Recently, my e-mail included a line from a prospective customer that prompted another column idea.

"Thank you for the pictures. They are adorable! Are all of your horses papered?" came the inquiry. This cautious potential buyer is checking on something vital.

Why should a breeder go to the time, trouble, and expense of registering a foal?

1) Identification: Registries were invented to insure that a horses' lines are recorded and to allow them to be perpetuated. A breeder has a responsibility to keep that continuity going.

I will neither buy nor use a horse whose paperwork is not in order. Generally there is a reason it isn't. If the horse is a purebred and can't withstand the blood type or DNA testing requirement, he is not of the purported bloodlines, and I won't use him. If a horse can't get the proper signatures, perhaps the fees weren't paid, etc. If the fees HAVE been paid, but the paperwork has not been supplied, then other remedies are available.

The number of people I know who bought "cheap" horses that they later could not get the paperwork cleaned up on is LEGION.

Everything here is papered, as dealing in grades is just not the hallmark of a breeder.

This spring, some people bought one of Debut's first foals, a chestnut filly, NOW A SEVEN YEAR OLD MARE. She had sold at four months, so they got the all filled out application, changed her name from COVERT to SHEBA, and off they went. She passed to other hands, still in the general area, until finally this spring someone out of the area got hold of her. They pulled up with her in the trailer to see her parents, and showed me THE ORIGINAL APPLICATION, still not sent in! They showed them to me as they did not think they looked like a registration paper was supposed to look, but were not familiar with papers from the International Arabian Horse Association (IAHA).

I dug out a price sheet, and we sent it off. That's the longest I've ever had an app get passed around as if it were a registration paper. I had the animal right before me, so that I could verify that she indeed was the horse, and I knew the transfer history on her between the time of the original purchase and the owners standing in front of me. (I teach school, and one day, one of the students popped in, "Hey, we've got one of your horses now... SHEBA.")

Other times, I could not be sure the horse was the same one... Once when I was inspecting a mare's foal for registration with the Pinto Horse Association of America (PtHA), back when all horses were inspected at birth and at age two, I compared the pictures of the dam with the horse before me. On paper, she was a 15 hand (60") BUCKSKIN tobiano with a dark neck. Before me stood a 54" palomino pony with a white neck from two inches behind the ears...

I also do not furnish two breeding certificates for the same animal, as that allows more than one foal to be registered. Generally, when people buy a colt, we send in the paperwork right away. That way, it happens, and they get their papers with no trouble.

2) Proof of ownership: A horse's registration papers work in the same manner as a vehicle's title. When someone buys/breeds an animal, and transfers the papers into his name, he has created a legal document. I know of cases where stolen animals who were FREEZE MARKED with their registration number as well as registered were safely returned to their owners. Animals without registration papers can't be freeze marked, and are denied that protection. In cases of death or other disruptions of a breeder's activities, the papers allow people to dispose of the animals in a useful fashion, hopefully before some dire distress has befallen them.

3) Name Recognition: Farms, like other businesses, pump hundreds of advertising dollars into establishing their name.

One recent visitor commented, "Pandemonium. There are a lot of them around. We visited a farm yesterday that had some." I then pointed out the sire of one of the horses they were interested in that they had seen at the other farm. They got very excited and talked about him, petting him, watching him herd his mares away from the gate when we released the band... a positive experience for all. They later bought the other breeder's horse.

Breeders WANT folks to recognize when they have done their job well. A unique name allows folks to identify what you have created even when you are not right at their elbow to tell them what lines it is from.

Web promotion and access is a great boost, as by displaying photos of your stock and their ancestors, people can get a better feel for what you produce, where you've been, and where you are going. A unique name is searchable, which means people can find you.