Breeds in Endurance

[guest@endurance.net]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net
Angie said:

> I wish there was a way to distinguish how many of the grade horses are
> just unregistered Arabs.  There were an awful lot of foals not
registered
> back in the late 80's when the breeders went bust.  I always feel like
> I'm not playing fair that Kaboot is listed as "Grade" when he's from two
> registered Arab parents.

I think that it is worthwhile to note that the AERC does not
require that horses be officially registered with any breed
to be considered of a particular breed.  A horse's "registration"
(and breed) with the AERC is entirely owner reported.

So if Angie would like Kaboot to be considered an Arab by the
AERC, all she has to do is tell the AERC that he is an Arab.

The AERC does not (to my knowledge) "recognize" any breed (or it
recognizes all of them) within its competitions.  The AERC does
not offer awards to breeds (nor should it, that's what it means
for competition to be "open to all equines").  There are, however
some breed organizations that recognize (and reward participants
in) AERC rides.

So while the Arabian Horse Registry and the World Arabian Horse
Organization, and the International Arabian Horse Registry may
not recognize Kaboot as a purebred Arabian for whatever reason
(like because his breeder couldn't afford or chose not to pony
up the registration fee), the AERC doesn't charge any more to
register (i.e. issue an AERC number to) a purebred, a partbred,
or anything else.  And the AERC won't even charge ANY money for
Angie to call up and change Kaboot's breed of record in their
computer system (after which he will be reported as being an
Arabian in all AERC statistics regardless his official
registration status with any other organization). And if they ask her for
his registration number, she can tell them a) that
he doesn't have one, b) that he has one but that she doesn't
know what it is, or c) make one up.  The AERC will neither know
nor care about the difference.

Whether this laxity on the part of the AERC allowing all horse
owners to self report (and require no "proof") their own horse's
breed leads to more or less accuracy in the reporting is
open to debate.  It would seem, in Angie's case (were she to
report her horse's breed to the AERC accurately and say he is an
Arabian no matter what papers she does not have to prove it),
that the self-reporting would lead to more accuracy.

And if the AERC continues to refuse to do anything other than
REPORT the breeds of participant's horses (i.e. does not offer
any awards/rewards based on the breed of the equine), then there
would be little incentive for owners to deliberately falsely
report the breeds of their horses.  Which would also lead to
more accuracy.

So all the AERC has to do to get accurate breed information about
the horses that participate in endurance is to tell owner's that
they should report their horses to be of whatever breed that they
have reasonable reason to believe that the horses are, whether
they have the paperwork to prove it or not.

And breed registries that DO offer rewards based on the breed of
a horse participating in an AERC sanctioned ride can still
require that horses be registered in their registries in order
to be eligible for those awards (e.g. how the AERC records breed
is of no import to the IAHA).

So, to go back to the original post about "Morabs now being
recognized as a breed by the AERC."  This is not entirely
accurate.  It is rather the case that the Morab registry (I am
not going to try to figure out which one) now recognizes the
AERC (and offers rewards to people participating in AERC rides
with their Morabs).

If I am wrong, and on the other hand the AERC IS recognizing certain
breeds (including the Morab) by giving awards to
specific breeds, then all I can say is that they need to stop
doing that. The AERC is not a breed registry and has absolutely
no business whatsoever in promoting or awarding any breed of
horse.

But I don't think I am wrong.  To my knowledge, the only thing
that the AERC does with breed information is to report it (and
I cannot for the life of me figure out what they do with the
horse's breed registration number, as near as I can tell, it is
just a data field in a computer system that is administratively
used for nothing whatsoever).

kat
Orange County, Calif.