I sincerely and respectfully disagree that registered American Miniatures with pedigrees going back dozens of generations are not different from any grade animal under a meter tall.I've spent a decade and a half working on toward improving and proving a breed of horse, just the same as the more foresighted breeders of Quarter horses, Thoroghbreds, Missouri Foxtrotters and Paints have done over the years - and that does include outcrossing to set desired characteristics in the breed - and I know many people who have worked at this far longer.
Yes, its a "man-made" breed, but all breeds of horses are, up to and including the Caspians and Arabians.
I feel that hardshipping to allow for these two things, 1. desirable out-crosses and 2. paperwork issues, does not disqualify our chosen breed of horse from being recognized as less of a breed that either the aforementioned breeds, or any of the other dozens (if not hundreds) of breeds of horse listed in any reference on horse breeds.
I strongly feel that to continue to call this breed, which annually registers among the top ten breeds in the country, nothing but a "height-breed" is making little of both the serious longterm breeder and all those who have given so much time and effort into promoting the breed in shows and sport, and can only lead to devaluing all our efforts.
As far as choosing to define a breed as exhibiting a given set of characteristics, we are more and more being recognized as "different" from a grade pony by even the most casual observer, and the range of phenotype within the registries, meeting the breed standard varies not much more than is seen in the genetic drift of more common breeds mentioned above. They too have trends and types come in and out of fashion as one horse type proves to excel at a show, etc.
I'm not here to flame anyone else's opinion, I just want some to understand that this is my opinion on the subject, and it is does differ from what I so often hear.
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