Response to breeding protocol--blood typing

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From what I have gathered through my RMHA membership, there has been considerable opposition in the past to bloodtyping all the registered horses for parentage verification. In the Paso Fino registry, all horses must be blood typed as a condition of registration. As I understand it, the parentage of Rockies, up until recently, has relied more on memory than written records. Parentage verification might reveal that some close relatives of Tobe really aren't such close relatives.

However, maybe that is not so bad, since the closeness of the genetic pool has caused part of this problem. Also, no change in parentage records can detract from what a horse has done in the show ring or through the success of its offspring.

I am hoping that the past opposition to blood typing will give way to the now apparent need to identify the horses with ASD so this problem can be bred out of the Rockies of the future. I definitely support the bloodtyping of all Rockies for parentage verification.

H

-- Becky Gage (bgage@neosoft.com), January 01, 1998

Answers

I am not certain, but I do not think that the current proposal is for ALL horses to be bloodtyped, rather, to grandfather in horses already certified, and have those not yet certified bloodtyped as in the past not only for identification of the horse, but now also for verification of parentage. I would very much like to see verification of parentage of all horses, but I don't think that will happen. The public reason against it will be cost. The private reason is the fear that too many horses will not verify out to match their pedigrees.

-- Annette L. Gerhardt (gerhardt@sinosa.com), January 01, 1998.

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