Talking Registry: Breed Standard Evaluations

S1, E22 of the Brabant Bulletin is a "Talking Registry" installment with host Stacy Pearsall and EBRA Registrar, Rebecca Courtney. Topics covered are the "Breed Up" program, the Qualified Mare program, and Breed Standard Evaluations. Tune in to learn about the importance of genetic diversity to breed preservation and how the EBRA maintains standards while promoting heterosis. 

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This is the Brabant Bulletin brought to you by the European Brabant Registry of America, where people, passion and preservation are our mission. Welcome, Brabanters. I'm Stacy Pearsall. Today I am with our Registrar, Rebecca Courtney, to do some “talking registry.” Welcome to the show, Rebecca. Hey, Stacy. It's good to talk to you. Same. I know last time we talked, we were really diving into the the stud books that the EBRA offers. And we kind of touched lightly on the European Brabant Stock sort of being one of those feeder stud books for the breed up program and the qualified Mare program. But we didn't dive into that. We were kind of pushing that off for a later date. So I figured we would kind of pick back up where we left off and dive a little bit more into that. So, Rebecca, can you talk to me a little bit about the Brabant Stocks studbook first? let's recap that, and then we'll go into the programs that we sort of offer around that. Yeah. So just as, a summary, the stock stud book is open to horses with at least 47% verified European Brabant heritage. And that basically means that one of their parents has to be or the equivalent of one of their parents has to be, purebred, European Brabant. And then the balance of their pedigree has to come from a heavy draft breed. That would be, say, your Percherons, your Suffolks, your American Belgians. it would not include a light horse cross. It wouldn't include cross with a cob. So a small draft such as a Gypsy Vanner or a Halflinger or, but those, those large heavy draft breeds are what qualify, for that Brabant Stock cross. And then these horses in the stud book are really, the foundation of our breed up program. So we recognize that there are not a lot of purebred European Brabants certainly in North America, but even globally, in the big picture of things, and a small population can present some challenges when it comes to things like inbreeding, but and just having your genetics too closely related. So the breed up program really allows people to out cross those purebred onto some other breeds to gain some of the benefits of, of genetic diversity and heterosis. And then they can continue to breed those offspring to purebred European Brabant increasing the percentage of European blood each generation until you reach purebred status. So that Brabant stud books Brabant stock said, excuse me, is really the the holding place for those horses that are not considered purebred European Brabants, but we recognize that heritage and the, the owner, their goals to, to kind of, work towards purebred status. Okay. Is there anything that would disqualify a horse from maybe being included in the Brabant stock, aside from being, say, a light draft, like you mentioned, a Fjord or Halflinger or Gypsy? Other than that, was there any other disqualifiers? There is nothing that would necessarily disqualify a horse from being in the Brabant Stock stud book. One thing that we do try and make people aware of is that when you get to a horse with purebred, blood status, which is 93.75% or greater, that horse cannot have any non-conforming colors or patterns. So it can't, for example, have tobiano or a cream gene. so you do have to be a little bit careful, because those genes can carry through the generations. if you, for example, use used a spotted draft cross, and that tobiano gene continued to carry through the generations. That horse would not be eligible for purebred status, in the future. So it doesn't necessarily disqualify them from being a Brabant Stock horse, but, genetically, you just want to be a little bit careful with some of those colors and patterns that aren't standard to the breed, that you're not propagating that through the generations. Right? Well, and there is a home we have the Appendix Record for horses who are non-conforming in the color type. Absolutely. Yep. great. So when we are having people using their Brabant Stock horses, let's say I've got one. She's 75%. I breed her to a purebred. Her offspring is 88%. So she just turned two and, obviously is now at the age where she's eligible for an evaluation to become a qualified mare. