A lost-horse notice has one job: to make a stranger who sees a loose horse able to recognize him, report him and help safely, within seconds of glancing at a gate, a feed-room door or a phone screen. Build every version — the printed notice for local barns and riders, and the post for social media — from the same set: his description covering height, color, markings, sex and age as known, clear photographs, where and when he was last seen, how to approach him, and your contact details. One set, used everywhere, means nobody works from a weaker version. Send the same set out through the Lost Pet Alert System as well as on paper, so the notice and the alert carry identical facts.
His Description and Photographs
Describe him the way a stranger sees him, not the way you know him. Give his height in hands, his color, his sex, and his age as known, then his markings in detail: a star, stripe or snip on his face, white socks or stockings and on which legs, brands, scars or a clipped pattern, and what he was wearing when he went missing, such as a blanket or a headcollar and its color. Markings matter because color alone fits a hundred horses in any county, while the combination of a blaze, two white hind socks and a scarred knee fits one.
Use clear photographs: one of his whole body from the side, one of his face straight on, and any photograph that shows an unusual marking up close. Choose recent photographs in daylight over flattering ones, and crop out other horses so nobody scans a field looking for the wrong animal. Write the description fresh for the notice rather than copying a sales advertisement, because a notice reader needs identification facts, not virtues.
Where and When, and How to Approach
State where and when he was last seen as precisely as you can: the field, lane or barn, and the time, labeled plainly, such as last seen Tuesday by the river gate, with the direction he was heading if anyone saw it. That one line tells local riders which direction to look and tells anyone who saw a loose horse earlier whether theirs was the same sighting.
Then say how to approach, and say it plainly: move calmly, speak to him, offer a bucket or a handful of grass if one is near, and never chase a panicked horse. A chased horse runs, and running horses cross roads, go through fences and injure themselves, while a horse approached slowly by a calm person with feed often stops and is caught. Ask finders not to ride out after him or surround him, and ask anyone who sees him but cannot approach safely to phone you with the location instead, because a good sighting with a place and a time is worth more than a failed catch that pushes him another mile away.
Put your contact details where they cannot be missed: your name, a mobile number you will actually answer at any hour, and a second number if one exists. Leave his chip number off the notice entirely, and off every public post of it. His description, markings and photographs are the public tools; the chip number is checked privately against his record when a found horse needs to be matched to an owner, and publishing it hands a stranger the one detail meant to prove ownership.
Load the notice wording into the Lost Pet Alert System on KinsLe, so horse owners close by get word fast, while whoever spots him reaches the owner directly from the alert.