Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

At 05:46 AM 10/3/2004, Truman Prevatt wrote:

> A new market has to be developed and the only new market I see for Arabs 
> is the pleasure market. One of the jobs of a breed association is to build 
> markets. The AHR seems to either be doing a very poor job at that or not 
> doing it at all.

Oh, I agree.  But that would require that buyers purchase registered 
Arabians, right?

I don't see that endurance riders want to be much of a help with that 
task.  Over the past years whenever we've talked on this list about buying 
Arabians for endurance that were bred for the sport, I've read lots and 
lots of emails about why it's cheaper to buy/rescue horses from killer 
auctions, why other breeds are better for endurance, why genetics doesn't 
matter, etc.

Without the support of AHR, based on the example of a respected sport that 
puts Arabians on the trails, what's that Registry to do except keep 
advertising how wonderful Arabians are?  Ads are just words, with pretty 
photos.  I personally can't believe that ads are the basis for any 
significant number of purchases.  Being face to face with good using horses 
will sell Arabians.

So if you want to support the growth of the Arabian breed through the 
pleasure market, I say people on this list should stop bashing the Arabian 
breed, stop ignoring AERC's numbers which say that Arabians and 
part-Arabians dominate the sport, and stop defending the purchasing of 
non-registered Arabians that aren't even bred for the sport.

It's easy to send emails.  I've gotten plenty of emails in my time about 
how great my endurance horses are.  But I didn't get enough buyers to 
continue breeding those great endurance horses.  People have got to put 
their money where their mouths (and emails) are.   In fact, Truman, while 
you may be riding an Arabian now, you are fast to say that your horse isn't 
nearly as good as your former endurance horse, a TWH.  So how does that 
help the Arabian pleasure market? 


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