Mandatory Purebred Registration Prior to

Breeding:
A Proposal for its Discontinuation
By Jessica Cohen
At present, of all the ICCPS member societies, only the United States and Canada
currently require a stallion registration prior to the birth of any progeny sired by that
stallion. Both countries also subscribe to a tiered registration practice of Foal Registration
and then Permanent (Mature) registration. Which, for mares and stallions, must be
complete prior to the birth of any foals. While this proposal does pertain to mares as well,
the vast majority of this argument, points of conflict and proposed solutions, will be
directed specifically at the issues surrounding registration of stallions in the ACPS.
There are penalties to failing to complete full registration in the United States and
Canada. Any purebred foal produced prior to the complete registration its sire or dam is
then forced into half-bred registration. It is restricted to the one purebred parent rule. It
has resulted in several purebred ponies being regulated to half-bred status and thus being
lost from the purebred Connemara breeding pool. No matter their true parentage or
lineage, they are lost from the purebred breeding herd and no longer considered pure
Connemaras.
In Canada as per 17.1.6 in the bylaws: the progeny of mares and stallions not yet
correctly registered will not be eligible for entry into the Canadian Registry or Stud
Book. There will be no retroactive registrations for ponies from such mares or stallions. If
a foal is born prior, it is lost from the breed entirely as a purebred.

Stallion registration in the United States is already cost prohibitive. All ponies must be
registered under a Temporary Foal Cert (TFC) which depending on the age of foal at
registration is either $60 or $75. At the age of 2, application must be done for permanent
(mature) registration. Stallion owners are encouraged to register their stallions at the age
of 2 for the cost of $250. Failure to register at the age of 2, sees registration go up to $500
at the age of 3. That cost becomes the cost for any stallion registered at 3 years of age and
older. In comparison mares and geldings with a TFC cost only $30 to register (or if
permanently registered without a TFC the cost is $100).
This two-tiered system that is currently employed is unnecessarily complicated, and
has proven to be detrimental to the goals of both societies, which is to promote the
breeding, registration, training, exhibition, and general use of the Connemara.
There is an argument to be made that at 2, it is still too young to tell whether the colt
will mature into a stallion quality individual. So we penalize breeders for waiting to see
how a years maturity or more affect their stallion prospect and then register. In Ireland,
they have stopped inspecting stallions at 2 now. In Ireland one of the driving reasons
being the vast amount of over height stallions.
The ACPS does not impose a height restriction on stallions in fact the breed standard
in the United States remarks that the pony can range in height of up to 15 hands. But as
countries move away from younger traditional registration we still find ourselves stuck
on 2 being the age of permanent registration and impose high fees on those who wait for
later.
The thinking behind this is to encourage only the best to be kept stallions. Why else
then would someone pay extra to keep a stallion intact and register them? From a

numbers standpoint the extra cost of registration has not done much to dissuade
registration of stallions. In 2008 I conducted an unofficial community poll to list stallions
in the United States in order to track bloodlines, sire lines, who, what, and where. The
results were surprising. We collected data on a total of 155 stallions registered in the
country. Out of a rough total of 3000-3500 pony purebred population it presents a rather
high percentage of the population to be intact stallions. All the same, having a stallion
intact is no guarantee of purebred breeding and we estimated that the vast majority of
stallions on that list would never sire a purebred foal, or be bred from at all. Now since
2008 we have had many stallions on that list die or be gelded. Many of our long
established breeders have retired or ceased their programs all together. If I were to
conduct the same poll, it would tell a very different story numbers wise.
Coming into play is also the Connemara Sport Horse Registry. Which now allows
halfbred Connemaras who produce progeny to have them included in the society.
Halfbred stallions, who were before banned from being registered, are now accepted and
their foals can gain Connemara Sporthorse papers. So why then do we penalize the
purebred progeny of a pony who was not registered before its birth? Why do we say, we
know you are a purebred but you cannot have purebred papers. We deem you a halfbred?
In one sense it is a complete lie. The pony is purebred it should be allowed its purebred
papers. Canada as per 17.1.6 in the bylaws does not allow any retroactive registration.
The pony is lost forever from the purebred population. Even if its parents eventually get
registered correctly and then later produce purebred progeny, the foal that was born
before that occurred is forever lost to the breed as a purebred.

Furthermore the clause in the ACPS registration rules states thus: the registration
process for stallions must be completed before offspring are eligible for registration.
There is nothing in those two lines, which bans the registration of foals born prior to their
parents correct registration. There is no retroactive clause like Canada. But that is how it
has been interpreted and enforced. Its broadness and vagueness has been used to deny
registration to otherwise purebred ponies. Even if the sire and dam then go on to be
correctly registered the foal born prior is forever lost to halfbred status.
With the ability and ease of DNA verification, it is now simple to prove which foals
belong to which sires. There is no guesswork now. In the past it made sense to relegate
foals of unknown or unregistered sires to halfbred status. Now, there is no need to do so
in an effort to protect the breed. We can easily figure out who sired which foal and then
register that foal with its correct parent noted on the paperwork.
This penalizing of otherwise purebred foals goes contrary to the goals of the society,
which is to promote the breeding, registration, training, exhibition, and general use of the
Connemara. It is no secret that we are dealing with a small and diminishing breeding
pool. The Feely Report of 2003 highlighted several issues we face: lack of sire lines, a
narrowing breeding pool, high coefficient of inbreeding (COI). In a small breed like ours,
we need as much diversity as we can get. We are already are seeing a bottlenecking of
genetics, increased backmassing in pedigrees upon common and popular sires we have
always been a breed that suffered from Popular Sire Syndrome. Now, we also have breedspecific diseases such as Hoofwall Separation Disease (HWSD). All of this makes it
imperative that we do our best to utilize the ponies and bloodlines we have in effort to
preserve genetic diversity and keep a healthy breeding population. In short, we need

every pony we can have. So why then do we deny otherwise purebreds their papers? Why
do we discard ponies?
There are many reasons why an unregistered or not completely registered pony might
produce a foal prior to its registration being done or completed properly. Life happens,
people get sick, lose their homes, and die. On the pony side of it, ponies jump fences. In a
breed like ours known for its jumping ability it is no surprise that stallions and mares can
and do find themselves on the other side of the fence that they are supposed to be and a
foal results. There are more than a few stories of young stallions who jump fences and
end up in the pasture with mares. Those stallions often go on to successful performance
and breeding careers. But we then penalize those foals born prior to the stallions
registration, while those born afterward are allowed to be fully registered as foals. It does
not make sense.
My proposal is this: allow the progeny of ponies born prior to their parents registration
being complete to be retroactively registered. Give those foals the purebred papers, as is
their right. For the still-unregistered stallions I agree that every stallion needs to pass a
veterinary inspection to verify that they are free of genetic defects such as parrot mouth
and cryptorchidism. If a stallion was gelded and produced a foal, have the veterinarian
who gelded the stallion if possible write a statement saying that the stallion was not a
cryptorchid at the time of gelding. Impose a late fee if needed.
The current registration model does not work. We have lost ponies to the breed
needlessly. Registration numbers are down. The numbers of foals being born each year
are smaller and smaller and coming to the point where we might not be able to sustain a
purebred population we are simply not breeding enough replacement ponies.

Allowing retroactive registration would only benefit the society and the breed. It is my
hope that this proposal would be accepted and the current rules corrected to reflect that
ponies born prior to the completion of their parents registration are now eligible for
purebred papers.