Speaking of animal abuse, are horses today, in whichever line of sport, recreation or work, branded with hot irons to show ownership as say cattle is/was?:(

I havn't seen it myself. I also don't see branding anymore either. Usually it's tagging the ear. It's more humane, just like getting an ear pierced. I would think branding a horse would put fear into it and it wouldn't be as good a horse.

Yes, they are. For example, thoroughbreds are still branded so they can be identified, including which property they were born on, their foal number, state and year of birth.

They largely tend to be freezebranded these days, although that doesn't work on grey horses because it causes the hair to grow back white.

Branding is still done today, I can think of plenty of ranches and WB registries that still brand their horses. Its not particularly abusive however, at least not any more so than microchipping pets or vaccinations. I've branded cattle before. Its done young and they pretty much forget about it as soon as they see the feed at the other end of the chute.

The problem with ear tags is that they're ugly- there's no way you would ear tag a dressage horse.
They also fall out or get ripped out from time to time, so in some cases branding is better. You can steal a cow and replace the ear tag, but you can't replace a brand so easily.
Some stock have electronic chips in their ears so that they can be tracked through markets and identified too.

Geez, I thought it wasn't done anymore. Is it done using a local anaesthesia? I just can't imagine that it doesn't hurt much, freezing or burning. I can understand the need for it, and I'm guessing microchip, unless under anaesthesia, is just as painful and carries more risks.

If you think about it, branding a horse is similar to circumcising infants. It's done for a reason (whatever you think of it) and it's done when they are so young that they don't retain their memories of it.

The thing about anaesthetics is that they can be overdosed, especially on a small animal, so it's often not cost effective to do so.

If you're replying on a microchip then you have to have a scanner. For brands, all you need in a working eye.

It's particularly done on high-value horses: thoroughbreds, standardbreds, irish sport horses etc, where there's a lot at stake when it coems to identifying the horse. You don't want to sell or geld the wrong one!

Growing up on a cattle ranch we have had hundreds of cattle brandings. And yes, our horses were branded as well. It is painful but only for a few minutes and yes, as others have said the pain is quickly forgotten. Branding is a way of life for ranchers to identify their own cattle and horses in case they were to ever get mixed in with another rancher's livestock. (This can happen frequently when fence gets broken between property, someone leaves a gate open, etc.)