Breeding Paint vs. Solid Bred Paint

Many people refuse to register, show or breed their Solid Bred Paints, for what reason? A horse, is a horse, is a horse whether it has color, is gaited, can pull 1500lbs or jump the puissance. So why is there so much controversy when it comes to breeding the Solid Bred Paints? There are multiple discussions on whether Solid Bred Paints should be allowed to breed because they carry no visible color. This goes back to the breed characteristic stating that 'color is only an identifying factor, conformation and bloodlines are significant factors'.

 So why not breed our Solid Breds?

If a SB stallion excels at his particular type of discipline, has a good disposition, championship bloodlines and is conformationally correct shouldn't there be a continuation of his bloodlines? The same goes for a SB mare with the same characteristics. If color is so very important, the problem is solved by breeding either SB mare or stallion to a homozyous mate which will ensure a colored foal.

 So again, what reason is there for excluding our 'colorless' horses, when in fact they can benefit the Paint breed by producing colored foals and continuing breat bloodlines, disposition and conformation?

However, if the SB sires and dams are not recognized by APHA and cannot show, and gain points and recognition through the society then there is no point in breeding for a colored foal because the parents have no recognition with the society and with bloodlines being so important, this again makes the foal worthless, color or not. Though it is my opinion that conformation, disposition and bloodlines are far more important than color.

I think it is absolutely ridiculous that horses that are 100% the same quality have to suffer because they werent born with 2" of white! I think part of the reason we have some VERY crappy horses out there is because people are so into color they forget about quality. There are hundreds of Homozygous stallions out there. Why are they stallions? Well certainly not because they have proven themselves in the show ring or are conformationaly correct. The ONLY reason is because they will throw a foal with color. If people keep breeding solely for color the Paint horse is going to become very inbred and conformationally incorrect, very fast. Color is not quality, breeders need to make sure they are looking at the quality of the conformation before the color aspect.

Please test your mares for OLWS. A majority of the overo horses in APHA are positive for OLWS. Breeding two positive horses gives you a 25% chance of receiving a lethal white foal.

Of course we understand the importance of “color” to the breed, but this gene is where it comes from. With APHA’S move to reinforce paint horse pedigrees, there will be more focus on the traditional paint horse bloodlines like our stallions. The alternative for many breeders is the foaling of solid bred paints which are not allowed to show “side by side” with Regular Registry Paint Horses.

Again, the same problem, trying to solve a killer gene, and yet the breeding of solid breds to help this gene disappear is again frowned upon.