I am tired of this argument about AQHA and breeders. It was a perfect storm-the HYPP “endemic”. Do you know how many horses would have been unbreedable/unregisterable if AQHA deemed all H/N horses that way? The industry would have been decimated.
Impressive was very potent as were his progeny. Impressive was a 1969 model. The disease was officially named in the late 80’s. So leading up to this were the following.: AI came into vogue. Impressive and his get as I said were potent and shipped well. He was not just a halter horse- he even bred barrel horses. Remeber he was bred as a racehorse. And his babies could lope. Heck I was probably the only one without an Impressive bred horse showing in my area in the early to mid-80’s. The horse industry was thriving. With this came a change in husbandry as well. Show horses now were kept in and fed alfalfa. That made the disease present itself more. I don’t remember anyone in my area at local shows, who were still keeping horses on Timothy hay and turnout, having any problems And these were horses with Impressive on both sides. The disease did not express very often with “old time” animal husbandry. Sure there were some sudden deaths that probably were HYPP episodes. The vets in Texas broke the case and UCDAVIS took the credit for everything. I was at that AAEP meeting. If this disease wasn’t an incomplete dominant we wouldn’t be having this discussion. It was hidden for a variety of reasons the least of which was the breeders. I admit there were some who did but it is a minority.
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And I could argue that there is as much if not more economic loss to the breed as a whole from those who breed known cryptorchid bloodlines. But I hear very few people opt not to breed from those lines.
There are paralells to lethal white and CID as well. It took many years for the tide to turn on those diseases as well.
How do we go forward? Another similar disease will present.
