I was browsing through the Australian Quarter Horse Magazine the other day and stumbled on an ad reading “HERDA Testing for mares”. I read on and it explained that the Australian Quarter Horse Association has made this mandatory, any mares who trace back to Poco Bueno/Miss Taylor need to be HERDA tested, those not tested by August 1 st 2011 will be deregistered. I started wondering just how many mares there would be in Australia that trace back to Poco Bueno and Miss Taylor.

Now when I was seriously into Quarter Horses back in the 1970's the Poco line was well and truly in demand. So there would have been a lot of horses back then that had Poco Bueno in their bloodlines. Of course in the cutting horse world it's no secret that the Doc Bar/Poco Tivio cross revolutionized the industry and now the top sires of today trace back to Poco Bueno through the likes of Highbrow Cat, Smart Little Lena and Doc O'Lena. So I guess we are talking a lot of mares.

Now I'm not about to undermine the seriousness of the affliction that has come to be known as HERDA. It is a nasty affliction and should NOT be treated with flippant disregard. If your horse is born with HERDA it is a death sentence for the poor animal. For you to get a HERDA afflicted foal you need to breed a Stallion who is a HERDA carrier (N/HR) with a mare that is a HERDA carrier (N/HR). The resulting foal will have a one in four chance of being HERDA affected. The disease is not contagious and because it is genetic and recessive, the gene can be eliminated over a long period of time by crossing HERDA carriers with HERDA negative horses, in other words out crossed. In fact these days there are HERDA negative horses around with the Poco Bueno/Miss Taylor lineage.

The ad then read on and stated that you can get the HERDA test kit through the AQHA for ONLY $55. Only $55? I guess if you only have one mare the majority of us could scrape up $55, that's if the horse didn't need a farrier or Vet visit or tore up her rug in the preceding weeks. But what about the larger horse studs who have a large band of broodmares? This small fee could amount to a large sum of money. On further investigation I discovered that your HERDA test will only be valid if it is done through the kit supplied by the AQHA.

Now I'm trying not to be cynical here but my memory tells me that the AQHA and the NCHA brought out an incentive to all NCHA competing horse owners, that if their horse was registered with the AQHA they would automatically be eligible for the AQHA Hi Point buckles, all they had to do was supply their horses AQHA number to the show secretary and points would automatically be allocated to their AQHA registered horse. Not only does the horse need to be AQHA registered but the owner has to be an AQHA member also. Now that was last year sometime and I think it was somewhere near the end. I ask the question "did the AQHA know that this new HERDA testing rule was going to be introduced when the new points incentive was being tabled and introduced"?

Now let me think, lets say I decided that this NCHA/AQHA joint initiative was a good idea and I decided to become a member of the AQHA, that little excercise would cost me $165 per year. Lets then say I own a mare that traces back to Poco Bueno. I am now faced with an extra $55 to keep the mare registered. You can't look around for a lower priced HERDA testing kit because the AQHA has the monopoly on that one. So if you subsequently decide not to HERDA test your mare you have effectively given the AQHA a $165 donation.

Now this mandatory test is not required in the USA . This is an Australian initiative only. So are the decision makers in the Australian Quarter Horse Association saying to their membership “you can't be trusted in making the right decision when breeding your mare”? Everyone who owns horses owns them because they love horses. Of course if you have a mare with the Poco Bueno lineage you are faced with one of two decisions. Breed your mare to a HERDA negative stallion or get your mare tested.

If you are a stud owner you have your reputation on the line. If you play chance with the mares that you cross with your N/HR stallion you are putting your professional reputation at risk.

If the AQHA were serious about HERDA why are they insisting that it only be done through themselves (a not for profit organization). Wouldn't it be fairer to come up with a list of HERDA testing kits that can be obtained elsewhere to open up competition and keep HERDA testing prices down? Or perhaps at the AQHA's expense they could send letters to all owners of mares who have the Poco Bueno line making them aware that if they knowingly breed their mares to a HERDA carrier without taking the test they face serious penalties? Or here's another option, make all HERDA test kits FREE! That way the AQHA are assured of getting the best result possible rather than appearing to be on a revenue raising venture for the association.

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