BAEN Message Board: you raise a good point

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you raise a good point

Posted by Dr Thunes on 7/2/2009, 7:55 am, in reply to "I saw one have an attack during a ride."
75.209.122.12

There must be such a number of people out there who have no idea they are riding a HYPP horse either because they haven't looked at the breeding or the horse is unregistered and the breeding is unavailable to them.

This squarely places the responsibility in the hands of breeders. But with so many back yard breeders who are never interested in creating registered animals and who themselves may have no idea that they have a horse with Impressive bloodlines.

I am sure there must be something AQHA could do, but at this point with Impressive blood spread far and wide in the unregistered horses I don't see how they could regulate that.

However I did just go to their website and this is what it says;

"At the 1996 AQHA Convention in Seattle, Washington, the AQHA Board of Directors approved some rules recommended by the AQHA Stud Book and Registration Committee and approved by the Board of Directors. Among the changes was a rule requiring disclosure of HYPP status on the registration certificates of foals born on or after January 1, 1998, which descend from any bloodline determined to carry the HYPP gene.

Beginning with the 1997 AQHA Official Handbook, HYPP is in rule 205 among conditions commonly considered undesirable traits or genetic defects, such as parrot mouth and cryptorchidism. These conditions do not prevent a horse from being used as breeding stock or from participating in AQHA-approved events, subject to rules of the individual event.

Beginning with 1998 foals, the rule requires the following notification to be placed on the registration certificates of foals descending from any bloodline determined to carry the HYPP gene:"

I am shocked to see that they only require notification on registration certificates because this assumes that buyers investigate those certificates. However it probably goes further than their jurisdiction to require that breeders to inform buyers that would have to be a legal president I would think, part of a bill of sale disclosure agreement like other unsoundnesses.

You would also think that AQHA would require all breeders with Impressive bloodlines to test foals to see whether they are homo or heterozygous. Given that if they are NN they are perfectly fine individuals.

I am even more shocked to see that they seem to be ok with horses who have the trait being used as breeding stock, that is something they can address at least in the realms of registered animals. And it would probably start to trickle down into unregistered world once greater awareness was out there.

It is also interesting to me that this only applies to foals born after Jan 1st 1998. This condition was first reported by Dr Spier 1990 with further familial information being published in 1992. The use of Jan 1998 means there are a lot of 12+ year old horses out there with this condition who are registered and whose paper say nothing alerting a potential owner.

This is a very good reason to buy from a reputable breeder and for doing your pre-purchase homework. It also be a good idea when buying horses of quarter horse type to have the DNA test as part of the pre-purchase exam so that you know what you are dealing with. The cost of the test could save you big headaches down the road.

Clair