Hardshipping into AMHA - yes or no

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If the purpose of closing the AMHA reg. is to make those horses more of a BREED and not a height breed, the idea is to be able to follow pedigree.

To do that, I believe they should allow horses that are holding AMHR papers to be "hardshipped", as long as they follow the AMHA requirements for height and conformation. AMHR does record pedigree.......and in my opinion, better than AMHA.
 
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I don't like the idea of closing the registry, I have several reasons for this.

Closing the registry will not make the registry a breed. Minis are not a breed. They have never been a breed, and they will never be a breed. That is my opinion at least, and here is why. Our ONLY restriction on being registered is height. We show according to height. We strive for a certain height. The name itself, "Miniature" indicates height. Height, height, height, we are a HEIGHT registry.

Most(not all) but most, other breeds only allow certain colors. Most other breeds(not all) but most, don't care about height. There is always an average height, but, for example, AQHA would let an 18 hand horse in, if one existed. The percheron registry would let a 10 hand horse in, if one existed. BREEDS strive for a type of horse bred for a specific purpose. Yes there are breeds that are good all-around horses. But, for example the Thoroughbred, while it might make a great barrel racer or pleasure horse, it was bred to race. A Clydesdale, while it might make a great dressage horse, it was bred to work. The saddlebred, while it might make a great jumper, was bred to be a saddleseat/park/harness horse.

Because of this, I think that the Miniature Horse registries are very unique. We allow for any color. Some of our horses like like QH, some look like Arabs, some look like Saddlebreds. Minis can do anything. There is nothing wrong with being a height registry. For some reason the phrase "Just a height registry" has developed a very negative connotation, and I don't understand why.

That said, I think it is important that we keep feeding the gene pool with great blood, be it shetland blood, or just the blood of a great horse who happened to come from nothing. I think the hardshipping needs to be an option for these cases.

I don't believe for one second that closing the registry will aid in the elimination of the dwarf gene. Eliminating the dwarf gene requires responsible breeding. There is plenty of irresponsible breeding going on already within AMHA and closing the registry won't make that magically disappear.
 
OK - just throwing this out here since we have so many members that are also dog/(AKC registered purebred) owners.

How does the AKC go about "accepting" a new breed to their association? Obviously they DO it, and there are many different varieties of different dog BREEDS that are bred in Std or Miniature forms - ie, Greyhouds, Schnauzers, Poodles, and probably many more that I am not remembering. Obviously those different breeds have height standards for showing, but if a dog goes over that measurement it is not "expelled" from being able to be used as breeding stock.

So, I wonder how the AKC handles becomming a new breed from an existing one - be it larger or smaller form of the original.

Anyone know?

Stacy
 
You have an excellent point, Matt, in that miniatures can be so very versatile. That is one thing I really REALLY love about minis. There are horses that can do well in a halter class, and also be great driving horses, jumping horses, obstacle horses, and youth horses.

I personally think that the closing of the AMHA registry is to keep more registered sheltands from being registered. IMO, it isn't a great move for the registry, I think it may stagnate the registry's finances, but I also realize that as "small fry", my opinion doesn't count. *shrug*
 
I dont know if all of you from USA & Canada are aware but all hardshipping for Europe has been stopped.

I think this is very unfair as genetically i think our horses have alot to offer, some of them may not be as fine as the AMHA horses but i have only had knowledge of 3 dwarf minis in Ireland and all of them have been from imported stock from the USA.

It is very fashionable here at the moment to import AMHA horses at great expense but i do believe that this is only the start of genetic problems for these breeders here and in 2 Irish finals this year a UK registered horse took the Supreme Grand Champion on both occasions.

There are some very nice non AMHA horses here and i feel that i certainly wont do any harm to have them inspected and hardshipped if passed.

just my opinion, hope i havent upset anyone by saying this

Joanne
 
I think that after we find and address some issues with the finding the dwarf genes and how to try breed that out of our minis , we should not close hard shipping. I have hard shipped in the past and would in the future, if I find a nice enough animal. If the animal comes from AMHR and has some of the horses in the pedigree that are AMHR registered, they should be added the hardship registration certificate.

I also think there should be a higher level of certification of breeding animals. In theory something like this.....If you could take your mare or stallion at 5 or older to a director to look at. you would of course have to pay a fee to do this. Have the director go through a check list and see if it is a superior animal... straight legs, not cow hocked, good bite, both testicles, on and on and the horse would be a level 1 breeding animal. So that you know that if you breed to that stallion , it really has what it needs to have to pass on the genetics. Something like they do in Europe with their breeding stallions and mares. Just my opinion.
 
