Hi everyone,
I keep promising to explain the new passport legislation but as yet DEFRA haven’t approved the restructuring of our studbook. They have assessed it, made some comments and it seems to be compliant but Kim and I attended the 826 Breeds Society AGM this week and all the breed societies are having similar but slightly different issues – particularly with part-bred status.
So, I will do my best to advise breeders but please keep in mind that this may change….
At the moment, there is no problem for you as breeders with full bred Appaloosas. Our USA studbook is a closed studbook and nothing will change there.
The B register is now called the UK register and there will be several categories within it, these have yet to be finalised and will be categorised by the percentage of Appaloosa blood and our breed profile.
We have to allow up-grading through the UK register with each generation if appropriate.
So that leaves our C register and part-bred register in the supplementary studbook currently. Our C register applications fit the breed profile but have no known breeding, usually this is an overstamp of their passport but if we provide a passport it is ID only.
As things stand Part-breds can now only be issued with an ID passport (with breeding in the back) so they will not be counted as registered animals with a Zootechnic certificate because they lack pure-bred status. This may not matter if your part-bred stays in the UK but if they are exported into the EU or travel over to the EU to compete, they will have to go through strict lairage protocols – like farm animals! It is actually beyond bonkers! especially as since 2016 all the PIO’s have been audited and passed by DEFRA for studbook compliancy. This is why all breed societies are fighting against this new take on the legislation. Also, most of our part-breds are 50% Appaloosa or over, this is a lot more than some part-breds with other societies. Our out-crossed breeding of TB, Arab or Quarter Horse are still legit.
You can help by really thinking hard about breeding a part bred in the next breeding season, especially if you hope to export. You could possibly register with a Sport Horse Society then overstamp with us, obviously, we don’t want to push away our registration income or our members!
We will keep fighting on with the other breed societies and with guidance from Chris and Anna from Equiventus (who make our beautiful passports) Hopefully, everyone will get some clarity soon and I will keep you in the loop. A slight hope is that there may be a moratorium, which could potentially mean that all equines with a UK passport will still be in the higher welfare category if exported. Fingers crossed this will happen soon.
Auriol
