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>In the posting - I forgot to mention that being listed in
>the AERC records is not enough to qualify for the award.
>
>Your horse must also be listed in the Morab registry. A
>note from the Registry says:
>
>"We will consider a horse that was not registered
>but applies for registration, in 2002.
>Our special to get registered is
>$70 before year end."
>
>Registration information for the registry is available at
>
Let me preface this by saying that I understand that
Mike is just the messenger here, and my statements
have nothing to do with him personally.
This award should NOT be called "the AERC Morab Endurance
Award"!!!
It should be called "the AERC International Morab Registry
Endurance Award."
AERC has inadvertently gotten itself involved in
a long-standing internecine war between competing
registries where one small group of people has
successfully gotten AERC to inadvertently endorse
their definition of "Morab."
I first tripped over this classic war among
competing breed registries when I was running
the national MorganList listserve from 1996-1998.
These two groups of people got into a vicious
public flame war with each other, complete with
lawsuit threats, over which registry represented
the "real, true, pure" Morab. I was completely
dumbfounded.
It all goes back to William Randolph Hearst's
effort to breed Morgans to Arabs at Sam Simeon
in the 20's and 30's. I'm a little vague (and
largely indifferent) as to the specifics, but
evidently one group of people created a "Morab"
registry largely based on Hearst's herd, that
went fallow for while, and then was re-constituted.
Another group of people took extreme exception
to the definition of "Morab" that this
re-constituted group was using, and created
a competing registry with a different definition
of what it would allow in as a "Morab." The
two groups have been in a blood feud ever
since. (Notice the heavy emphasis on trademarks
on the IMR's web page above--no accident;
just part of the blood feud.)
Me? I could care less about either "registry."
If I want to breed a Morgan to an Arab, then,
as far as I'm concerned, I've got "a Morab."
And I don't need to pay money to either "registry"
to endorse that fact.
I don't mind at all if one or both of these registries
wants to sponsor an AERC award where eligibility
is restricted to horses in their registry. More
power to them. I do object to its being called
THE "Morab" award. It should be called exactly
what it is:
"The International Morab Registry" award.
It is as silly to call this "The Morab Award"
as it would be to call only Arabs registered with
AHR eligible for some "Arabian Award."
Note: "the other" Morab registry is:
While IMB is:
(Only difference, the "s".)
Silly? Yes. Which is precisely why AERC should
make the name of this award specific to the particular
Morab registry which happens to be sponsoring it.
Linda B. Merims
Massachusetts, USA
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