Episode 14 - The Business of Horses - AQHA 2-Year-Rule Discussion

Hi, everyone. This is Melanie Smith with Solo Select. We're really excited for you guys to hear the podcast that we did with Tricia Aldridge, Carol Rose, and Brooke Wharton. I think it gives a lot of great insight from three different people that are in three very different positions within the quarter horse industry and their opinions on how the two-year rule affects them as breeders and the industry. I wanted to give a little bit of insight into this rule and what happened last year at the convention. I went and was very vocal about getting rid of the two-year rule, and ultimately it was a very close vote in the stud book committee on Sunday, but the rule change proposal was denied. It went to the general membership meeting on Monday where I got up and spoke in front of the general membership to the president, and I wanted to share that speech with you guys because I think it gives some valuable insight into why I think this rule change proposal is needed and just some history on it and some of the facts that surround it.

Mr. President, Please accept my request to revisit item 20 on the agenda. My name is Melanie Smith, and I own Solo Select Horses. I have a unique perspective on this topic as the owner of Woody B. Tough, a 24-year-old stallion still active today, and as someone deeply involved in raising and developing younger stallions and mayors that are affected by the 2015 rule. I appreciate the Stud Book Committee's thoughtful consideration of both sides of this issue, and my intention today is simply to present factual evidence as to why the two-year limitation on using frozen semen and embryos after a horse's death is unnecessary. One primary argument for the current rule is protecting genetic diversity.

However, historical data clearly contradicts this point. Consider these facts. $98 million sire, who is dead, registered 208 foals at his peak in 2008, but only 39 in 2024, demonstrating a natural market decline. A $56 million sire, who is also dead, has 178 registered foals in 2011, but only 19 in 2024. The all-time leading sire across all disciplines, registered 137 foals in 1993, but just five in 2024. This evidence shows conclusively that market demand for deceased stallion semen naturally decreases over time without regulatory intervention. Additionally, as an association, AQHA emphasizes the importance of engaging youth and newer generations. As a 32-year-old horsewoman dedicating my entire life to breeding, raising, and developing stallions, I am disappointed in the short-sightedness of this role.

Many members of the AQHA, and specifically the Stud Book Committee, have enjoyed careers without such restrictive rules on breeding management. Imagine then how it feels to younger breeders like me. We're encouraged to be active in AQHA, to promote and develop exceptional breeding stock, yet we're simultaneously limited by arbitrary rules that weren't applied to previous generations. This restriction is discouraging and unfairly penalizes breeders who came after the rule was enacted, undermining the incentive to invest our time, our most valuable resource, into producing breeding stock that genuinely enhances our industry. Another argument suggests that the rule helps prevent cloning. However, cloning is an entirely separate issue already present in our industry.

AQHA must urgently prioritize research and develop reliable methods to identify cloned horses. Only accurate identification and documentation can truly protect against the unintended consequences of cloning, not arbitrary rules about frozen semen and embryo usage. Moreover, there's another unintended consequence to consider. Horses suffering from serious conditions such as severe laminitis, injuries, or other debilitating illnesses, which may unethically be kept alive longer solely to meet this arbitrary rule. This directly conflicts with AQHA's commitment to horse welfare. Additionally, supporters of the rule currently claim it fosters genetic diversity. Ironically, it achieves the opposite.

By restricting access to proven stallions genetics, breeders are forced towards fewer living stallions, narrowing, not expanding the genetic pool. How many of us say we wish we could get that good old stuff back, the bone, the structure? Almost all of the committee members opposing this rule changes have stated that they don't want to go back in time. They want to move the breed forward. That's their prerogative, and I respect it. However, it shouldn't become a mandate forced onto all breeders. In my own breeding program, the ability to visit legendary sires such as Dock Stylish Oak, Shining Spark, and Playgun is critical. These stallions provide essential outcrosses, supporting greater genetic diversity rather than limiting it.

Finally, public feedback overwhelmingly opposes the current restriction. A tremendous number of breeders who have publicly weighed in, especially on social media, are against this rule. Unfortunately, most active breeders cannot attend this convention due to the peak breeding season. Their absence should not diminish the significance of their views. In conclusion, the evidence clearly indicates this rule neither achieves its stated goals nor aligns with the principles of a free market and animal welfare. I strongly urge the membership to amend this rule, extending the window for using frozen semen and embryos from two years to 20, preserving breeders' freedom and genuine genetic diversity. Thank you.

So that was the speech that I gave last year to the AQHA general membership. And last year, the rule proposal that was on the table was extending it from two years to 20 years after death. This year, the rule proposal that I have submitted is different, and it is to completely delete the rule. The two-year rule, it's not solving any of the problems it was originally intended to. And I think that's really what we're trying to get across is we're all aware that there's issues within the breed. There is popular sire syndrome. There are different genetic diseases coming up, things of that nature. And we understand that that is something that needs to be addressed. The two-year rule doesn't address any of those. The research has showed us over the last year, the stats that have come up over the last year have clearly showed us that this rule does nothing to combat any of those issues.

So that is what I really want people to understand. I want them to do their own research. I want you guys to listen to this podcast. I want you to go and read some of the studies that are out there and gather your own information and maybe you disagree with us and that's okay. But I think it's pretty obvious that this two-year rule isn't doing anything to help us with genetic diversity. I think that there's a lot of other things contributing to that, and stallions that are dead are such an incredibly small, fractional piece of that equation that they're having no bearing on that. All they're doing is, all this two-year rule is really doing is encouraging people not to. Put the time and the sweat equity in to promote and raise great stallions and mares in today's age because there's no payoff for it.

And I'm not talking about a monetary payoff. I'm talking about a payoff of us getting to enjoy the genetics that we created. A lot of us are only going to get the chance to have one great horse in our lifetime. And all AQHA horsemen that have been in this, they know that most of the time we're lucky if we get one really great one and the fact that this rule wants to take that away from me and all of my fellow breeders whether they're small breeders or large breeders it doesn't make sense it doesn't align with aqha's mission statement and i think it's something that needs to be strongly considered at the convention this year so i hope that you guys will become active in it we have all kinds of information on our website about how to be active in it.

And I hope you guys will listen to this podcast, enjoy it. And I hope that it triggers you to come to the convention this year and get involved. Hi, everyone. This is Melanie Smith with Silla Select Horses. We've got a very exciting group of people here today, and we're talking about a very important topic with AQHA. So as many of you have probably read, whether it's been on our platform, on different social media platforms, there's been a lot of discussion about what we call the two-year rule. The two-year rule was put in place in 2014 and it affects horses that were born in 2015 and later. So if you have a mare or stallion that was born in the year of 2015 or any time after, if those horses die or if a stallion is gilded, you can only use semen from those horses or eggs from those mares for two years.

This is a rule that's been controversial for a lot of reasons. We've really only heard about it the last few years because that's when these horses that were a breeding age have started to die for different reasons and people have just learned that all of a sudden their horses are not eligible to have babies that you can register. So obviously this has stirred up a lot of different controversy and today our goal is really just to have some conversations with three people in here that are very, very involved in the quarter horse industry and all three in very different ways. We brought each of these people on for specific reasons and I wanted to provide three completely different outlooks from people that are involved in different parts of the industry.

