Mnmini
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And yet, this designation is unique in the horse world to miniatures. I can think of no other breed where "show Quality" is determined exclusively by its competitiveness in the halter arena. Halter is not the end all/be all in determining if an animal is show quality or even breeding quality, and frequently reflects current "styles" and fads over true conformation issues. Other breeds revolve around performance criteria, and in fact halter horses frequently are unable to "do" anything else aside from halter classes, and even among show folks, enjoy a relatively small market share. After their halter careers are over, they go on to make more halter babies, or in the case of geldings, a whole lot of nothing. In my opinion, miniatures seem to be (or want to be?) aligned more with dog showing than horse showing, and there seems to be several of the opinion that we should follow AKC, rather than the examples of any other horse registries. How in the world would breeders be able to determine at registration that the colt/filly is unworthy of keeping their full registration papers as they might be knockout driving horses? If pony folks can make that kind of determination on weanlings, they've got the breeders of full size horse beat to H@!! in making those same kind of decisions. They would have to have some major conformation faults that would make it IMPOSSIBLE for them to perform, and I have seen some posty legged horses that walked away with the points/$ every weekend in big horses, since they are athletic enough to compensate for their conformation short comings.
Maybe our breed is too young, I don't know, but the emphasis in what should be bred, or not, does not need to be defined in criteria exclusively in the halter show pen. The majority of the horse owning/buying public (this includes the VAST majority that purchase full sized animals only) are looking for recreational animals only. Showing falls under that recreational area as well, but among all breeds comprises a pretty small percentage of the horse owning population. What do recreational horse owners want? They want pretty (but as we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder), they want trainable, they don't want to have to "re-train" each time they take them out, and they need to be sound and athletic enough to engage in their sport of choice. For most horses, these are not decisions that can, or perhaps even should be made at weaning..or even yearling age. If halter breeders want to lead in dishy headed whippets (just an example), they CAN, but don't tell me that we should all be striving for that same common goal, because imo, we absolutely should not. There is more than enough room for those that want to specialize in harness racers, combined drivers, distance drivers, recreational drivers, hunter/jumpers, show drivers, and a strong likelyhood that they will not all fit into that same little halter horse model. I realize that miniatures are unique, in that we have breeders, perhaps even many breeders that have producing the tiniest, most correct horse as a goal, and that too, is just fine, but the common theme between those looking to produce the tiniest correct horses, and those with specific performance goals in mind, is that they all have very specific goals. I think the term "pet quality" is a term that probably should be used much more sparingly to denote those animals that are dwarfs, or are otherwise physically hampered from pursuing athletic endeavors. When marketing QH, more specifically rail horses, we catagorize them by World Show Quality (Nationals level), Regionally competitive, Locally competitive, open show competitive (as in not affliated with the breed registry shows), and finally playday/4-h level. This is much more useful to someone that is shopping for a rider than a vague "show" or "pet" designation..the catagories are too broad. FWIW.
