In the latest issue of Eventing magazine in the FEH champtionships results, 13 horses have their breeder listed as “unknown”
This is obviously pretty lazy on someone’s part - Dublin WSS was likely bred by Woodland Stallion Station, Kleary’s Big Dreaming is a Kleary Field baby, but I didn’t look up the rest.
How can a horse be listed this way without the breeder’s name? Does USEA not care to require the info? Does Eventing magazine not care to find out either? Surely it’s on the horse’s passport or registration papers if it was imported, or easy to find out from the original seller, so no excuses from the owner?
Strikes me as kind of an odd omission, when it’s a series that’s about breeding future event horses? Aren’t breeders irritated by this?
It’s a sucker punch insult to ignore the efforts, time and money - the dream and vision of the breeder of any well started youngster with a future in sport.
When the USEF posted the winners last year on their Facebook, they didn’t mention ANY of the horses breedings. Complete joke. Is that not the entire point of the program?
In defense of the USEA, they were probably just going off of the information the owner provided in the entry. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that they should give as much breeding info as possible, but 1) they would need someone to spend time researching all the entries, and 2) there could be some kind of liability issue if they get it wrong. Maybe liability isn’t the right word, but imagine if they said a horse was bred by person A when really it was bred by person B - that wouldn’t be good. In that case, it makes sense for them to publish whatever was on the entry. I imagine the info isn’t required because there are some horses where the breeding is indeed unknown and they don’t want to exclude those horses from competing.
Though with horses from Europe all having passports, TBs all having very well documented lives, and WBs etc in the USA being similarly documented it feels really, really unlikely that 13 of these horse’s breeders is truly unknown - particularly since the sire and dam are almost all listed.
I would imagine that as USEA members the entrants could be contacted by USEA pretty easily to ask for this info?
Well I was bored so I just did a quick google om each missing horse: I found 8 of the 13 very easily.
Poppy PS - bred in the US?
Hetty Z - imported
Linq - sire and dam not listed. Listed as a TB in the magazine but on the USEA website an article says he’s a “Friesian/American Quarter Horse cross gelding” bought at auction
Taproot Pinnacle - bred by Taproot Sport Horses
Record Year - USEA article online says she is “owned and bred by Kurt Martin”
Two Today - “bred in Maryland, United States by Quest Realty” according to horseracingnation.com
Miss Roxy - "bred in Pennsylvania, United States by HnR Nothhaft Horseracing LLC. " according to horseracingnation.com
Gruntled - “bred in Kentucky, United States by Profoal Partners 6, LLC.” according to horseracingnation.com
Noona - (dam and sire unknown too)
OClarks Court - imported
Kleary’s Big Dreaming - Kleary Field
Picante - bred in the US
Dublin WSS - Woodland Stallion Station
Olympia 21 - bred in the US
Summerhill Grace OMalley - Summerhill Farm/C Flynn
There were 13 horses without breeding information and @Xanthoria managed to find 8 with a quick Google search so there was plenty of opportunity for “someone” to do a check, either the magazine or, better still, the USEA. It is easy enough to draw up entry requirements for the class that say breeding info to be submitted if available. If published information is inaccurate then a public correction is easy enough, like any newspaper will do when facts are wrong in an article.
This speaks to a wider problem facing sport horse breeders. Good ones spend time, thought, treasure and emotion to produce the best animal they can. On the other side, USA sporting bodies and most riders don’t really give tuppence for bloodlines or breeding. They look at individual results and mutter “ride the horse not the papers”. It is different in specific breed shows where individual horse’s names aren’t so likely to be changed as particular farms and/or stallions carry weight and status. Who will show “Fluffy” when “Dashedtothecashmachine” is so much more impressive?
Until the attitude about recording pedigrees and performance data changes, for example, in the USEA, then horse sport in the USA will always find it easier to import from countries where horse breeding is professional and finding good animals homebred in the US - surely an objective of FEH - will remain a challenge.
But then, is support for American breeders an objective for the FEH classes? If not, disregard what I said and carry on.
Oh that’s really frustrating! I agree that they should have done some more research but was just trying to point out why the article may have been printed like this.
I feel like you shouldn’t be able to enter a class that celebrates breeding without knowing sire, dam, and breeder.
If it’s truly unknown breeding, there should be some sort of waiver that is more complicated to complete than the 5 seconds of googling it would take owners or trainers to do on their own research. Although I don’t know how you can verify age without knowing where the horse came from.
Yeah of the two with unknown sire and dam as well as breeder, one was listed as a 2yr old the other as a 4 yr old. But without proof of that… how can they enter, since they’re age specific classes?
I don’t know. I have never entered a 4 or 5 year old FEH class. A million years ago when it was new I did a FEH 2yo class and don’t remember having to do anything special to verify her age. I guess they figure between USEF/USEA registration and paperwork people probably aren’t faking this stuff. But horse people have certainly done it before in similar classes where money or prestige are on the line.
Don’t quote me on it since it has been awhile since I had a FEH. IIRC, if you don’t have registration papers stating the birth date, you need to get a form filled out by a vet estimating the age.
It would be wonderful if “N/A” was not an option and instead you have to submit some sort of complicated proof that there is no way to document the pedigree or breeder.
I can only think of a few reasons you may not be able to track down the pedigree or breeder:
-the horse changed hands an extraordinary number of times and the info wasn’t passed along and it’s far to complicated to retrace
-the breeder died and left absolutely zero records and told no one what was what (you would still know the breeder!)
-you bought the horse at auction with no identifying info
-it’s a mustang or animal from a feral herd (though they still usually know sire and dam since most of those herds are monitored)
-it was an “oops” mating (you would still know the dam!)
I completely agree with you. Both my horse and my SO’s horse are of unknown breeding and match your above scenarios (of course, passing hands a bunch of times as a 13yo horse is a totally different thing than a 2-3yo). I have a sneaking suspicion that even if we found their breeders, they wouldn’t have records of our horses’ breeding. They’re too old for the FEH/YEH classes, but I would be totally ok with having to go through a complicated process to allow them to compete in an event that showcased breeding.
But horse people have certainly done it before in similar classes where money or prestige are on the line.
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