So I'm going to introduce everybody here and then we're going to start talking a little bit about, you know, our opinions of this rule. This is going to be something that has factual information and opinions in it, I would encourage all of you to use the information from this, use the information that AQHA provides. Read your rule book, all of those things, reach out to your committee members and directors to chat with them, to come up with your own opinion of this. We're not here today to tell you that our opinion is the only right opinion. We're just here to discuss the facts and discuss how it affects all of us day to day. And we're doing that to provide information to people. So we're excited to get started here. I'm going to start with introductions.

I'm going to start over here with Tricia Aldridge. Tricia is the owner of the great horse, Audios Pantalonis. That horse has won over a million dollars. We've all seen him this year. He's been consistent, absolutely phenomenal. They call him the Barbie horse. He is, if you could draw a perfect horse, he's what every little girl dreams of with a five foot mane and a big old tail and one of the greatest that we're ever going to get to see, I think. So we're honored to have her here and hear about her perspective on this is somebody that owns a stallion that truly does need to, in my opinion, have a genetic influence on this age of horses because he's obviously been more than an outstanding individual.

And so she is a very important horse to the mares that need to be bred today in the barrel horse world and the rope horse world. And we're excited to hear what she has to allow on this. We've got Carol Rose here needs no introduction either. Carol's had Shining Spark since I asked her when he was born. She said 1989. And he's sire of over $10 million, leading broodmare sire in the cow horse world. I mean, he's just been phenomenal for Carol and all of us. We've raised Shining Sparks. We've had Shiner mares. I know Brooke probably has too. Great horses. And so Carol has also been on the Stud Book Committee 15 to 20 years. And so if you're not familiar with what the Stud Book Committee is, because I know some of you guys probably don't know how AQHA is governed, there are different committees that members are elected to.

I say elected, basically chosen to be on. And the Stud Book Committee is a very influential committee to the Quarter Horse Association, all the roles that are made. And so the committee is made up of, Carol, is it 25, 30 people? I believe this year there's 40 people. Okay, so 40 people. These people are put on the committee by the president. It's a very important committee. It makes rules like this that have long-lasting implications on the entire quarter horse population and all of the owners. And so, like we said, Carol's been on and off this committee for 15 to 20 years, and she can bring a lot of history, a lot of insight into how rules are made, how they're discussed that day and things like that.

Brooke Wharton is also here with us, and Brooke brings a really cool perspective. All three of us that we've talked about so far are stallion owners. Brooke does not own a stallion, but she owns and has been a part of some mares that have been incredibly influential in the reigning horse world. This is an amazing stat. She owns the mares that were the dams of two of the five of the last maturity champions in the reigning. It's absolutely amazing. So as we all know, people spend their entire lifetimes trying to raise one maturity champion, and you've gotten to have two in the last five years, which is incredible. And she's a sixth generation of the Wagner Ranch, part of the NRHA Foundation, and several committees within NRHA. And Brooke's very active.

Both in the governance of NRHA and she is like me. We're two younger people trying to come on and be very active in the governance of the AQHA as well. And so I think Brooke brings a very cool perspective as somebody that is a mare owner, raising horses, and also a consumer that is having to make intelligent breeding decisions that are both keeping the integrity of the horse in mind trying to breed the best horse that we can and also something that will give a return on your investment. So these are our guests for today's podcast. I'm going to let them take it away and start some discussions here and we're excited to bring all this information to you guys. So we're going to start with the intent behind the two-year rule.

This rule was obviously created in 2014 to solve some problems. Carol, I know you said that you, that was the one year you missed and you don't miss conventions. No, I don't. And, but when it was created, what do you think that they were, what problems do you think they were trying to solve? I have no idea. The conversation that I've, that I've heard is. That they're trying to, they think there's too much line breeding or inbreeding going on. So they want, if a horse dies and you can't use a semen, if he's born after 215, you can't use a semen after two years, they want to bring in new blood. But for centuries, since the quarter horse breed was, the American Quarter Horse Association is 85 years old, it's the same age I am.

And we started with Wimpy, and we started with Wimpy and King and Leo and all that, and all those horses, that bloodline has pretty much gone, but it still carries through with Joe Reed, you see occasionally. And they were trying to diversify the gene pool, but history repeats itself. And the last, in my opinion, the last horse, Doc Bar, was born in 1956, and he'd be 70 years old if he was alive today. And he is in, he and his sons, Doc Bar, Doc Alina, Smart Little Alina, and some of the other sons are in, I don't know the percentages, but so many of the pedigrees of our Western Performance horses today. And they don't talk about him. They're worried about one horse in particular in this industry that has some wonderful sons, and they think there's too much inbreeding.

For me, I don't like this rule because I learned from, I was married to Matlock Rose, and he told me when we started breeding horses, we started an actual breeding farm in 1975, and he said, And Carol, don't ever forget, you never know where that next world champion's coming from. And you don't know who's Mary. The mare doesn't have to have a big record to be a great producer. She might never have been in a horse trailer, might never have had shoes on. And that's been proven to me. So I don't like the rule. And I think if a horse, if a stallion has testicles and a mare has reproductive parts and they have AQHA numbers, they should breed. Tricia, do you think that most people today really understand why this rule exists, or do you think that the intent has been lost over time?

I definitely think that the intent has been lost just because I think the biggest thing it's going to stop is younger people like us trying to get into the industry. It's already expensive and time-consuming, and it's like, what's the point of having this huge investment if you can't? But if you don't know where it's going to go, I mean, horses are, you never know how long you have. Well, and I will tell you the first thing that the people that are for keeping this rule in place will come back at you with is, well, you can insure that horse and you can get paid when they die. And my answer to them and Carol, I know you know this, is my time is limited and I might only get to raise one great horse in my lifetime.

And Carol's raised a lot of great horses, but her greatest was Shining Spark. And so if my Shining Spark dies at two or four or six or, you know, maybe it's ten because I already know he's a great horse and the first babies are great. That insurance payout, I just assume catch it on fire on the way down the road. I don't care about the insurance payout. It's the horses that I am now being restricted by a governing association from raising. And when you look at the AQHA, when you look at its mission statement, one part of it is. That they want to preserve the enjoyment of the horse. I mean, that feels opposite to me of that, right? Me or you or Brooke, great, she raises this day, great stud. We have put our time into it, which is more valuable than our money, than whatever it is.

We have spent our time and our efforts to create these horses. And when you really have a great one, finally, and we've all raised average ones, when you get that great one, we all know how hard that is to raise. And you can't recreate it. If the insurance pays you, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to have another adios. You're not going to have another adios. The reality is the chances of you getting another adios in your lifetime are. One in a billion. And Audios is by Tresace out of a Frenchman's Skymare. And I think you're starting to see a lot of different breeding really form barrel racing. It's very specialized at this time. But also AQHA has no hook in our industry. So, you know, it's been a joke.

