PasoVoice.Com :: PFHA Validation Certificates

Kerry W · Site Admin

So, how would a horse registered with PFHA compete in these classes (if said horse was of the correct modality to do so)?

caliber · Site Admin

You know folks! i really like this topic!

That is my point.... Thank you Lori, Kerry and Cindy for contributing to such important chapter within the Colombian Paso Horse in our country.

In my opinion we should already have needed to have the basic rules established for this type of questions that is of great concern.

In my opinion, I think we all agree that all horses don't mature until at least the age of 5 y/o, therefor I ask myself a simple question, why should i determine any modality before maturity, I don't know.

We should let breed be a breed! and determine modalities based on their natural abilities. We are seeing way too many horses within our breed being parked on a set modality with no alternatives.

I was born Blond and Green eyes, but things changed along the way! If I had in every ID today Blond with Green Eyes! WOW! would that be right? the answer is NO..............

Same way goes to our breed, Modality can be determine at birth, but will be finalized at the age of 5.....................................giving the opportunity to our breed to develop in their full capacity, not in what a paper might say their full capacity should be.

All we have to do is follow the leader.........that is Colombia, i am sure their set rules are based on years of studying this breed.......and what would be best for the same.

With all that said, The PFHA should adopt the same flexibility when determining any registration from birth till the 5th birthday anniversary, to assure the protection of our breed.

grif · A/O

Kerry W · Site Admin

Why would a horse registered by the sanctioning registry of the show, need to register with another registry, then get a certificate of validation from the registry it already is registered with? Isn't the certificate of validation only required to prove to PFHA, that the horse is registered with an approved registry? Or is PFHA not an approved registry with itself? Twisted Evil

I don't get it..it doesn't make any sense. dunno

caliber · Site Admin

Very good point Kerry! can anyone answer that Question

grif · A/O

Because the PFHA does not register the diagonal breeds.

Kerry W · Site Admin

I love it. So if someone tries to do this, and PFHA tells them they have to give up their PFHA papers...they should tell PFHA to get screwed. Wouldn't it be neato, if shit got worked out BEFORE payment was due for a change? Rolling Eyes

BigJ · Moderator

Actually PFHA does register diagonals. The qualifications PFHA requires for a horse to be registered:

1. by two PFHA registered parents and/or
2. by a registration recognized by PFHA with associated DNA

So, trotty paso finos with PFHA registration papers certainly exist and a few have done quite well in PFHA shows.

It is Colombia not PFHA that is distinguishing the difference with modalities.

Since PFHA bases its definition of paso gait by the Puerto Rican model it assumes the only appropriate paso modality is the paso fino, which is also erroneous since the Puerto Rican Paso Fino also paced.

The inception of a horse into PFHA and APF was by accepting previously registerd horses from countries of origin that was all. The requirement was not gait or pedigree but paperwork.

There was nothing wrong with horses of "mixed" modalities until Colombia decided it would pursue developing the diagonal modalities further.

I see no sin in having a trotty paso fino or a pacey trochador. Not every horse expresses their genetic abilities in their phenotype. The sin is not providing phenotypical standards consistently to assure genetic inheritance to the next generation. This is the role of the show ring to test and measure the performance of future broodstock so that they perpetuate what we define as paso fino, trocha, andadura, etc. It is NOT to guarantee that those who do not meet those standards are NOT bred or those that do are superior breeding animals. Only offspring prove a sire or dam.

If we had defined broodstock on the way this thread is defining our breeding stock, there would be no Dan Danilo or Resorte IV as their mothers were not expressing the appropriate standards so that anything out of them would be suspect. Also these sires would not be accepted for registration.

We are expecting immediate returns on an investment we haven't yet made thereby perpetuating short-lived faddish sires based on individual profiteering instead of long-term, steady production for the general population.

grif · A/O

So how many decades should it take for a breed to breed true to it's breed standard? I don't think it is too hasty to say that they should be breeding true at this point. But that is just one opinion. We all make our own decisions in regard to brood stock and that is what makes the world go round. Some of the best specimins have been the result of "mistakes"

BigJ · Moderator

I don't think we can set limits in time as the ultimate goal because tastes change; genetic combinations give different expressions, which we arbitrarily decide are "good" or "bad". We sucker into commercialistic values as the tangible measurement of a successful breeding animal.

