The European warmblood horse breed registries require inspection of individual animals before registration. This includes a visual inspection of conformation and movement. The registries have differing requirements for parentage since they are in many ways closely related. Some "breeds" allow controlled inclusion of outside breeds (other warmblood, thoroughbreds, and in some cases Arabian or shaggy) that are deemed to be compatible from individual horses which at inspection are found to carry the characteristics which complement the ideal. The acceptable animals are then registered and branded. There are different levels of registration just as the quarterhorse has an appendix level and standard.
Registration is not enough for breeding approval for the stallions. The traditional testing lasts 100 days. A stallion owner turns over the animal (generally from 4 to 6 years of age) to the committee for the time period. He is worked and evaluated by selected riders in numerous categories...rideability, jumping, trainability, dressage etc. At the end of this training period is a several day test which is a competition between the animals being tested. A new set of riders take the animals through dressage tests, cross-country courses, free jumping, stadium jumping etc. Animals which pass are allowed to breed twenty mares the first year as a test. If those things are all positive, the stallion is then given a lifetime breeding registration. Final scores and competitive placement for the stallion at the 100 day testing are touted for the rest of the animals life. One confusing thing to people trying to understand the breeding lines is that a stallion may be okayed to breed in several different registries. For instance a Westphalian may also breed with holsteiner, oldenburg, hannoverian mares to produce get which are eligible for branding in the mares registry. So once the stallion gets the okay there is some freedom.
The controls on breeding in Europe make their horses more consistent in general terms than ours not that we do not also produce animals of very high quality. Even the American breeding associations of these warmblood follow the same inspection and testing ritual. There are things that we could learn from them.