Like everybody says, you know, if something happens to Audios, it's like, I'll be riding grade full. It's not going to slow me down at all. Because you breed and you raise horses and you learn all these skills so that you can have something like that. Well, I just cannot even fathom an association being like, well, now you can't breed them. Even though we have this horse that has competed the last two years and stayed sound and has the bone and has the foot and has he's throwing the qualities on foals that I'm looking for to win. Seven panel clean. Yeah. I mean, everything clean. So it's, you know, it's hard to argue against that. Another thing that we'll hear him say is, well, we don't need to keep passing on genetic diseases.

Well, unfortunately, the same number of herder carriers die every day as ones that are clean. So we're not actually reducing the number of horses that carry any genetic disease. We're just reducing the number of horses you can breed to, which is going to reduce the gene. And so, Brooke, from a welfare standpoint, what do you think that this rule was trying to safeguard? And do you think those same concerns still exist today? So, like you, I wasn't around when this rule was put in place as far as involvement with AQHA, but... I do think that the rule was created with good intent. You know, the idea of increasing genetic diversity, not limiting our gene pool. There is a lot of concern of overuse of influential stallions.

And as breeders, we should care about that. These are important things. But, you know, when we look at the data, the rule just doesn't appear to support that intended goal. I mean, the question is not if line breeding exists. The question is, what do we do about it? How do we monitor the impact? And we as breeders should have the flexibility to do that. I mean, if you take out line breeding, you lose some really influential horses like Gunna Trashya once in a Blue Boon. But then as an association, who is a QHA to say how much line breeding is or is not appropriate? Is there a certain percentage? You know, are we allowed to, I think we as breeders should be able to choose. And also, if you have a really well-lined bred horse, we can then introduce hybrid vigor by doing some outcrossing.

And if we, the association, limit, you know, this is too much line breeding, this is limiting genetic diversity, but without really anything underlying that, then how do we actually utilize some of the breeding techniques and some of that diversity within our breeding goals? I'm not sure. I think that's a perfect explanation of it. And I think one thing I've, listening to the stud book committee discussions for, I guess, the last three or four years, I've been in almost the whole time. And one thing that I've heard from the welfare standpoint too that I think is an important consideration is we know there's some evil people in the horse world and when they have a stud that unfortunately is a good horse or a marketable horse or whatever he is that founders that probably needs to be put down they've got all this frozen semen and nixy semen on him and he's standing in that stall just we all know he needs to be put down but they're doing everything they can to keep him alive for four more years so they can breed them, that's not promoting the welfare of the quarter horse in any way, shape, or form.

Absolutely. And, you know, Carol, Melanie, you, you know, the three of us are on the board of directors for AQHA, and so we want AQHA to be successful. This is really important. We're not trying to create something or overturn something right now to the detriment of AQHA, but we just have to be very careful about. Any policy that we're creating doesn't have a conflict of interest with humanity decisions. There is absolutely no proof that line breeding or inbreeding is detrimental to the horse. But with regard to diseases, it is our responsibility as breeders to breed away from the diseases. And that's one thing I think that we should be very careful of. We should know the panel of the stallion and the mares and not try to breed away from the diseases.

That's our responsibility. But as far as the amount of blood, line breeding or inbreeding, whatever you want to call it, there's no proof that that is bad for a horse. It's actually the opposite. It's shown like technically genetically if you bred the perfect specimen to the perfect specimen, you would get a perfect specimen. So there's actually more proof to show that line breeding can bring out better qualities than worse qualities. And then they. People are just very misunderstood on the term line breeding or breeding. It's a tool in a breeder's toolkit. For sure. And it's obviously made the breed what it is today. There's a lot of line breeding when you look back. And I don't think it's our association's place to tell us how to breed our horses. Yeah.

Well, and to the point of genetic diversity, if that's what AQHA is really trying to protect in this case, then we actually need to be looking. We have genomic tools to evaluate that. And so if you take two full siblings, they're actually going to carry different genomic distributions. So even though you have two full siblings, if you mate them with a mare. You know, one of those studs might increase that higher percentage of lime breeding and one might actually decrease it just based on what those individuals, the genes that those individuals actually carry, even though on paper they look like they're the same. So, you know, that's the one wonderful thing actually about where we are right now is we have such an advancement in technology with reproductive techniques.

We can see on an individual level what genes each horse is carrying. It's not just the pedigree of what the horse is. It's our responsibility to, like Brooke said, look forward, and what can we do to improve the breed, right? I guess my misunderstanding with some of this is why can't we provide as an association that data to the breeders and let them make their decision? Why can't we put things like that on the back of the papers? Why can't we provide more education? Why can't we provide more genetic testing options for our members at their cost to put more genetic data in the quarter horse database to help them make a decision of what is the inbreeding coefficient if I were to cross these two horses.

And maybe I want it to be at a certain level, or maybe I want to try to stay as far away from those bloodlines as possible. But instead of us trying to act as the government and put all of these regulations on them, why don't we give our breeders the information and put the money and time and effort into research to have more information so they can make their own decisions instead of us saying, well, you know, I just think when a horse is dead that their genetics need to die with them. Well, that's fine. Then don't do that. You know, that's your choice from a stud book committee member. You can make your own breeding choices. But I think we should all be able to make our own breeding choices, which for me is, I go back to Shining Spark a lot of times, right?

So they effectively would like to get rid of that, too. But how many highbrow cat mayors have I bred to Shining Spark over the last four years? A lot. And they needed them. And that's the beauty of having choice, too, as breeders. Yes. You know, you're not going to choose to breed a mare to the same stallion that I might choose to breed her to. And I have seen some incredible horses come from crosses that I thought were nice but weren't what I would have picked, and look how they're influencing the industry now. I was wrong. That's fantastic. I see that all the time. I'm like, why would you make that cross? And I go back to that saying, you never know where that next champion is coming from. Nobody does.

Yeah, you're right. Trisha, I want to ask you, as somebody that has a young stallion, we know the following that audios has on social media you have done a phenomenal job of creating that following once again you've obviously invested money into this horse but that's nothing compared to the time you have invested in him your life has you have lived with this it still revolves yeah you live the love of the horse that's right it isn't about the money it's the love of that's right it. And so you've lived with this horse. When you sit back and you think how this rule, how does it affect your day to day decisions of how you're marketing this horse and how you think breeders are planning to use them?

I mean, so it's kind of a double edged sword because obviously in barrel racing, it's not going to be as huge of a priority for AQHA. So, but I have had a lot of people offer to buy him and use that as leverage to say, like, you should just cash out now because what if something happens to him? You know, which is tough because, you know, in this situation, it's very rarely that the trainer is the one that owns this horse. And so, you know, I'm very blessed that he has come into my life. And then also this is a stallion too that i really believe in that i think checks all the boxes like you know soundness mental performance you know literally the only box left for him to check is producing yeah and you know we just need a little more time he's still six yeah so but like on that it's just such a tough it's just such a tough deal because you know obviously like i don't want to i I'm not going to sell him.

So, you know, to me, it is it is what it is. I think that Audios is a really good advocate for our sport. He's a really good mascot for this discussion, just because he is he is so relevant in today's time. But I just feel like. You know, if something got from bed were to happen to him, I didn't do this just so that AQHA can tell me that I can't or can't breed to him, right? Like, that's a horse that I really believe in, that I really believe can shape our industry going forward. So would that rule stop me from breeding him? Absolutely not. Like, I would be the one to find some other association to register. They'll mouth them at fraternities. You know, there's just not enough AQHA influence in ours to outweigh what that horse can do for my breeding program.