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So qualified mares are Brabant Stock mares that are at minimum 87.5% European blood. and these horses, when mated to a purebred stallion, have the capability of producing offspring with the blood percentage to qualify as purebreds. now, before a horse will be admitted to the purebred stud book from the breed up program, they have to pass a breed standard evaluation, which is basically, a review from trained and qualified committee members who take a look at that horse and say, does this horse reflect the pure bred breed type that we're going for? so any horse that is entering the purebred stud book will undergo this evaluation, with one exception. If an owner has what we call a qualified mare, so she is 87.5% or greater, European doesn't qualify for the purebred stud book, but she can undergo that breed standard evaluation. And if the mare is deemed up to purebred breed type, she's designated a qualified mare and those offspring are out of Purebred registered sires can just go straight into the purebred stud book without having to undergo an additional evaluation. it's kind of a way to. So say you have, you know, let's take your filly, for example. she's got her whole life ahead of her. So she produces, I don't know, 8 to 10 foals in the future, rather than putting every single one of those foals through the breed standard evaluation process. You can just have the mare evaluated. And if she is deemed purebred quality, that will eliminate the need to go through that process with every every foal that she produces. Now for evaluations, whether breed up or through a QM evaluation, what kind of things are required for that process? Yeah. So there there's a whole page on the website dedicated to the breeder program and those QM evaluations. So anyone who's interested should definitely take a look at that because that will provide a lot of really helpful information. But but the short version is, you will submit an application for a breed standard evaluation, which just basically covers the details of the mare. You know, her, her name, her registration number, height, weight, any infor background information that you want to provide. You know, are you sending me a picture of a mare that's ten months in foal? Because she may, you know, there may be some things we know on her that wouldn't necessarily be the case if she wasn't that pregnant. that kind of thing. So first, I'll submit the application. And along with that application come a set of conformation photos, which are basically every side of the horse left view, right view, front, back, and a headshot. there will be a short video where the horses just tied or standing, and you do a 360 degree walk around. So that lets us see some things that maybe in a a still image, it's hard to capture because that's just one split second in time. and then in addition to the 360 walkaround, there will be a movement video, which is showing the horse at a walk and at a trot, both from the side and then walking and trotting away and back. And again, the the webpage provides a wealth of detail and examples of these photos and videos. so anyone wanting to do it should definitely take a look at that, because that's really helpful information. and then the other key component that doesn't necessarily go with the evaluation application itself, but that does have to be done, is, a full color and pattern panel. And this gets back to the question we had earlier about things that would disqualify a horse. and if we find any of those color genes that don't fit with a purebred Brabant that would disqualify that, that horse from passing the evaluation. so all of that information can be submitted. You submit the application, and then we'll send you a link to a folder where you can upload the photos and videos. and really the breed standard evaluation is looking certainly at confirmation. That's a huge part of it. And how the horse reflects, the European Brabant standard. But we're also taking a look at things like movement. And does this horse, have maybe some of those hitch horse genes carried through from their Percheron lineage and they're moving a little bit too high kneed and too much action for for breed standard. And also looking at temperament. Does the horse appear to exhibit the mind and the gentleness that the breed is known for? they're not crazy and flighty and taking off. So really trying to dig into how well this horse reflects a purebred European Brabant both in their build and in their mind and and their character. Hello, Brabanters Joe here. Did you know that the European Brabant Registry of America has a ton of colorful, artfully crafted graphic tees? The feature our favorite heavy horse. I'm wearing one right now in medium because it makes my muscles look big. Just kidding. It's a child's large. When you get your hands on some merch, visit EuropeanBrabant.com/merchandise to start shopping today. Your purchase will support the EBRA’s breed preservation efforts, so be sure to get a few for your friends while you're at it. Again, that's Europeanbrabant.com/merchandise. And now back to the show, do badda da bop pop up a dub dub dub dub dub dub. Yeah. Now, if somebody is at home thinking, I don't know if my horse qualifies for either of these because I don't know my horse's percentage. how do you go about calculating that? Is there any tips that you can give for people who are listening? yeah. Well, if your horse is out of registered stock, the easiest thing to do is to track down the percentage of the parents. and just average them. So add those two numbers together and divide by two. if your horse is, say, Belgian Corp registered and, you know, they don't use percentages the same way that we do as the Brabant registry, you are welcome to email me, Registrar@europeanbrabant.com and provide a copy of that pedigree. And I'm happy to help trace back. it's not a difficult process, but it can be a little bit complex just sorting through which horses were imported and which were, US bred and how that plays into their percentages. But, yeah, certainly if the parents are registered, it's very easy to just just average those numbers together. Okay. those who are members of