Identity and the legal paperwork first
Every handover starts with identity. The horse's passport must travel with him by law when he moves, and the microchip number on it should be checked against the horse, because the whole treatment history hangs off that one identity. Add ownership or loan documentation where it exists, insurance details, and the contact details for the previous vet and farrier, because the fastest route to missing records is a phone call to the right practice. If the horse competes, his vaccination record is not a courtesy, it is a condition of entry everywhere he goes, and gaps discovered at a new yard can mean restarting a course while everyone argues about whose problem it is.
The clinical history that changes future care
This is the heart of the packet: dated notes of significant illness and injury, and what was done about each. Colic episodes matter enormously, including whether any involved surgery, because a horse with a surgical history is managed and watched differently forever after. Laminitis belongs here with its triggers, dates and how it was controlled. Lameness investigations should travel with their conclusions, which leg, what was found, what treatment worked, rather than as the phrase 'went lame once'. Any surgery, joint medication, eye treatment or long course of medicine should be listed with dates and outcomes. Your old vet can release the clinical notes to the new practice, and asking for that transfer before the horse moves is the single most useful admin job in the whole changeover.
Reactions, sensitivities and the things that must not be repeated
A short section of the record deserves to travel at the front, not buried: anything the horse has reacted badly to. Adverse reactions to a medicine, sedation that went unusually deep or wore off oddly, a vaccine reaction, a feed intolerance, these are the facts that protect the horse at the next emergency, when nobody has time to read a long file. Note also what works: the sedation approach that suits him, how he tolerates clipping, travelling or the dentist, and any handling warnings, because a horse's safety record includes how he behaves under stress, not only what his body has done.
Teeth, feet and worming: the rolling dates
Some records matter because of when they fall due. Dental charts and the date of the last dental treatment tell the new vet whether teeth are a six-month conversation or an annual one, and what was found last time. Farriery notes belong in the packet when feet are part of the horse's story, remedial shoeing, balance corrections, a history of abscesses or poor horn, since the new farrier otherwise starts by guesswork. Worming history, products used and the dates and results of recent worm egg counts let the new yard slot the horse into its programme without double-dosing or leaving a gap, and they protect the grazing he is about to join.
Handing over so the new team starts informed
The goal is simple: nobody treating this horse should have to reconstruct his past from memory, phone calls and luck. Ask the old practice to send the file, hand the new yard the management notes yourself, and walk the new team through the headlines, the colic history, the laminitis watch, the medicine reaction, in person. Keeping the whole record assembled in KinsLe's Pet Passport means the horse quite literally carries his history with him as one portable packet, and changing vets or yards becomes a change of address for the record, not the loss of it.