And at the end of the day, it's about the horses, the horses that I want to produce as an owner, as a trainer, as a jockey. You know, how do I produce winning horses? And I believe he's how. So I would not stop. It might affect how much I get for the stud fee, but it would not stop me from moving forward with the breeding programs that I believe in. And I always say social media isn't, those votes don't count, but I know I've read some of the things you've posted and there's a large mass of people right behind it who are like, we don't care if we can register. Yeah. We're reading to them. But the barrel racing and really a good portion of the Western sports world is not as ingrained like our, you know, cuttings.

We don't really do that much with AQHA with the cuttings. And so I don't want to see the association go that way where people think, oh, well, you know, maybe we'll just, whether it's using association out there or form, I don't want to see that happen. AQHA has so many great things going for it. And so many people and, you know, Carol's generations and the generations between hers and all three of ours have spent their lifetimes promoting the association. So you know as Brooke and I as advocates of AQHA we want to do things that we think are going to make that association thrive you know and and this is something that I think could be a bad a bad choice for for our membership but ultimately the membership needs to vote and decide on that too that is something that I can have my opinion on it all four of us can have an opinion but the membership needs to be able to vote and be heard on this I think so.

I've suggested to the AQHA that they have a membership survey regarding these rules because the AQHA is a member-based association and we need all the members. Well, let's talk a little bit about that. So we've tried to do a lot of education on how do you even get to the convention? How do you register for it? What is the schedule? Because I didn't know three years ago when I went to the first one. And Butch is the one that drug me there. Butch Wise, he was like, listen, all these decisions that are made are affecting you every day. You're investing your time and into these horses and you have got to be able to make decisions on them. And the funny part is, is Butch and I disagree on a lot, but Butch has been the one that's like, you've got to get involved.

And so I want other people that are in our generation to understand what that looks like, because when I go to the convention, we're not well represented there. And I think a lot of that is because what I say is our group is in the trenches right now trying to build our programs and we can't get out of the trenches for four days in the middle of breeding season. I mean, thank goodness I have a great team here so I can leave for four days, but a lot of people don't, especially our small breeders. And the small breeders are the backbone of AQHA. They make up the most, when you look at the stats, there's no question the small breeders make up the large majority of registered horses, breeders, all of the above, and they cannot leave those mayors that are fallen or those babies that are two days old.

So all of that to say, the membership has the ability to vote at the convention. And I think that's important for people to know. What will happen is this will go to the Stud Book Committee. And Carol, correct me if I'm wrong somewhere in here, but Saturday, all day, the Stud Book Committee will meet. And on Saturday, people can come. Anybody that's a member that's registered for convention can come sit in on the committee and has an opportunity to speak about this. That's Saturday, March 14th. Yes. So and that will be in Vegas and they can come up and they are encouraged to come up and talk and explain to the stud book committee why they think it should be the rule should be gone or it should stay, whatever their opinion is.

The stud book committee can ask them questions, you know, whatever. And so that happens on Saturday. Sunday, they can come and sit in on the meeting, but they cannot get up and give their opinion or talk. Right. So only discussion amongst the stud committee, stud book committee members. So on Sunday, the stud book committee will vote and give a recommendation on every rule change proposal that comes through. Right. Correct. OK. Monday, there is what's called the general membership meeting Monday morning. If you are not on a committee as an AQHA member, you want to make sure you are at this membership meeting and you have a badge, you scan in and that is where you are able to vote. That is the part where the membership gets to be heard. No matter whether this rule passes or fails, or I should say my rule change proposal because I submitted it, which is to delete the rule, whether it passes or fails in there, either way, it's going to be contested during the general membership committee.

No question asked. So ultimately, I think the stud book committee is going to get their say, but it's going to go to the membership that Monday. And that is where we've tried to get. I don't care what your vote is. I want you to show up because I want to know what the general membership thinks. And I don't think we know that right now. Back to your point, Carol, that most of these people, I mean, I don't know how many AQHA members we have, but how many will go to convention? Not that many, because a lot of people work in the, that meeting is on Monday, the 16th of March. And a lot of people can't get off work on the Monday, so they can't go. And it's, they go to the South Point Hotel, the convention's at the South Point Hotel. A lot of people can't afford to go to Las Vegas.

They want to speak out on this rule. But the thing that bothers me the most is how many people are mad. You talk to people, they say, oh, you're involved with the AQHA. Yes. What about this rule if my horse dies and I can't use him after two years? And of course, I'm. Very i'm non-supportive of that rule and i talk but i don't like so many people mad i want people to like the aqha to want to join to want to belong to want to enjoy their horses instead of being mad about something it's bothering me a lot something that they get frustrated with is the rule is a rule and i think when it was put into place it did have people did it with good faith you know they wanted to to whatever it was improve on the breed they had good intent but i think something that really frustrates these people now is technology's changed.

The industry's changed. We have so much more data in front of us now that we're seeing from the data that this rule really has nothing to do with genetic inbreeding at all if we're going to have the inbreeding conversation. That has way more to do with stallions that are breeding 150 to 600 mares a year. That has a way bigger consequence on the inbreeding that these people are worried about. Regardless, as a member, if they don't show up, they get no way to voice their vote. And I know in NCHA, I don't know about NRHA, but in NCHA, they have an email voting system, and it's very secure, but I think they actually get a vote from their members. Right now, we're getting a small portion of members. That's why I suggested that we do a membership survey. The first technology.

AQHAUs was in 1980 when they started embryo transfer. And the last technology that we know of is in the mid-2000s, maybe 2015 or 16, where they have introduced ICSI. You know, we did, they started ship semen in 1991. And then they started frozen semen in 2001. And they limited that to if a horse died, you could only use it till December of the death year. Then in the next year they opened, in 2003, they opened it up with no restriction for frozen semen. In 2002, they started the multiple embryos where you could register more than one foal from a mare. And then in 2004, they elected to eliminate the white rule where any horse number-to-number can register. And we've put these rules in place and everybody was very happy about the white rule.

And then in 2014, they started this, there were no definite rules that affected breeding from 2004 to 2014 when they started. The rule became effective in 15 about horses that died if they were born in 2015 or later and they died, you know, the rule we're talking about. And now they're coming up to the convention there going... Put in more and more rules. And they're going to shoot themselves in the foot because, like we've discussed here, in the barrel racing, in the cutting, in the rain cow horse, in the reining, in the roping, we don't need to have an American quarter horse registered in order to compete. And there's so much money in those events right now. And it's the fastest growing segment of the quarter horse, this Western performance.

And again, they do not have to be registered quarter horses, so it's not if it's when another association will start and take this over, and then it'll probably, then it'll go, the AQHA won't like this, so then they'll decide to drop all these rules and they'll want their horses back. That was, this is history repeating itself. No, absolutely. Brooke, from a mare and breeder's perspective, how do you think that this rule influences your decisions, you know, long before your horses ever entered the faturity pen? You know, that's something that as a breeder, I would actually take very seriously. If you look at a promising young stallion, let's say Adios, and he passes away and I'm looking at, do I breed to him or do I breed to an established stallion, there's the perception that maybe Tricia might not want to continue to pay the incentives on him.

