Re: KILLER HORSES

[Sue Brown <sbrown@wamedes.com>]

>When there are people like this around, it's no wonder you breeders 
>can't get a decent price for your horses!  If he finally realizes he can't 
>keep breeding some one elses culls, or if he can't afford to feed them any 
>more, he will be forced to sell them for whatever he can get.  I'm gonna be 
>standing in line, because there is one horse on the place that is actually 
>pretty decent.  So how do you convince people like this to quit breeding
just 
>for the sake of breeding? 

I don't think you're ever going to be able to eradicate the breeder that's
just doing it because they have an animal with the appropriate functional
body parts (and marginal, at best, conformation)...it's the "puppy
syndrome" (they're sooooo cute) combined with a little "puppy mill"
attitude ("I can make some money -- sell the offspring -- cuz keepin' this
horse's costin' me lots more than I figured!!")  These people are usually
uneducated (in what makes a good breeding horse), intellectually dim, or
without ethics...and there are waaay too many in this world that fall into
that category for us to fix!  This is a fact that nobody can change on a
overall basis.  

The solution???  IMO, the U.S. would have to adopt a program similar to the
Europeans where registerable offspring would have to come from certified
stock (not just registered.)  The breeding stock would have to be evaluated
and passed for the breeder to sell anything registered or the new owner of
the offspring to ever have a chance of doing their own breeding and being
able to register them.  At this point it should be emphasized to
perspective horse owners that it costs the same to feed and vet a horse
that is of questionable genetics (grade or purebred (but never able to be
registered because it came from unapproved stock...irregardless of assumed
worth)) as it does to feed one of approved breeding stock.  It's not that
complicated to get the approval either -- have a good horse, show up for a
judging, get or be rejected for approval.  There are organizations that are
doing that now in the U.S. -- still mostly warmbloods, but increasingly
more towards other sporthorse areas.  They just need to take it one step
further and *require* this in order to register offspring.  Serious
breeders *will* take the time to do this.  Again, as I said, this won't
eradicate the problem but will help guide a lot more serious horse owners
towards horses of approved standards. 

Sue

sbrown@wamedes.com
Tyee Farm
Marysville, Wa.