seeing a childs riding pony this week, he seems great 12,2hh and 7 years old. Just right for what we want, however he is unregistered and has no passport! Is this very bad? Or maybe illegal, please advise me. Thanks

As I understand it, while it is illegal for the seller to sell an equine without a passport, it is not actually illegal for a buyer to buy an equine without a passport.

If you do buy this pony, you could immediately have your vet microchip it and do a passport application ID, so that you could apply to have it passported straight away.

You could, but in your position I wouldn't, for quite a few reasons (not least being that the Vet may not agree to carry out a 'vetting' if the pony has no passport).
If you do decide to buy this pony, why not tell the owner that your 'offer' is subject to the pony being passported and microchipped, before payment is made (and of course, subject to the pony passing it's 'vetting', if you intend to have one done).

My sister recently bought her DD her first pony. Turned out after sale that seller had lost passport; kept being promised it but became clear it had gone missing in a house move (nothing sinister; genuine seller who we know thru friends). She had no problem getting a new one issued - but it did cost her, so maybe you want to have seller cover that cost. My own came with a passport which was completely inaccurate for last 5 years of ownership (since breeder first sold him) but again, had no problem with passport agency getting it all sorted out.

Dhorse came without a passport. The seller was suffering from cancer (hence the sale) and was rushed into hospital a couple of days after we took him on trial, so when we decided to buy him after about 30 seconds we didn't want to hassle her and just got another one. I must admit I was surprised at how easy it was, I thought we'd at least have to provide proof of purchase or something but it was definitely a case of 'no questions asked' which is really worrying and makes a mockery of the whole money grabbing exercise system, but that's another story!