Maybe, you know, there's all this added money now, there's continued marketing, there's a lot of things that go in behind the scenes for a stallion owner that may influence my decision as a mayor owner on who to breed to. And so I actually think that this rule, it might be counterintuitive, but it makes me consider stallions that are currently established and are breeding a bunch of mayors more strongly than wanting to test a young sire who may not get promoted after the sire himself passes away if he were to pass away. So that's a risk that I'm taking as a breeder. What if that stallion passes away and there's no more promotion of him? What if his market value drops? And I'm trying to breed the best horse possible. But at the end of the day, this is a business for me.

It's a business for all of us. And so there has to be an economic consideration behind that. And to what you guys have all said, too, as far as whether or not this is what's going to happen down the road, I think that one of the biggest concerns is a structural concern for AQHA. The competitive landscape of our horse industry has changed. AQHA is no longer the sole place that one goes to promote a stallion. It used to be the world show. That used to be such an influential place for, you know, oh, this is a world champion and we want to breed to that world champion. But now there are individual sporting associations with reining, cutting, cow, horse, you know, all the rodeo industries. We don't need to use AQHA anymore. And again, I'm saying this as a director for AQHA.

I'm saying this as someone whose family has been involved with the association since its founding. I'm in my 30s. I intend to breed for the rest of my life, and I want AQHA to stay strong. But the value of a registered horse is only as good as its utility. And if AQHA removes the utility of having a registered horse, you know, if I can produce a faturity champion that's not AQHA registered, but it can win the reigning faturity, I'm going to go ahead and produce that. I hate to say it, but my goal is to produce champion horses. So I want the best genetics possible to do that. And if AQHA limits who I can breed to, it doesn't mean that I don't breed. It means that I don't register. That's a problem of attrition, and AQHA is going to become less and less relevant if we don't allow the genetics of our greatest horses to continue forward.

Excellent. Absolutely. Excellent, Lisa. You need to be president. No, I do not. You're excellent. Brooke, you're excellent. At your age? Oh, my gosh. That's a great way to say it. Great way to say it. Thank you very much. You know, the other thing that I think that we need to consider is that as board members, as AQHA members, you know, we're talking about if this rule should stand or not. I do think this rule was put in place with very good intent. I believe that at the bottom of my heart. However, it is our duty as members and as board members to constantly evaluate whether or not the rules that we have are as effective as the intention behind them. Right now, I don't think that this rule is serving the purpose that it was intended for, and we need to have the courage as an association and as members to re-evaluate whether or not it's effective.

We spoke on it a little bit earlier, and I think it's very relevant at this point to bring it up again one of the big reasons that this rule was put into place was to protect against cloning and i have i think i think they are very close or possibly at the point that they can look at a foal and know if it's by a cloned horse and so and that is that is coming from very reliable sources that have been very involved in this. When we think of technology, I think in 2014, we weren't even close to that. They didn't even know how they were going to do it. You know, they were just like, clones are going to be a problem and we're scared to death of them and they should be. No questions. It's a scary thing.

But I think, and I would love to see the stud book committee at the convention bring us as members some information on where they're at in that process and be transparent about it. Where are we in the process of being able to identify a clone? Let's talk to UC Davis about it. Where are we? How far out are we? Are we six months away? Are we six years away? Are we 15 years away? And I think that should have some bearing on this because there are a lot of people that are still on the committee that put this rule into place and the clones were one reason that they said that they did it then and it's one of their biggest arguments now. Well, if we can figure out what the clones are, then why are we limiting...

Whether you're talking about the little guy or you're talking about a horse like Audios, why are we trying to trap them to protect against clones? You're not cloning Audios. I'm not cloning our young studs. You know, don't punish me. I just cloned. Yeah. I mean, and so I think I would love to see the stud book committee come forward with, okay, my whole thing on this rule is we know we have problems, right? Cloning. We know we have a list of problems. Cloning. We have genetic diseases that I think have probably been around and they say, oh, we keep seeing more genetic diseases. Well, in all livestock, the technology has come up, you know, we didn't test for them before. We didn't know they had all kinds of genetic diseases before.

And and yes, occasionally we're going to have some that come to fruition, whether we're breeding horses that are inbred or not. And there's you know, they bring a new genetic disease almost every year to the stud book committee. There's one this year. There's one this year. And it's not connected to horses that died two years ago or are in Fred. It just happens. That's just part of genetics. And so, you know, let's look at what our problems are in the stud book committee and then let's figure out how we can fix those, but not pull the reins up on these people that are investing in these horses. I just don't think that's fair. And investing in AQHA. Okay. I mean, you have Adios and I have several young studs and I've got both young studs and studs that are grandfathered into this.

So I can live with either way it goes, but we're breeding a lot of mares to try to make sure we promote those studs. And so we're part of the numbers that help the revenue of AQHA and we want to continue to do that. I know I do. I know you do. I know you do. Carol, I know you don't breed mares anymore, but if you were already, you'd be in the same boat. But one thing, you know, one thing we haven't talked about is the popular desire syndrome. And this is something that it's, they gave us some stats the other day in a meeting we had, and 7 point something percent of the quarter horses are breeding 40 percent of the mares. In the thoroughbred industry, this is a statistic that we got a couple of days ago, 5.7 percent of all thoroughbred stallions are breeding 41 percent of the mares.

And it's called the popular sire syndrome, and that's not going to go away. And to be clear, in the thoroughbred world, there's no ship semen, there's no egg semen. It's live cover only. No embryo transfer. I'll let you keep going. I just want to make sure they know that. Thank you. You brought that up. There's a lot of restriction in the thoroughbred world. But the point is, it's the popular sire syndrome. And a horse is popular if he's winning. If he's like, Adios is going to be a very, very popular sire, simply because he's a great horse. And he'll have great sons and great daughters. And you don't, it's always many, many years ago when we started breeding farm, a gentleman called me and said, Mrs.

Rose, does Pepe San have better sons or daughters? And I thought that was a stupid question. And I wish I knew that man now and could call him and tell him Pepe San has superior daughters than sons. But I didn't know that at the time because I had no idea we were just starting and I didn't have anybody before me tell me anything. But we do have a popular Sire syndrome and that's not going to go away. And we just have to, the marketplace is going to determine which stallions they want to breed to and for how long they want to use them. The marketplace strictly is going to determine and I don't think we as a committee or we as an association should, we should let the marketplace determine what's going on.

Well, and it's proven that the marketplace weeds those horses out as they die. It's not like we're breeding, you know, those horses are taking over the world. Even if they don't die, a horse can be a very good performance horse and not be a good sire. Based on your experience, how do you think that responsible breeders, and to be clear, I think we're going to have responsible breeders and irresponsible breeders no matter what rules we put into place here. But how do you think that responsible horsemen are already self-regulating horses? This whole situation without the need for these rigid rules? I think the sports themselves and the soundness of the horses already regulate that irresponsibility.

