Pedigree Assignment - One Breeder's Opinion
by Caroline Jones (UK)

I very much enjoy the articles in Bloodlines by Lesli Kathman and others on pedigree assignment. I have found them extremely thought-provoking, and believe me, since I gave up work two years ago to have my son, my thoughts need some provoking! I thought I would write and give my reactions to a few of the issues raised and will try to keep it brief. My views might particularly be of interest as I am British and so certain things might seem a bit different to me, but I would like to stress that I write purely as an individual and not on behalf of the British hobby.

The first thing to draw my attention was Kim Bjorgo's article in which she described her policy of using the aging system for her models' details, but assigning each a fixed age for showing purposes by writing "photo at age..." on the back of photos. I have never encountered this system before; here in Britian we historically used a fully aging system until about 5 or 6 years ago, when fixed ages became an acceptable alternative. My first thought was that Kim's system was "too easy...having it both ways", but on further reflection I decided that it might in fact be the best system that I have yet heard of, combining the benefits of the aging system (i.e., making realistic pedigree assignment possible) with those of the non-aging (assigning the model an age which actually looks right for it). It would also, I infer, allow a mare to compete regularly in performance events (at a photographic age of, say, seven) and still have lots of foals (every year except the year she was six or seven in her aging lifespan). I will not actually be changing to it myself - I have always used a strictly aging system and it would require a big shift of thinking to change it - but I have recently written an article for a British hobby magazine, describing the different system and giving Kim's system much favourable comment. In particular I thought it might help to tempt people who have been used to a fixed age system into the world of pedigree assignment.

Now a few thoughts on Era Specific Aging. As someone who, like Lesli, is interested in history and the historical evolution of breeds, and in rare bloodlines and colours within breeds, I fully see the appeal of ESA and all the possibilities it opens up. I think Lesli is to be commended on the way she has developed the idea, and the painstakingly realistic manner in which she carries it out. Unfortunately, I also think that in other hands it could easily lead to confusion or even abuse.

To be more specific, one use of ESA is to facilitate the creation of models in colours which were historically in that breed but are no longer found. This can be done by assigning a current model a lifespan of the past, e.g. Lesli's 17th century pinto Spanish horse, or by creating imaginary (but possible) breeding stock and using them to breed forward to today, as described by Lesli in her article on tobiano Hackneys in a past issue. I agree with Lesli that the latter course is probably preferable as it avoids the situation where a horse which lived in a previous century is named a 1998 National Champion. However, having current models which exhibit an now-extinct colour, or type, or bloodline, raises a few problems:

1. What are novices in the hobby to make of it, when, after being told that they can't have palomino Arabs and such like, then see a horse of a "prohibited" colour perhaps winning at live shows? "Oh, that's different, that's an ESA horse" we may say, but the difference may not be very apparent to the bewildered newcomer. Or the lazier collector might use ESA as an excuse for their horse being a particular colour in a breed where in fact is no excuse, because that colour has never existed in that breed.
   
   
2. There is also the wider question of how far our hobby should strive to replicate the world of real horses. In general it is accepted that to be realistic is our aim, but when we get down to specifics, that is harder to define. On the one hand, having horses in our showrings which exhibit an extinct colour or type will not help to make us credible in the eyes of real horse showers and breeders. On the other hand, if all model judges only liked and placed whatever type is currently the height of fashion in the real world in a particular breed, that would lead to some abominations being placed. There should be room for differences of opinion over type as there is in the real world.

I think the best way of countering both these problems would be to have separate classes for ESA horses. It would then be obvious both to hobby newcomers and to outside observers that different rules applied to these horses. It might also be a requirement to display a little card with the model stating the historical justification for the model's colour or type, referring to books or paintings, for example. While a colour or type, however rare, remained in the real world, models representing it could be shown in open classes, but if and when it became extinct, they would move to the ESA classes. Whether the horses in ESA classes were specific to a time in the past, or were "present-day" horses derived from imaginary Breeding Stock, would be up to the individual owner. However I realise that this is probably too idealistic a solution since probably not enough people would be interested to produce sufficient entries for a viable class.

Another comment which drew my attention was when in "Pet Peeves", Heather Rauschenberger stated that one of her peeves was finding models foaled in the same year and from the same parents as a famous real horse, i.e. making it a twin to that real horse. Heather and I had had a little e-mail debate over this, with me arguing that only assigning a real mare's "free" years to our models (i.e. years in which she did not produce a real foal), while being what many of strive to do, is not necessarily a more realistic option, since the mare was very probably being ridden that year, quite possibly being shown under saddle, or at the very least, being shown at her breed show in the "mare without foal" class. She could not realistically have done any of those things with a foal at foot. I have seen this reasoning used to argue that real mares should not be used for dams for models at all, because it is virtually never "realistic", but I think it is just an element of non-realism which we have to accept in order to have more realism (i.e. full pedigrees for our models) thereafter. But because any option for picking the foaling year is not notably more realistic than the other options, I think people should be free to decide for themselves whether to go for a mare's "free" years or not. After a few exchanges with Heather we found we were pretty much in agreement over this; it was just that she considered it rather unoriginal of people to go for the twinning option to get the blood of a famous horse, rather than looking for more inventive ways around it such as creating a foal from that horse, creating a full sibling slightly older than the famous horse, or locating a full/three-quarter/half sibling to that horse and breeding from it.

I was very interested to hear, after all this had taken place, about the setting up of the Real Mare Registries to try and some way regulate this area; though I see that for most breeds this will be regulated to assignment of model offspring, with the real foals being taken into consideration. I do see the benefits of this but I agree that it should be a voluntary measure, since with hundreds of hobbyists in several countries all choosing real mares as dams for their models, it would be impossible to totally control what takes place.

Lastly, on to the issues raised by Lesli a couple of issues ago in her article on broodmares. Here in Britian as you know the idea of "Details Only" stock is, or was, well-known, though most commonly used for youngstock awaiting a body. This is because we have always practised "breeding" in real time as well as "pedigree assigment" as a retrospective activity.

I found Lesli's idea of keeping much of one's breeding stock as Details Only and just using models as the "outstanding individuals" who represent one's breeding programme in the show-ring a very refreshing one. Many people here in the UK more or less have up on breeding because they found it so depressing to have hordes of Details Only youngstock (rapidly aging into older stock!) for whom they did not have the time or money to buy or create the bodies they wanted. Under Lesli's system these horses would have more validity in their own right and could indeed be valuable breeding stock. I personally have a large number of Arab mares which I bred 8-10 years ago for which I am only just finding bodies. Now that I am, some of them may well go into the show-ring under saddle, making them unavailable for breeding the next few years, but I will be making their inactive "details only" years available on my dam list for others to use and hope that this will therefore benefit other people.

I think that's all I have to comment on for now, and I do hope I haven't offended anyone with my opinions which are strictly personal. I have gone past this stage in this hobby when I thought it was possible for any of us to make everyone else "do it our way" - all we can do is to seek out like-minded people and cooperate with them. I'd like to say thank you to all of the people who have made me think, please keep it up! I'd love to hear from anyone about anything pedigree related, and will be trying to write more informative articles for Bloodlines in the future rather than just spouting on about my views!

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