If we said well it's been 30 years now so it's time to get this all "pure", where would we start because picking any moment in time risks culling out good producers or keeping poor ones. Also if we said well let's look at the pedigrees, who is willing to glean out the truth in that?

A breed in nothing more than a collective group of animals that provide phenotypical qualities we find attractive at that time and provide these qualities to their offspring with some degree of consistency. Now we are expecting these animals to become even more consistent with less chance of producing an offspring that never falls below certain criteria.

So what are these criteria? The constant emphasis on gait? I can't even keep a straight face on that subject considering the current place the paso world is at with breeding, producing and showing poorly gaited horses that win. Truthfully, realistically, gait is NOT one of the criterions is it? Not really or we would not have out of gait horses even trocha winning at shows over horses in the correct modality. We are reacting to this fact by insisting gait is a criterion, the only criterion that matters when discussing pasos as a breed and where the horse belongs as a breeding animal. Talk about denial. Any more than insisting that pedigree is the true measure of a horse's inherited ability to perform to breed standards.

So let's say we succeed in that goal (pure gait whatever gives pure gait offspring) say in 10 years or 3 generations. What would happen if we found out that by doing so we lost brio or size or locomotion or gentleness or color or some other more intangible quality that describes the paso we envision? Then what?

The problem is we don't know what gait is or where it comes from so we try to maintain it by insisting that the best gaited give the best chance of producing it. Yet, we ignore history that teaches this is not always true. So we choose to ignore history and pretend that since we've been doing this for almost a century we figured it out, that we have more "pure" genetics that provides assurances of success, that we have concentrated our chances into a collective bunch of animals we now call a "breed".

However, the truth of the matter is, these horses gait now not because they are "pure" in genetics. Colombia added a few Andalusians, Lusitanos, and a TB or two. Puerto Rico played with Narangansett Pacers, Morgans, and Saddlebreds. The two have traded horses with each other whether they choose to openly admit it or not. Puerto Rico's horses tend to be pacey by choice while Colombia's tend to be trotty by choice. How is it then that these two dominating countries ended up with horses so genetically similar that we can mix them and still have something we accept? How is it that a horse with a "pure" Colombian or Puerto Rican pedigree produce well with foreign blood lines or pass as the other? Andalusian, Lusitano, Morgan, etc. and all?

I think paso finos gait because they always have in some manner long before we decided to collect them up and call them Colombian Criollo or Puerto Rican Paso Fino. Other countries using other introductions also have horses displaying the same modal with different expressions. What we collected were not all of the horses that could gait, but only the ones we liked. I'm not even convinced that gait was consciously the only criterion either or pedigree or ancestry. What if gait came from pony-type horses that looked like a Shetland or the trot belonged to the Przewalski's Horse or the draft subspecies?

I believe pasos became what they are because that is what was had at the time of colonization. While Iberia took on other interests with their horses, the colonies worked with what they had. At some point they identified their horses as their culture and rightfully so. If gait were as simple to breed for as say, a red horse or a black horse, don't we believe that past breeders would have taken care of this and we would not be obsessively discussing it?

My point is where in time do we point to and say this is where our horses became "pure" and from that moment forward we no longer will accept horses of questionable ancestry or phenotype? When we begin setting higher and higher standards with less and less tolerances for individuals we risk losing the horse entirely and having none meet the criteria we set. I believe the reason we cannot obtain our goals of producing "pure" gait is because other qualities, other criteria, mitigate our ability to obtain that goal.

