[horse_luvr83]

Originally Posted by MyBelgianAzzy

No. In fact, I think owners ought to be fined a hefty amount for each horse who is foaled without being recorded. I promise you "pasture accidents" and adorable "oops" babies wouldn't happen as often if each had a 5k price tag!

Perhaps registered is too far, as there are MANY wonderful grade horses, and an equal number of shoddy registered horses. I would like to see a 3rd-party group approve and record each mare and stallion, and as I mentioned above, fine all foals who are born to a sire and/or dam who has not been approved.

this i agree with. BUT, in my circumstance, i bought a coming 3 y/o and me nor the owner i bought from knew she was in foal. and the lady i bought her from only had her about 6 mths before got her. so in this situation, who is at fault??? who would be fined??? me b/c she is in my possession, or the first owner who had her?? not arguing, so don't think that, just looking at another aspect of what can happen in this instance, and who would be held responsible.

[Lou3]

Originally Posted by Donella

but does that make it a "better" horse, than one that is mixed

Uhm yeah, generally, if you are breeding with a purpose it should be!!. If I want a top cutting horse, I am not gonna go and pick a tennesse walker, and if I want a grand prix dressage prospect...I will pick a well bred warmblood of european lines. Look at any equine sport..there is a breed that dominates each one very heavily...there is a reason for that, it isn't fluke and I can't think of one discipline where grade horses who were bred "as nice pasture ornaments" or " nice all arounders" rule the roost. Sorry..doesn't happen, strict selection protocols for VERY particular traits is what provides us with top equine althletes.

But then again if you're looking at event horses the majority are half-bred TB x warmbloods. Look at sport ponies for junior eventers and english games and you've got half bred arabs/TBs crossed with ponies, usually native type which may or may not be registered. Find me a polo pony thats registered and you've found me the only one in the whole of the UK.
My world champion games pony was not registered, neither were either of her parents, but if people had stuck rigidly to the "it has to be registered" rule I wouldnt have had the most talented and successful pony I ever owned. The vast majority of ponies involved in english gaming are unregistered. A small minority may be registered half bred arabs.

Papers are not important, what IS important is understanding genetics and conformation and knowing how to engineer a complementary cross for the purpose for which you want to breed, as well as recognising when your precious pony isnt worth breeding because there is nothing about them that should be passed on to the next generation, no matter how sweet and nice a trail or 4H horse they are.

[honeyzmyhorsey]

I think that the horse market in the US/Canada is much different than that in the UK. In the UK it seems like people care more about the abilities/ conformation/ temperment of the horse where as we north americans looks at papers first and all the other good things second. I do agree that we shouldn't "ride" the papers, but that is the way things are going. Personally, I would not buy a horse that was not reg'd here as most horses with any quality here are reg'd. There are some great grade horses too, but they are few and far between. In the UK, it seems as if grade horses are carefully thought out crosses that match eachother well. In North America, many grade horses are the result of irresponsible breeding.

[wrightdanes]

Horses are property and you are free to breed them at will here in Az. Being without papers doesn't mean without conformation and skill. However, with the state of the horse market it would be foolish to breed unless it was for your own personal barn. How many more breedings do we have to have before the pounds start accepting horses? (Actually our humane society already does...)

[MyBelgianAzzy]

Originally Posted by horse_luvr83

this i agree with. BUT, in my circumstance, i bought a coming 3 y/o and me nor the owner i bought from knew she was in foal. and the lady i bought her from only had her about 6 mths before got her. so in this situation, who is at fault??? who would be fined??? me b/c she is in my possession, or the first owner who had her?? not arguing, so don't think that, just looking at another aspect of what can happen in this instance, and who would be held responsible.

I know you aren't- I appreciate you reading my post and responding. In that case, my thoughts would be that the original owner, or the owner who DID have her when she was bred, would be fined. It would be imperative to have a paper trail with every horse (as in papers OR a copy of all past sale contracts).

With that said, the current owner (you) would need show show proof of who owned the horse prior to the purchase (and the woman you bought her from would need proof of who SHE bought her from, etc). If you couldn't prove that you weren't in possession of her when she was bred, then I suppose you would be fined. That would avoid finger pointing. Most of us HAVE sale contracts anyway, so it's not as if that would be an additional expense or unthinkable thing to ask for.

[Donella]

'Well for one, I usually make exception towards using arabs and tb's in a sport program because these two breeds have been used for a very long time as improvement breeds..successfully! Obviously I mean the arab or tb should be exceptional, and in many cases, if it is, there is a sport registry that will welcome it with open arms. I think the biggest reason why arab and tb are such good improvement breeds within the sporthorse world is because they have been bred true for SO long that you dont really have to worry that some wonky type will come through. They are also both very good for modernization of breeds and are overall, extremely athletic and tough. Again, I make exception for these breeds, and there is a reason they are the only non warmbloods breeds accepted into many of the sport registries. I know this is in regards to warmblood breeding, but that is what these crosses excell in, so in many cases, these are horses that would and could be papered with a warmblood registry.

I also notice that alot of posters here see this as a papered vs unpapered, which it really shouldn't be. Nobody believes a crappy papered mare should be bred..I am sure we can all agree on that. There are TONNES of unwanted purebred qh's ect, because for some reason, people keep breeding them like crazy and the market is now saturated. The issue is wether or not people should be breeding your average mare of unknown breeding. My response is that when you do this, you are often taking a much higher risk because of the laws of genetics. You seriously risk undesirable throwbacks. There are alot of grade horses on the market for meat prices, and so that alone says to me "don't breed this type of horse..papers or not".

On the other hand, if a person had a mare of truly EXCEPTIONAL qualities, then possibly, if that person agrees to take full responsibility for the results. But..then again, I think the real issue here underlying this whole debate is whether the horseowner can distinguish between a horse that should be bred, and one that shouldn't despite their personal feeling towards the horse. This is obviously the primary problem..ie barn blindness as well as total ignorance towards the state of the market within which the foal would be offered.