You know, so many of us are breeding for soundness, for positive traits in our horses. It doesn't matter if they're competing or they're ranch horses. If we push them too fast, we can shorten their careers. The market is always going to punish unsoundness in a horse. And, you know, I think that any breeding program that's built on fragile genetics is not going to last. We're looking at the long-term soundness and development of our horses. And I don't mean long-term even within a horse's career. I mean multiple generations of that horse. So we already have those regulations anyway. One of the things that does concern me a little bit about this rule is as a breeder and in the way that we self-regulate, one thing that we want to do is not flood the market. So we don't want to have.

10, 20, 30 of the same cross born every year because the market's not going to sustain that. But right now, the way this rule is set up, if you have frozen embryos, me as a mayor owner, if my mayor dies or if the stallion dies and the embryos are sired by one of these stallions that was born after 2015, all of a sudden I'm either forced to flood the market with a stockpile of frozen embryos and that's not good or I can't utilize them or I don't register them. Exactly. And I think it also hurts smaller breeders. So I would say you or I in this conversation more than you guys because you have so many stallions. It's like, okay, well, if you take one of them out or you're going to make up the market another way.

Whereas for me, I'm like, I got all my eggs in one Easter basket. You know, if you have a mare or two mares that have produced those winters, you know, that's something that's your legacy, your breeding program. You're going to want to continue with what you have. You put the money behind it to freeze embryos or to do whatever, you know, that mare is not replaceable to you. You might have 32 of them standing around that are great producers. You know, it's going to hurt the small people significantly more than Absolutely. The big breeders. I agree. There's no question this rule hurts the small breeders worse than it hurts anybody else in this entire industry. No question. And this is my big concern is the small breeder.

Because the small breeder, the small breeder makes the big breeder. And through my years, the stallions, the main stallions I had were Zampar Bar and Shining Spark. And the small breeder is what made them. The person with one wear. And it develops a stallion and with the new rules, with using ICSI and having multiple embryos, there's... We don't know how long they can remain frozen because it's such a new thing, but people should be able to use them as long as they wish to. One of the other things with self-regulation, too, we're in 2026. We have so many advanced technologies. What an opportunity. We've never had this before. Why aren't we utilizing this? Why aren't we celebrating and leveraging the advancement in being able to look at the genetic diversity? We can look at the heterozygosity of individual horses.

We can look at a lot of that as embryos before we ever put them in. Exactly. We can test the genetic, and that's just going to get more and more reasonable. We can test them and make sure they're genetically clean, and we can try and genetically get the traits that we want for the embryos we're going to put in. And like you say, that's what an opportunity. And it's just going to get more effective and better and better every year. And we have such great partners with, you know, UC Davis already. Mm-hmm. Let's utilize them. Yes, and that is a great tool for self-regulation that we should and could be using. Yeah. Yeah, this is an opportunity for us. Let's use it as that. Yeah. I was pulling up on here.

It reminded me when you were talking about your horse. They just announced that they are going to be four decades after Zampar Jack dominated the roping world. Frozen semen and modern ICSI technology are giving the legendary bloodline a shot at rewriting history. And Jim Brinkman of Pitzer Ranch. Eight foals. Yep. Jim Brinkman and Reliance Ranches, which is Gary McKinney, have partnered on this and have some babies on the ground. And how cool is that to have that opportunity, like you said, with that hybrid vigor, to bring something like that back into play on these modern bloodlines. And that, What a great tool. And that's a tool we're losing right now. You know, we are going to have it on these older horses like Woody or Shining Spark unless they take that away, which they're talking about trying to do.

It's on the it's on the rule proposals this year. And I hate to see that. And it has nothing to do with me wanting to sell breedings on Woody. Or it has to do with this right here. You being able to go back and dig into those good old genetics and bring them back up. We've brought the Freckles Playboy, Playgun, Shining Spark, all of those smart chickalina, and brought them back in on these metallic mares and stevie mares. And I think it's a cool way to combine those older genetics and bring them back in. Zampar Jack was born in 1979. I think he'll be good on the 2015 rule.

But, you know, but it's, I mean, it's awesome. It's awesome. That's so cool. If we can bring those back, bring some of that back. And why wouldn't we? You know, again, this association is 85 years old. I went to college. I started in 1959. And I majored, I went to Cal Poly. It was the third year they allowed women. And animal, my major was ag business, but there was a brand new major that year. So I took most of my electives in animal science. And there was so much talk at that time in the quarter horse industry to get rid of three bars. We want to get rid of the three bars' blood in the quarter horse. It was rampant talk. This was in the early 60s. I did my senior thesis on the influence of three bars on the quarter horse, how beneficial it is.

And, you know, I got a straight A on it. I wish I could remember it. I don't remember any part of it. But the point is, the point I'm making, three bars was by a horse called Lightning Bar. Lightning Bar is a sire of Dock Bar. And again, how influential Dock Bar has been in the performance horse industry. How great three bars was for the quarter horse. instead of trying to get rid of the breed. So, I mean, this is going on for years. And my opinion is that we don't limit horses. That's the only way we're going to get an outcross is to allow new horses to come in. And we don't know where that new horse is coming from. Nobody does. And it bothers me a lot for us as an association to try to govern what stallions can breed, what mares can produce.

It it's just a it's a it doesn't allow free trade absolutely and it just i don't know how to say it but it just bothers me you take it you take it you take it from there i'd say every breeder is going to prioritize slightly different traits and that's one of the strengths of the diversity of breeding thought is that you know the diversity of opinion is going to inherently expand the breed, I think it's important, too, to remember that any other species, so whether you breed goats or cows or pigs, it doesn't matter, they all allow for you to bring back in those old genetics. So it's really important to be able to bring that forward in certain instances. I agree with that. Totally. Carol, in your experience, what actually moves the needle when it comes to change in the AQHA?

If you're interested in any part of the AQHA, there's lots of committees you can get on and be involved. Go to the convention, ask to be on a committee. You can go in any committee and listen, and you see what the, I've been on the membership committee. I've been on the judges' committee. I've been on the international committee. I've been on lots of committees. Stud Book and Registration is my go-to place because I'm a breeder. But you just, you have to go and you have to be involved, and your voice will be heard. And that moves, but the membership event, ultimately the membership moves the needle. Well, I see on Facebook people are like, well, I don't know. They don't ever do anything, but the Facebook votes and comments just don't count.

And that's what I try to tell people. You can comment. You can write a letter. You can get a petition. That does not move the needle. No. You have to go to the convention. You have to show up, and it's four days, and I know it's expensive, I know, but it is so important. It's important. No matter what your interest is. It doesn't have to be. Today we're talking about the breeding and talking about the stud book committee, but there are a multitude of committees. The judges committee, membership committee. There's, I'm leaving out. Welfare committee, marketing committee, ranching committee. And you can ask, you can go and you can go to committee and you can ask which committee you would prefer to be on. Yes.

I think to your point, too, that's one of the strengths of AQHA is there is a very well-defined way that we as members can make change or at least have a say. doing it on Facebook. That's great. It gets you heard, but that's not the set path that you follow for change. AQHA has a set way of how to present a rule proposal. It has deadlines. It has a form you can fill out. Any member can fill it out, and any member can go to convention and support and speak up to why they think a rule should be changed. And that's one of AQHA's strengths is this well-defined way of making change. People just have to do it. And you have to be a member of AQHA to go to one of those meetings. Trisha, if you got to talk to the Stud Book Committee today, what do you want them to understand about how this role, you know, if you got three points, what three points do you want them to understand about how this role affects you as a breeder?

