NZSBA Showing Passport
The Showing Passport
Your horse's identity document for the show ring, now issued as a card that lives in your phone. Apply in about ten minutes, pay on the same screen, and carry it everywhere you already carry your phone.
The paper passport
- Six weeks of hand processing
- Forms that went missing in the post
- Photos that arrived unusable
- Ruined by one wet day at a show
The digital passport
- In Apple Wallet or Google Wallet
- Paid and submitted in one sitting
- Stewards verify it against official records
- Cannot be lost, forgotten or rained on
The $12.50 covers both your horse’s passport and your NZSBA Riding Membership for the season. The fee is the same whenever you join, and every card expires on 31 August at the end of the showing season. The first 75 to sign up also receive an NZSBA membership card, carrying discounts at more than fifty retailers nationwide.
How it works
Four steps. You do the first two, we do the rest.
Fill in the form
Your details, your horse's details, and two photographs. Most people are done inside ten minutes.
Pay on the spot
The $12.50 fee is taken on the same screen before you submit. Nothing to post, no invoice to chase.
We verify the horse
Every application is checked against the Harness Racing New Zealand register before it is approved.
Your card arrives
An approval email lands with a link. Tap it and the passport is in your wallet.
Applications are processed weekly, so allow time before entries close for your next show.
What to have ready
Gather these before you start and the form is a straight run through. If you are not sure of a detail, look the horse up on the Harness Racing NZ site using its brand or microchip number.
Your details
- Full name
- Postal address
- Phone number
- Email address
- A card for the fee
Horse details
- HRNZ registered name
- Show name, if it uses one
- Sire and dam
- Date of birth, sex and colour
- HRNZ brand or microchip number
- Novice or Open status, ridden section only
Two photographs
- One clear near side photo
- One clear off side photo
- Landscape, with the phone held sideways
- .jpg, under 3MB each
- Taken within the last month
Getting the photos right
Photos are the single most common reason an application gets held up. Two minutes of care here saves a week of back and forth.
✓ Do
- Stand at least three metres back
- Hold your phone sideways so the photo is landscape, not upright
- Get the whole horse in: four hooves, both eyes, both ears, nose and tail
- Stand the horse on flat, clean ground with the hooves visible
- Use a plain, uncluttered background
- Wait until the horse is standing still
- Clean the horse first, free of mud and dust
- Leave a halter or bridle on
✕ Do not
- Crop the photo. Leave space around the horse
- Leave ribbons or number holders on
- Photograph the horse in a cover, tail bag or saddlery
- Use hoof black
- Take the photo in portrait, with the phone held upright
- Send a screenshot
- Send something older than a month, or too soft to enlarge
The easy way
Take both photos on your phone, holding the phone sideways, then fill the form in on the same phone and upload straight from your camera roll when it asks. No transferring files, no emailing photos to yourself.
Keep each photo under 3MB
Your passport is a wallet card, and Apple Wallet will not accept a card larger than 10MB. Your two photos travel inside that card, so a single oversized photo can stop the whole passport installing on your phone. The form will not accept a photo over 3MB, which keeps every card comfortably inside the limit.
Most phone photos are already well under 3MB. If yours is not, the quickest fixes are:
- iPhone: email the photo to yourself, choose Medium when it asks about the size, then upload the copy that arrives
- Android: open the photo in Google Photos, tap the three dots and save a resized copy
- Either: turn off any high resolution or RAW setting in your camera app and take the photo again
If you get stuck, email the two photos to [email protected] and we will resize them for you.
Apply for your passport
The form is below, on this page. Your bank may add a quick verification step before it finishes, which is normal for a card payment.
Trouble with the form? Open it in its own tab or email [email protected].
Once you have it
At the show
Unlock your phone, open your wallet, show the card. Every passport carries a unique number and a link the steward can use to check the horse's details against our records, so it verifies in seconds without anyone digging through a folder.
Adding the card to your phone
On iPhone, open the approval email on the phone itself and tap the link. On some Android devices, tapping the link inside the email will not work. Copy the link instead and paste it into your phone's browser.
Changed phones or lost the email? Email us and we will resend the wallet link. You do not need to reapply.
If the horse is sold
The passport number belongs to the horse, not the owner, and it stays with the horse for life. When a horse changes hands the card is transferred to the new owner against that same number rather than being reissued as a new passport. Email [email protected] and we will send you the change of ownership form.
Microchips and Standardbreds
- Freeze branded, HRNZ registered Standardbreds do not need a microchip.
- If you want one anyway, it must be arranged through Harness Racing New Zealand, who will supply an official sequenced microchip for your vet to implant.
Arranging this correctly is entirely the owner's responsibility. A microchip that is not an official HRNZ sequenced chip can get your horse disqualified in the show ring.
Questions about your passport?
Email [email protected] with your horse's registered name and, if you have one, your passport number. It saves a round of emails.