Its been said that some of the best bred mares and stallions have had dwarfs. So how would hardshipping an unknown help in decreasing that issue? And has anyone heard of a hardshipped horse being turned down for something other than height? If not does that mean that any horse as long as its 34" or under can be hardshipped no matter what it looks like and no matter what its background is? Now remember before anyone says that of course no one would pay to hardship unless the horse was nice. Nice is in the eye of the beholder, what you would hardship and what I would hardship could be two totally different horses.

And again for those that say its to expensive, if your horse isn't worth the price of hardship plus what you paid, why would you want to breed or show it anyway?
 
Stacy, since you asked about how new breeds were accepted in the the AKC as a new breed, here is an article:

http://www.slate.com/id/2184198/

[SIZE=18pt]Here Comes the Plott Hound [/SIZE]


How new breeds make it into the Westminster dog show.



By Michelle Tsai



Posted Monday, Feb. 11, 2008, at 6:37 PM ET
http://www.slate.com/id/2184230/A Bedlington terrier competes in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show


Four breeds of dogs will be competing for the first time in this year's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show: the Tibetan mastiff, the Beauceron, the Swedish vallhund, and the Plott hound. What does it take for a new breed to enter the competition?

 


Lots of organization and lots of dogs. To get a new breed into the canine pageant, its fanciers must petition the American Kennel Club, the organization in charge of the show. The club keeps a registry of recognized dog breeds in the United States and sets the rules for adding new ones. (Including the four named above, the club recognizes 157 types of dog; in contrast, the world canine organization, the Fédération Cynologique Internationale, recognizes
more than 300 breeds.) Approval for a new breed takes several years and depends on the total number of dogs in a given breed and the collaborative effort of its fanciers.

 


First, the fanciers list the breed on the AKC's Foundation Stock Service, a record of purebreds that aren't yet eligible to compete in the organization's shows. To do this, owners and breeders must form a breed-specific club and come up with a
breed standard—a written description of the animals' temperament and physical characteristics. They must also register their pooches by listing the parentage of each dog. The FSS list today includes 61 breeds, like the Spanish water dog and the Catahoula leopard dog. Then the fanciers must show that the breed club has more than 100 members, that there are at least 300 dogs in the United States with a pedigree going back three generations, and that the dogs are located throughout the country (as opposed to in just one region). It takes a while for some breeds to reach the necessary population size. The black Russian terrier, for example, was bred as a guard dog by the Soviet army; very few owners can handle the dogs' strong personalities. Once a breed meets these requirements, the dogs can start to compete in some AKC events as members of the "miscellaneous class."

 


Finally, a breed can earn full recognition after it's reached a certain level of show activity—usually one to three years in the miscellaneous class. It took the Tibetan mastiff just two years to move from the miscellaneous category to the recognized registry, but other breeds don't make as smooth a transition. Fanciers may fight over whether their breed should even seek AKC approval, for fear of making the dogs too popular and so attracting unscrupulous breeders. The Cavalier King Charles spaniel spent about 30 years on the miscellaneous list for this reason; it was eventually recognized in 1995 by the AKC despite protests from its club. The Redbone coonhound has remained in the miscellaneous class for about five years because members of the breed's club are mostly interested in



, which don't require full status, as opposed to conformation events (i.e., dog shows), which do. There was even a coup in the case of the Australian shepherd a few decades ago; one faction secretly—and successfully—applied for AKC recognition.  


It's also possible for the same breed to have two competing clubs. In that case, the fanciers might argue over which one gets to represent the breed in the AKC. This has complicated things for the Jack Russell, which actually wound up as two breeds in the AKC: the Russell terrier, which hasn't even made it to the miscellaneous class yet, and the Parson Russell terrier, which was recognized in 1997. Decisions about the breed standard also incite some serious kennel club politicking; in the case of the Dogue de Bordeaux, which will be fully recognized this summer, the fanciers couldn't agree on whether to include physical flaws in the official description of the dogs. (Standards changes are always contentious, even for fully recognized dogs, since it means that some dogs will no longer be show-quality. The Chihuahua Club of America has been embroiled in a debate over whether to disqualify dogs with a
blue merle color pattern; the pug's organization wants to allow only dogs with fawn or black color.)
 

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