I think the biggest thing is that you are discouraging people to get into it, to get into breeding, to put the time and effort into promoting stallions. It's not worth it for everyone to put all their time into something when it could be taken away very easily. As far as, you know, my own personal breeding program, I would be worried that the long term would be detrimental to AQHA as far as somebody somewhere is going to happen and then they're going to start something different. You know, and especially if AQHA really looks at the horses now, I mean, the different sports could be different breeds at this point. I mean, it has already gone that far. It's just so specialized. Yeah. So I would say that it's, you know, they're leaving themselves open when they're already pushing on Western performance sports.

You know, I would I would just like to see something where they are actually listening to their members because it is hard when not everyone is going to be able to go to convention. You know, last year I got stuck because it was on the semifinals at Austin. You know, like I can skip the semifinals to go to the dang, you know, convention. And also being in breeding season, which I'm sure is by design. But how hard is it to leave during breeding season? You know, you have to have a full staff at home to be able to get out of here. So, I mean, we all want to see AQHA be the gold standard. We want to see them, you know, we want to see them encourage people to want to be involved. And I feel like a little bit it's, I think it's just a little bit of butting heads on the new people coming in and the older people that have been there.

And it's, you know, not everybody is going to have that view or to know what it actually takes today to get a stallion to that level. And on your point on small breeders, one thing I think is important for us to tell people, because even though, Trish, I don't know how many mares you breed a year. I don't know if it's two or 20 or 200 yourself. I don't know. But, you know, people wouldn't probably look at you as a small breeder. You have this great horse, right? So they think you're, in their mind, you're breeding 50 mares a year of your own, plus everybody else's, right? Four. Yeah. So they don't, I'm just saying in most people's minds, they're not going to call you a small breeder. But it's all relative. And there are a lot of small breeders.

And my definition of a small breeder is somebody that has their one stud and maybe their two to 10 to 15 mares at home. And maybe they breed some mares around regionally. Those are the people that we're cutting out of this because those people, why would you encourage your son or daughter to raise this stud? Put the investment of the time in it. Send it to training. Prove it. It dies. And then what are you, you're starting all over again? I mean, that took a whole generation for them sometimes. And so you think of me and you as a breeder and Brooke and Carol, we've all bred at probably a pretty decent size scale. But these people that are the backbone of the industry, we're really, I think they're going to think twice before they raise those studs.

Just the initial investment of, so I mean, I've done consulting calls where people want to take out, you know, second mortgage on their house to buy a stallion. For sure. You know, and I'm like, just the initial investment it takes to even just purchase a quality stallion is huge to have the risk of it being taken away. Also, to be a breeder, you don't have to own a stallion. You can just have a little herd of mares. Yep. Yeah. Just have a little herd of mares. And you have some frozen embryos and your mare dies and you can't use them. Like Brooke said, you have to flood the market with those babies because you don't have to be able to register them after two years. So my feeling is you and I talked a lot about the rule and you made the motion to...

To eliminate this rule. And I've said all along, I want them to be able to register a mayor to a stallion if they both have a number and let the marketplace determine. The marketplace already decides. We see it in the stats. It's no question the marketplace handles it. There should be no regulation on it. To close, I think this is a really good place to close. Brooke, I would like you to talk a little bit about, you know, this change is going to be discussed, what principles as breeders, as promoters of the American Quarter Horse, do we never need to compromise when we're thinking about this rule change? To me, first and foremost, you know, horse welfare can, it always has to come first. We can never compromise horse welfare.

And the policies that we create as the AQHA, they can't create incentives where it compromises humane decision-making about our horses. That alone is something that we always have to put first and foremost. I really think that we actually should be leaning in as far as, you know, we talk about principles that we don't want to compromise, but we have science, we have all this new technology. What a wonderful opportunity for us. And I think the rules that we write should take into consideration the science and the advancements and use them as a tool. I totally agree. And I think the one thing I would love to see the AQHA do better, and we're on the board, so I'm going to try to promote this, or we're on board of directors, I guess I should say.

Is really trying to do a better job of educating our members and getting these stats out there for them. Because I don't think, I think that AQHA is trying to safeguard some of these stats, but we need them as breeders. We need to know. You know, I can't call in right now and say, hey, how many mares are on the breeding report from this year? If you knew how many mares were on a stallion's breeding report, it would affect your, it would have a big effect on that popular sire syndrome. Because if you knew that horse bred 450 mares the year before, you're going to think twice before you go and spend a bunch of money on a stud fee because you know there's about to be a bunch of those things on the ground.

So when we talk about how can we, you know, we have popular sire syndrome, and I do think that's one of the biggest things that they were trying to accomplish with this rule that I think it just didn't pan out to take care of. Why don't we put it out there when these horses, at the end of the year, here's the breeding report data, just like we can see registered foals. I don't understand why that's a secret. Let me know how many mares they bred. You know, it would make me think twice on what I'm going to breed to for that year. Well, and within other industries, too. You look at the thoroughbred industry. Yeah. That is all public data. Yes. And it's not anything that is giving anybody's private information out.

It has no privacy concerns. It's just gatekeeping some information that I think that we as breeders need to have in front of us to make more informed decisions. And then I think that a QHA also needs to set aside the funds, whether it's through a foundation, whether we... A committee together that raises these funds, which I would be happy to try and do, to raise the funds we need to support UC Davis in whatever research is necessary to give breeders and. Whatever. Every 60 to 90 days, we get something from UC Davis that says, hey, this is what we're doing, you know, to the AQHA membership. This is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. Here's our goal. In a year, we want to have these kind of stats for you guys.

In two years, we hope to have this kind of testing available to you. In three years, we hope that this testing is so rock solid that it gets printed on the back of every AQHA, set of AQHA papers, or you can pull a DNA report off the internet for yourself to help yourself make those breeding decisions or hey we have we being this committee that maybe comes together one day we have created this technology that you can go plug in a mare and a sire and get all kinds of genetic information from these let's get it down to a science and i think instead of trying to pull the reins up and put a big bridle in everybody's mouth and say hey we're gonna you know hey we're the stud buck committee and we're going to pull on you guys all day, give them the information and let the breeders and let the market decide.

That's how I think it needs to go, in my opinion. I'm so in agreement with you, but I have, there's one concern, one huge question I have. In 2014, when they made the rule, they grandfathered in all the horses that were born prior to 2015. Now there's a proposal on the table to eliminate all multiple embryos of the stallions or the mares. It's basically the same rule. They moved it five years further. But they didn't grandfather in the old one. They took them all out. So the rule proposal that's going to be presented is that in 2031, if a stallion is dead, it doesn't matter if they were born before 2015 or not. You're done. You can't register any foals from them. So a horse, well, Shining Spark, he'd be done in 2031.

