Arthur,

What is the point of having a discussion forum if you are going to dictate what is posted and what is deleted? Is your idea of this forum a question and answer site? Or is this just a place for people to come and listen to more Political jargon that comes directly from the RMHA? It seems to me that you are looking for the RMHA to foot the bill for this forum and therefor and being very careful not to step on anyones toes in the RMH Old guard. I have checked out your forum and basically its not very informational and mostly seems to be a glorified chat room. Also who desiginated you and Sheila the experts on the differences between RMHA, KMSHA and MPHA? Or ASD? or Bloodtyping? And why are your opinions the only ones voiced? A discussion forum should be just that, I think we all can agree not to resort to name calling and pointing fingers and any one particular person or farm. But it should allow all to at least voice their opinion with out being censored by you!!! What you are going to end up with is a group of people who all agree with your opinons and that to me is very boring!! The rest of us who aren't one of the sheep will not bother with your forum. By censoring what is put on your forum you are being exactly what you say you don't want on your forum. You are being a dictator!

Regarding the differences in the three Mountain Horse Registries, Why can't you at least be honest in your response and tell people that the horses were at one time all one breed , until there was a difference of opinion within the orginal members over not grade mares or color or height but over the fact that the genetic pool was too narrow by someone who was qualified to make that statement. A Veterinarian! After they had their legal battles, they split the Association and that was how the Mountain Pleasure Association was born. Now because the RMHA has put such value on color the horses are the ones now paying the price with the first of many genetic defects. This ASD problem is just the tip of the iceberg! If they do not open the books to non Tobe gaited Mountain Horses who will they breed their 1999 foals to in the year 2003?? The RMHA has only limited clear eyed black and bay Stallions, actually I don't even know of any mature Bay stallions. And if you breed your clear eyed Black Stallions to your Chocolate cyst or ASD mares half of those foals will be Aa and will need to be bred to clear eyed Stallions or Mares. You only have five foundation Stallions, the greatest percentage of your Rocky Mountain Horses carry at least one of those lines. Sooner or later if you don't open the books to qualified clear eyed non Tobe Stallions you will have the same problem , it will just be another type of genetic problem. What is the difference I would really like someone to tell me, between registering Tennessee Walking Horse mares foals as Certified to breed grade mares who go on to be bred to Rocky Mt. Stallions only to be able to register and certify those colts born from one generation apart from the Walking Horse Dam? Or the Paso Fino Dam? Or the Fox Trotter Dam? Or the god forbid Grade Mare Dam? Why not at least set strict regulations to breeding stock that is not registered Rocky Mountain. Allow these Gaited mares in as fully registerable and certifiable Rocky Mountain Mares and the other Mountain Horse Stallions? But see here is the catch, these horses must be Certified , they must gait properly and have their eyes examined by Licensed Opthalmalogists, have their teeth checked for Parrot Mouth. WE need these other gaited horses that gait similar to the Rockies in order to save the breed from future genetic defects. We need the gaited Morgans, the square gaited Walkers, the naturally gaited Paso Finos in order to transfuse the limited bloodlines of the Rocky Mt. Horse. If you don't realize this then you are one of the many people that beleive that if you don't think about this and deal with it it will go away. Well I am telling you this, you don't have to be a scientist to see the handwriting on the wall. And those of you who think this is a Chicken Little response are just kidding yourselves. Why do you think there is a law that forbids first cousins from marrying? Common sense is what its all about! How many Pedigrees have I seen that have Father Daughter breedings? Mother Son? Half Brothers to half sisters!! Are there that many ignorant people in the breed??? I don't think so, I would certainly hope not!! Problem is we are running out of non related breeding Stock!! Many other breeds of horses have left their Stud books open for 20, 30 years or more in order to keep the genetic band wide! Pick up the "Heavenly Gaits" book and check out the Foundation stock of the Tennessee Walker , the Saddlebred , the Paso Fino and the Missouri Fox Trotter, you will find it very enlightening! There are many more breeders in the United States then just in the State of Kentucky and surrounding States. We are a large group and getting larger, we all love the Gaited Mountain Horse no matter what Registry they come from. Its not Political for us, its all about the future of the Gaited Mountain horse and our dedication to the protection for the well being of the horse.

-- Kathy Naylor (knaylor@proaxis.com), March 26, 1998

Answers

RMH Forum

First of all, there is no bill to foot for our forum, my brother got it running, and is hosting it on his domain, for free.. You should go to the forum and read his post..

Actually the forum was supposed to be basically a glorified chat room! What's wrong with that? Kathy, we run the forum.. We keep it online, we made it, and we stated our goals when doing so.. Ours are not the only opinions voiced, we just voice them most often becuase we check the forum most often.. And when we answer questions about bloodtyping, etc.. we are just quoting the rules of the association! Anybody could do that!

I deleted one message from the forum, and have stated why, but I am now coming to regret that.. We who run and moderate the forum are meeting today, and will have things more firmly decided and very clear guidelines posted by tomorrow...

If you are angry about me deleting the other person's messages, well I don't know what to say to that.. If messages like that are posted again, they will be deleted again.. Hopefully, though, the guidelines that we post will avoid that in the future..

Please don't attack us personally anymore. We had only good intentions when we started this, and if it has gone awry, we didn't mean it.. I would like to point out that throught this whole thing, not once have I gotten personal back at the ones who have attacked me... And I will not do so..

Come check out the guidelines tomorrow, and see what you think..

-- Arthur Smith (acorn-@geocities.com), March 26, 1998.

Inbreeding

Kathy I agreee that we need to open the books in an effort to correct the genetic problems that we are experiencing. I have stated that before. What I am a little concerned with right now is the fact that in the last few days I have seen a few opinions concerning the closeness of the breedings that say, "we are not breeding closer now, but farther away". That statement concerns me because the statement is said to mean, that we aren't breeding "father to daughter" or "brother to sister". Where I think that we are missing the boat on that particular view is, that it doesn't matter as much about the relationship of the horses as it does the genes carried in each of the horses. We have bred and intensified the original genes to the point of saturation. It is my opinion that we can help the breed with some suitable outcrosses which (if properly managed)will improve some of the characteristics of the breed. These suitable outcrosses will help in the elimination of the ASD problem, ward off yet to be seen genetic defects (caused by genetic intensification)and offer a whole new genepool, allowing us the opportunity as breeder to improve upon, all while maintaining the characteristics of the Rocky Mountain Horse. I hope that we aren't so nieve as to think that if a horse isn't a Rocky Mountain horse that it can't be any good or that it can't be superior to our horses. That would be hogwash. I have seen a lot of non-rocky horse's that were very good horse's and would certainly improve our breed overall. Then I have seen a lot of the Rocky's that were being used as brood mares that won't ever eat out of my barn. I am no expert on any subject, genetics or otherwise but, I know a good horse when I see one. I will say this much though, it is my opinion that it is very short sighted to think that the current genepool is suffiently diverse enough to carry us 10, 15, or 20 years down the road. We are intensifying the current genepool, so to say that we are breeding farther apart is, at least in my mind a questionable statement.

-- Bruce Blackburn (brucebla@midohio.net), March 29, 1998.