I believe our failure is not that we have diagonally bred horses producing an occasional lateral horse or vice versa. After all, it IS in their genetic makeup so it is unrealistic not to expect it. The horse has not failed at all. We have by insisting his parents were the perfect match based on...and we guessed wrong. If an offspring is culled should not the culprit(s) that caused it because obviously the parents are faulty are they not? That is if we are to be truly serious about purity. To get pure black horses that only produce black, you cull the red ones out and then you cull the parent(s) that cause it.

We don't because we know better. We know that a full sibling may superbly fit the breed standards and produce it. We know that the paso is too diverse to depend on one bad outcome to believe all will be the same. By doing so we have then protected and perpetuated the very thing we desire to rid ourselves of because we also know there is a very high chance that the full sibling, as great as it may be, must have some genetics in common with the really bad one. So what are we trying to really achieve when we discuss protecting the "breed" by refusing to acknowledge the errant horse or two? Perhaps our interests aren't so noble.

grif · A/O

I never said that gait should be the only criteria in judging the quality of a Paso Fino. For God's sake you SHOULD know me better than that. And you can research and theorize and blah blah blah the history. You like to do that. I find it somewhat interesting but tedious in large amounts. I prefer to look at the horse in front of me today and the evolution that I have PERSONALLY witnessed over the last 35 years. Because I KNOW that that is fact as I have seen it with my own eyes and do not have to theorize.

So this is what I see and have seen. I personally don't put a lot of emphasis on gait when I am breeding Paso Finos. Aw, shock!. Why? Because gait is a given. I breed for all of those other characteristics that I want because I KNOW that gait is already there. And I don't have a problem with horses who don't gait. In fact, the only Paso Finos that I have ever ridden that did not gait at all were older horses who had been set into non-gait by the way that they had been ridden. Now I cannot say if those handful, and it has only been literally a handful in hundreds of Paso Finos over my lifetime, would have ever gaited had they been correctly trained. But what I CAN say with all difinitiveness is that I have NEVER started a Paso Fino who did not gait. So it makes me wonder from exactly where all these gait issues come. And I have some theories.

So, breed whatever you want. I breed Paso Finos and I don't wonder if they will be Paso Finos. I know that everyone that hits the ground will be because I trust in what I do and that is all that I can really control in this world. And sometimes not even that. But one thing that that troubles me somewhat is that every time there ia a discussion on this forum about, well, ANYTHING it always eventually gets to a post that hauntingly accuses the breeders of this industry of some unwritten nefariousness. And it always leaves me a little cold and a little sorry that I was ever part of the discussion in the first place.

caliber · Site Admin

Cindy, I appreciate your personal comments and thoughts. Everyone is welcome at PV to write based on their own experience, and you know you and everyone else is welcome to do so!

But you mentioned on your last post something that caught my attention tremendously and I kindly will ask you to please explain yourself, apparently we both share differences of opinions as to what, when and how comments are said and most importantly the intentions that comments are posted.

Awaiting for your response, and I hope this thread will continue being civil for the most part. This is an extremely important topic and deserves clarity and harmony.

"But one thing that that troubles me somewhat is that every time there ia a discussion on this forum about, well, ANYTHING it always eventually gets to a post that hauntingly accuses the breeders of this industry of some unwritten nefariousness. And it always leaves me a little cold and a little sorry that I was ever part of the discussion in the first place".

grif · A/O

I am sorry, Felix but I do not feel that further explaination is necessary. And I, like you, would rather the discussion remain civily about the horse. Take what I said as you will.

BigJ · Moderator

So sorry to provoke but imagine the hell I give myself sometimes.

Well, what I'm trying to say in my digressions is why make this whole thing so complicated?

We like what we like; it is really that simple. At least it is getting that way for me. The more I search and try to understand what makes pasos to be what they are so that I can keep it that way, the less I understand about how they came to be.

When we begin splitting hairs we end up with horses like El Imponente. He's supposedly bred from "pure" paso fino parents, yet he could compete as a "pure" trochador. We've intellectualized the whole process to the point the horse has no place to go. The pedigree says this, but his gait says that and we keep making up rules to say if he is "pure" enough. According to what has been discussed he's a poor example of a paso fino and a poor breeding potential as a trochador. Frankly, he does not meet the criterion for him to be considered part of any paso breed if the rules were really followed.