Hot-ish. And all frozen embryos. By that stud. By that stud. Also not eligible for registration anymore. And what a shame that would be. And same with the mare. And so let's not continue to add the regulation and let's do education instead. Excellent. Well, and if this is about genetic diversity too, then calendar deadlines are not a genetic diversity strategy. If our concern really is genetic diversity, then we need to actually measure that genetically, not chronologically. You need to say that at the meeting. You need to stand up and say that in front of the whole committee and all the people. Yeah. Melanie, I don't know how many people know this, but last year at the annual convention, they talked, as happens every year, they talked about the stud book and registration committee got up and said, okay, we're not going to allow this rule to be overturned.

And Melanie, you're really the one that spearheaded this effort to make it known to the membership and to the public and doing things like this podcast. You're just trying to educate everybody, which is great. It's transparency, but oh my gosh, the speech that you gave last year when, and it was all statistically based. It was all facts, evidence. I was blown away. You gave such a good presentation And so, as a breeder, thank you for doing this. Thank you for taking this so seriously and for trying to organize us and the membership to make an impactful change on the association. Absolutely. Well, you know, my goal with this has not been to sway somebody necessarily. It's really been, you know, creating.

To educate people. I want them to listen to this and want everybody that's listening to this take everything we say with a grain of salt and you make your own decision. You know, it's a membership organization and my goal this year is that the membership is represented appropriately. I do believe... I so believe in that. I believe that the membership, if it could be truly represented appropriately and everybody got a vote, that it would be, this would get deleted without, it would be a runaway. I believe. It's no doubt. there's so many too many mad people well i think what the at the end of the day it's like if nothing else it should just be the same for everyone yeah i mean that's all we're asking right well it should be just if you own a stallion if you own a mare and it's registered registered with the aqha you can breed it yeah and i think we've shown thoroughbred there's so much there's so much science on thoroughbreds and they've shown us that making stricter breeding regulations because they're as strict as anybody in the world, has not helped with the inbreeding at all. Can I say this is a fact?

In the thoroughbred industry, there's a horse called Northern Dancer. This is a statistic that's a fact. He is in 97% of all thoroughbred stallions and mares. Like it or not like it. This is a stat that they have with the thoroughbreds. Northern Dancer is in 97% of all thoroughbred stallions and mares. And I think it's just scary, you know, when you talk about line breeding or something like that, because a lot of times people are really only looking at the first few generations. But even if you have something that's on the papers, it still might end up being 132nd related. So it's still very small, even though a lot of people assume It's a big chunk and you're going to have like a Frankenstein, you know.

But look at where line breeding has got us too. I mean, thoughtful, responsible breeding. Some of the best crosses. Adios Pantalones. And I'm sorry, Adios is probably not going to go win the reigning paternity. And that's okay because my reigning horse is not going to go make it to NFR. And that's a great thing. But you don't know if somebody bred a mare that happened to have the genetics to have the talent to be a rainer crossed on adios could go win the reigning fraternity. Absolutely. No one knows where that cross is going to be and no one knows where that champion. So let us make the decisions we want to make. As the owner of Audios, we've had some really random people breed to him. So, like, we've had one big breeder.

I won't mention her name, but she's breeding to him for a snafflebit prospect. I love that. You know, a lot of the big grace horse farms have bred the ropers big time on him. And, I mean, and even Matt Mills says, like, a very small, minimal confirmation changes, and he would be exactly what they looked for for a reiner. Oh, my gosh. So it's really cool to see a stallion that could have influence in even other disciplines, too, as a predominantly race-bred horse. Adios could be the outcross we're looking for. Yeah. We don't know that. It's very possible. And we need his blood. We won't know for several generations if something should happen to him. Unless you had a lot of frozen semen and we could continue to use it, we wouldn't know.

He could be the outcross we're looking for. If it will say something happened to him today, by the time we knew he was great, all that team could potentially be destroyed, you know? And how did we get to Adios in the first place? I've had the opportunity to see him in person. He is incredible. We line bred. That's how we got there. This isn't a bad thing. But this could be exactly, we've been talking about needing an outcross, needing something different. There's a perfect horse that we might, that might be the outcross. He might be the outcross we need for the next 50 years. Because, you know, and you're giving him the chance, you're breeding him, and he's totally different than the other things we have, and here we go.

He is the most perfect example of why this rule needs to not be enforced. There's a lot of great young studs in their respective disciplines. Let's not close those down because we don't know if that horse is the next dash to pain. Yeah, 10 years from now. But he might be. I want to use Doc Bar as an example. I met Doc Bar when he was three years old. I'm from California. He was very—Charlie Araujo brought him in from Arizona, very close to where I lived. We saw him. He showed him at Halter. Doc Bard looked like a bulky, heavy-bodied Arabian. I mean, you wouldn't—there's no way you would look at him and read to him today. He was gorgeous, had four little white feet and a blazed face, and just kind of a round hip and not the most beautiful—a beautiful head, decent neck.

He wasn't very deep-bodied. He was just a heavy-bodied Arabian, and he took the country by storm. And he was a great breeding horse, great genetics, and look what he's done to our breed. But to look at him today, you wouldn't breed to him. But he was an outcross. He came in. I mean, he was a grandson of three bars, and they were trying to get rid of three bars. And here you have a horse that's very athletic, that can run, obviously can stop, obviously is a good thinker, and he's got all the traits to make a great breeding horse. Because when a horse, to me, to me, when a horse has, can continue to compete over and over and over again and do the same thing and do it well, he's got to have a great mind.

And he obviously has the athletic ability. And then the pedigree takes care of itself because he's already, he doesn't know how, about how he's bred, but he knows he can think and you know, he can think, You know he has the stamina and the heart and the guts to do the job over and over. So he's going to put that on his colts. And I'm a strong believer in that. I really think it's important to emphasize we are all pro-AQHA here. And if we want to make sure that AQHA remains the strongest and most relevant breed association in the world, we need to make sure that registration feels like an asset, not a constraint. Perfect. I appreciate all three of you taking the time. All of y'all are very busy. Thank you for coming in. I think this is a really important conversation.

I'm hopeful that it gives some insight to people, especially that won't be able to attend the convention and hear some of this discussion back and forth. Of course, in this conversation, you're hearing four people that are four getting rid of the rule. We pick the phone up and call your directors and ask them what they're for or against and get the alternative opinion too. We want everybody to have both sides of it and really understand what's being laid out in front of them. So if anybody has any questions about how to attend the convention. We have a full, and we'll link it in this, in both the podcast episode description and on YouTube. It'll be on our website. We have a full description of how you get registered for the convention, how you book a room, what days you need to be there, what happens every day.

Everything is on there. If anybody has any questions, you're welcome to give us a call. We will try to guide you the best we can to give you the information you need to go to a convention and have a productive convention and be able to hear the discussions and be a part of the discussions that are relevant to you, whether it's this two-year rule or it's something in the judges committee or something in the show committee or the racing committee. That's what Brooke and Carol and I are here to do as directors is to try and encourage people to come and be a part of it, and we want you to. So even if you're not a breeder and this two-year rule doesn't apply to you, but you want to be a part to the racing committee, call us and we'll do everything we can to try and get you in the right position to do so.

So thank you everybody for joining us. Thank you guys again for coming and we look forward to the convention and seeing the outcome this year. Thank you. Thank you, Melanie. Thank you. It was excellent.