Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinehaven  The point to the story being, that if AMHA strictly followed and enforced the standards as they were written originally written, the breed would have died out. Justin Morgan was a 14 hand, stocky built work horse. But by allowing the genes that were already in our horses (coming from of the various different mares who were bred to this one stallion) the morgan breed is now more than just a short, little dark horse with no white.
The breed standard has changed over the years - I don't believe color is even listed in the breed standard any longer but back in the 1990's the only colors listed in the standard was black, brown, bay and chestnut with the only white being in the form of sock, stocking, star, stripe, snip. |
The Yorkshire Terrier is in no danger of dying out without changing the standard, so the Morgan horse analogy isn't very useful. Plus, I'm not sure why a horse that had been around for 200 years needed a standard change (rescinding the high white rule) in 1996 to keep it from dying out. Or are there other changes you are referring to?
I will say that you got me to looking around, though. Apparently, there is no separate breed club that sets the standard for the Morgans (such as the YTCA) and no overall registry (as in AKC). The Morgan horse has its own registry that sets its own standard, if I'm reading it right.
A couple of things I did notice. If you go to the AMHA site
Morgan Ideal - AMHA, right at first you'll see 2 horses that are described as 'ideal'. Neither has the large areas of white. I did see some sites that has breeders advertising 'classic' Morgans, so there are those sticking with the old standard, whether the registry does or not.