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A Horse, of Course with Don Blazer |
If you enjoy learning about horses, then you'll love our online courses. Each month you'll find a new column on our web site. We hope you'll enjoy it, and maybe e-mail us with questions or suggestions for other columns. A Horse, Of Course is a monthly column syndicated by Success Is Easy. If you like the column, call your local newspaper, or local horse publication and ask them to subscribe by contacting Success Is Easy. |
Congratulations to the American Paint
Horse Association and shame on you at the same time…in fact, shame on the American
Quarter Horse Association for being just as silly as the Paint people. What's a Paint? A horse of color! What's an American Quarter Horse? Who the heck knows now? The American Paint Horse Association (APHA) won't let "solid paint breds" (SPB) compete in shows against Paints that exhibit color markings. That makes sense; why should a solid colored horse compete in a show for color horses. So, congratulations! But shame on you for even bothering to register Paints without color. How can a Paint be a Paint if it ain't? What's the point of having a "color horse" breed if you're going to register horses without color? (You don't have to tell me…you take in a lot more money if you keep registering and transferring horses.) Registering horses without color in a color horse breed is doing a disservice to those who breed for color, and it makes their horses worth less. (For those who don't understand, I'll give some clues later.) What's a Quarter Horse? Well, he started out being a "quarter miler", running that distance down the main streets of America even before we declared our independence from the British. Mostly Thoroughbred, he was later crossed on Spanish mares (they worked cattle) and he became a very quick working cow horse. Today, unless you are looking at a "running quarter horse" or a working cow horse (reiner, cutter or roper) you wouldn't be able to tell a Quarter Horse from a Paint. One of the reasons is the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) has changed its rules from not registering what used to be "crop outs (Paint markings) to allowing any old Paint to become a Quarter Horse. (You don't need to tell me why…AQHA takes in more money registering and transferring more horses.) That's a disservice to all Quarter Horse owners, and makes their horses worth less. The Arabian horse had one thing no other horse had….purity of blood, or so it was claimed. For a long time Arabians were worth a ton of money. But soon Half Arabs were being registered, then quarter Arabs, Anglo Arabs, Pintorabs, walkarabs and every other kind of "rab" you could conceive. What happen? The value of all Arabs dropped. The "rabs" value stayed down and they'll get less valuable everyday. On the other hand, those breeders who "preserved the blood" still have horses worth a ton of money. Learn something from the Jockey Club. You can't use artificial insemination to breed Thoroughbreds…you can't ship semen…you can't clone 'em and you can't transfer embryos. And the price of Thoroughbreds goes up and up…the Jockey club registers about the same number of horses every year, all the while protecting the value of its horses. Look up the definition of "unique", "rare", "scarce", "one-of-a kind", and "exclusive." Do you see dollar signs next to those words? Ah, what the heck, register any horse in any association; mix 'em up, it's already too late. Breeds are hardly breeds any more. The future is here. Soon we'll be registering all horses by event. There will be the competition trail horse association, the English pleasure horse association, the western pleasure horse association and the halter horse association. It's already happened…there's the Reined Cow Horse Association and the National Reining Horse Association. Visit A Horse, Of Course on the Internet at www.donblazer.com |
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