Yet...yet people LIKE the horse. Hell, I like him and I'm supposed to be all biased and everything. What I would give to filter out that trottiness and keep the rest of him. I don't care what he's labeled. If I had the confidence in my mares and my selection process, I'd breed to him in a heartbeat because there's allot to like about him. If I thought I could regain anything lost by the next generation, I wouldn't hesitate. But because I'm like everyone else, not secure in understanding what is paso, I don't; I won't. It would be a shame upon us all to lose an animal with so many fine qualities just because he does not qualify in the gait department or in the pedigree department.

I'm saying we should walk away from all this technology we have at our fingertips, all this DNA crap, all of these pedigree databases and go back to what it is we LIKE because that is how it all happened anyway. Let's think about why we like our horses, why I like El Imponente anyway, why I'd take him over another type of horse any day of the week. If I dislike trotty paso finos why not go with a TN Walker or Saddlebred or something? Why do I hang around these horses?

We can't parse out the horses; we can't separate out gait from brio or brains or style or all the other things that has to be part of the horse for us to even call the gait "paso".

"However", however we recognize that for us to protect what we like we have to come to some sort of agreement about what that is--standards. Standards, which horses must meet, like them or not, so that we keep the population intact so that the genetics that make what we like stick around for another generation or two.

We then use these standards in a formal situation to find horses that show promise as future breeding stock. And this, as I see it, is the problem. We don't stick to what we say we like, to what we have agreed as a group to look for in an animal. Worse, we say horses have to meet many criteria to be called a trochador or whatever but then we only harp about one or two or complacently watch horses only able to perform one or two and we say "good enough".

Then we say it ain't good enough that we want more that we need to raise the bar and I'm wondering like to where? We can't even trust ourselves to pick out horses out of a group that we have collected up, that we say we like, that we want around (like El Imponente) and so we start making up rules like " has to have 3 generations of XXXX to be considered for registration" or "has to be tested for gait" (like how I may ask besides that stupid strip of wood). Well there went a bunch of our recently crowned champions IF we were honest about the whole thing, which we are not.

If we were we would never see El Imponente shown and when shown he would not place when out of gait. But he has because we have to use that as the excuse for keeping him around. Maraquita certainly would have never done well as a filly. She would have been excused, but because she promised good things to come in the future, we allowed a crab tracking, head jutting, wobbly butt, out of gait filly beat the pants off of horses that were more correct. We did so because we LIKED her and wanted her to succeed right or wrong. We then construed our reasoning to others to explain why such a filly should win--like that made good sense. Thank goodness as Maraquita matured, she improved. Ironic isn't it to admit an international champion "improved".

If we were honest we would say we liked the horses anyway even if they don't meet all breed criteria. We wouldn't be trying to protect horses that we like but can't meet our collective agreed upon standards, which all countries claim to honor but do not. We would not be making up excuses as to why El Imponente wins or loses. He would be in this breed because this is where he belongs because we want him here and it doesn't matter if he ever wins or not. A horse with that phenotype, skeletal structure, demeanor, and style belongs with horses like him, with the people in charge of making sure those horses have a chance to produce more. We should be honest and say we'll figure out that gait thing because there's more to this horse besides his modality. We'd quit lying about his gait to keep him. By lying to ourselves we do not give these types of horses the opportunity to be exposed to horses that can help them because we pretend ol' wobbly butt doesn't wobble or a horse that is crooked is really straight (yeah but that pedigree is to die for ain't it?)

Instead we keep making up rules to make sure the El Imponente's stay in our breed because we like them. Rules, which again, if we were honest about it, do nothing but confuse all of us and our attraction to our great breed by trying to parse them out into smaller and smaller groups where stallions and mares aren't allowed to intermingle and maintain their complex, unequaled qualities.

grif · A/O

Wish I were up to a diatribe as so many things ran through my head while reading that post. But, alas, I am not. Confused