the EBRA have access to Grassroots. Is there any quick, down and dirty way to ascertain a horse's percentage on Grassroots? if you go into Grassroots and search for the sire and the dam, you should be able to click into their record and it will show their percentage. Well, for anybody who's out there who is a member of the EBRA and you have access to your grassroots system, which is one of the benefits you can go on to your profile, click on any one of your horses and pull up their pedigree. You'll be able to, to see their registration. It is going to also tell you, what percentage there is on their profile. So right now I am looking at my little filly, Agnes, her sire, which happens to be Rebecca's sire or stallion. Chris and I'm. I see he's 100% under his listing. Now, if you're going to try and do a test, a mating feature, you can pull up any one of your your mares. All again, I'll just use Agnes here and, then I will search for a male. the thing is, within this system, within the grassroots system, you're going to kind of have to know what stallion you're looking for to perform a search against, your mare, and that will kick out, you know, whether they're a good match or not. based on overlapping inbreeding that Rebecca was talking about, because this breed is quite small. This feature helps us to avoid certain bloodlines that may overlap with ones that we have on our farms. that said, it's not going to spit out a percentage for you if you were to pair them, so you have to do that homework yourself ahead of time. Yeah, yeah. Crossing those, crossing those two horses obviously comes status is 87.5%. So that will tell you if the offspring would qualify to be a qualified mare. And then if you are, if you have a qualified mare and you're wondering about her offspring, you want to just take a look and see if the resulting foal will be 93.75% or greater. if you're wondering who is looking at these horses. we've recently kind of revamped the evaluation program, and we have a committee of every members who have volunteered to be a part of the evaluation committee. they've gone through some breed standard training that was provided for us, from Monique in Belgium, who is one of the certified judges of the Belgian horses. so some pretty in-depth discussion there of what what constitutes correct confirmation. and then some, some training, you know, together as a group to just make sure everybody's kind of on the same page. so those that committee is the first line of evaluation. when you submit that application, it will go to three committee members who will take a look at it on several different parts of the horse. You know, we really tried to break it down into scoring the head, the neck, the the feet and legs, the hindquarters. and and assign a, a score to that horse. If for some reason a horse does not pass the breed's standard evaluation, the owner does have the option to apply for, well, to. Sorry to appeal that decision. and apply for an evaluation by a breed expert. a lot of times we use Monique. If she's not available, we have some some backup evaluators who can help with that. so there is an appeal process if if a horse were not to pass. one of the most helpful tips that I can give folks is, you know, the European Brabant is a slow maturing breed. So obviously, if you're going to breed a three year old mare, you kind of want to know, has she passed this evaluation or not? If you're not breeding or you're not in a hurry, a lot of times just giving that horse an extra year or two to really fill out and reflect the breed standard can really help their scores. if you know if they're marginal or don't pass the first time, you can wait a year or more and and do that evaluation again. Yeah, that's a fair point I think right in the handbook as well. The revision also allocated one reevaluation. So if your horse is a juvenile, let's say you submitted a horse that's 24 months or 36 months. And, you know, they were right on the line but didn't pass the inspection. you have the ability to wait one. You have to wait at least one full year before you can submit to have that horse reevaluated by the committee. You know, that's if you don't want to jump to an outside judge, you're more than welcome to push your horse right up through, to the, outside. Inspector. But that decision is final. So if you give your horse time to, to mature, whether that's a year or two years. And as Rebecca said, it takes so much time for these guys to actually fill out, you know, then you can have the evaluation committee look at them again. And of course, at that point, you know, given it, you're you're going to want to re accomplish all the photos and the videos. You don't have to redo your DNA because that's obviously a one time test, but you will have to redo the media stuff that goes for the application. Correct. If you want to learn more about the breed standard evaluations, please visit the website. Hit europeanbrabant.com/breed-standard-evaluations and that'll bring you to the evaluation space. Or you just go to the main page. Go to that top toolbar under programs. You'll see them both listed there. If you have any questions, feel free to email Rebecca, our Registrar at registrar@europeanbrabant.com. until next time, everybody. I'm Stacy. we've been lucky to have Rebecca on with her time talking registry. And until next time, remember to ride a Brabant is to fly without wings.