Carlyle Morgans
Linda B. Merims
"The Morgan Horse", particularly the yellow sales supplement
article from the AMHA board of directors on what happened to
Maxine Snow? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
What a dilemna for the breed--in the SAME issue:
1992 World (sic) Champion In Hand Mare:
Carlyle Cwhateverhernameis (Fiddler's Trustee x Senora Showbiz Vona)
Maxine Snow of Carlyle Morgans expelled from AMHA membership over
not cooperating with the AMHA Directors in establishing the identity
of the Morgan mare Senora Showbiz Vona
So it appears a fair bet that the '92 Champion Morgan In Hand mare
is suspected of being only half Morgan.
Linda B. Merims
Dan Sugalski
: Did any of you Morgan folks out on the net read your December
: Linda B. Merims
That's what'll happen when people can't nbe satisfied with the wonderful
qualities of the breed that they have. Too bad. I love Morgans, and I
think that if you want a small Saddlebred, you should buy a small Saddlebred.
(I like Saddlebreds too, so that wasn't a slam.)
Karen
sbi...@desire.wright.edu
I know exactly what you mean. I was visiting the woman who is leasing
our old gelding and she was showing me her Morgan gelding. I'm glad she
told me it was a Morgan right up front, otherwise I would have stuck my
foot in it and said, "What a nice looking Saddlebred!"
The horse really does look Saddlebred, has the upright neck and is lean
looking. Doesn't look anything like I think a Morgan should look.
Sue
Karin L Tracy
(registering FIVE foals to a mare who was a Maiden mare at 25 yrs.),
we would have papers pulled before you could blink, and we would be
NEVER be allowed to regain membership or registry priviledges. There was
a photo of another harness horse with the same breeding winning it's
class...unbelievable! When I calm down, I intend to send a blast to
AMHA, and suggest other owners of Morgans do the same. We pay to
register and bloodtype to insure the purity of our breeding, and
then blatent falsifying of pedigrees gets a 3 yr. suspension of
priviledges. What doesthis say to other breeders or potential
customers? This is precisely what bloodtyping was meant to prevent!
Karin Tracy and THE MIGHTY MORGANS
>
Linda B. Merims
So, she can still register horses--she just has to pay the non-member
fee. She can apply for reinstatement after 3 years. Did I read
wrong?
The real tricky thing here is that I believe all five of these horses have
been sold. One of them has started a stud career. What do you
do with them? Penalize the owners? The article said nothing at
all about what would/would not be done with the horses. And since
Senora Showbiz Vona is now very dead, there may be no way to absolutely
prove that they aren't full-blood Morgans.
I've heard of other controversies--there are a number of breeders
up here who firmly believe that Chasley Superman was not a Morgan.
He was bred and foaled in New England. Quite a few people saw
him as a yearling. Then he was sold down to Arkansas. Many
years later he was sold and brought back up north. These people
say that the horse that came back from Arkansas was not the horse
that went down there. (This is in the 60s.) There was also a lot
of talk about Century Free Spirit, and some of the Bobbin Hollow horses.
Blood typing will take care of this eventually, but I guess there
are still ways to slip a few in under the wire.
I think I'll write to commend the AMHA Directors and the new
president for pursuing this. Evidently Maxine Snow is sueing them.
Does anybody know the AMHA member who signed their name to the
request to investigate?
Linda B. Merims
617...@lmsc5.is.lmsc.lockheed.com
Was that the item that included a note that they came to the farm to
inspect the animal and she was never "available"?
I don't know any more that I read in the article, but I find it shocking!
It would be interesting to see a follow up of what actually happened if
anyone ever finds out.
Do you think this could be an instance of trying to infuse Saddlebred
blood to get the longer taller look? I should look at my magazines and
see if she had that look. Didn't she (the horse) die, mysteriously?
Sad state of affairs!
Diane, Spring & Dancer
------------------------- Original Article -------------------------
>Subject: Carlyle Morgans
>From: l...@avs.com (Linda B. Merims)
>Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 23:28:49 GMT
>Sender: nob...@ctr.columbia.edu
>Lines: 22
Mary Ann Pike
>
>Was that the item that included a note that they came to the farm to
>inspect the animal and she was never "available"?
>
racing industry a few years ago. There was a horse called "Fred's Revenge"
that was cleaning up at the track. People became suspicious because of
the circumstances of the horse's birth, and the fact that he looked more
like a thoroughbred than an Arabian. Supposedly, the breeder owned a mare
and her colt, and the colt got loose and bred his dam in the pasture, which
produced Fred's Revenge.
I suppose the colt's blood must have been on record with the registry because
this has always been required, but, at that time, the dam's blood was not
required to be on record. They couldn't get the guy to voluntarily blood type
the mare, and when the registry started putting pressure on him, the mare
suddenly "died from poisonous plants in the pasture." Well, the registry
felt there was enough question about the parentage that it canceled the
horse's registration (I don't know what they did to the breeder).
There are always notices of horses being canceled in the Arabian Horse
Registry newsletter. If a horse is canceled, they also cancel its progeny.
I would imagine if you buy a horse and its registration is canceled, it's
up to you to go back and sue the breeder for selling the horse under
false pretenses. I think this will be happening a lot less frequently now
that the AHR requires sires and dams to be blood-typed, and also requires
foals to be blood-typed before they can be registered.
Mary Ann Pike (map...@sei.cmu.edu) and Robyn (14-year-old Arabian)
Software Engineering Institute & her June colt Baaskin Robyns
Carnegie-Mellon University (inquiries welcome for either)
Pittsburgh PA
Dan Sugalski
: I know exactly what you mean. I was visiting the woman who is leasing
: our old gelding and she was showing me her Morgan gelding. I'm glad she
: told me it was a Morgan right up front, otherwise I would have stuck my
: foot in it and said, "What a nice looking Saddlebred!"
: The horse really does look Saddlebred, has the upright neck and is lean
: looking. Doesn't look anything like I think a Morgan should look.
: Sue
I've had the same experience. :)
Karen
Linda B. Merims
December's Morgan Horse, you'll find no mention of this. All of the reports
have been in the yellow sales supplement that AMHA started sending
out with the magazine several months ago. At the back of the sales
supplement, the AMHA is putting in its quarterly report to members.
That's where this has been showing up.
This is the AMHA's version of the story, as I recall from the article:
- In the summer of '91 they received an anonymous letter saying that
Senora Showbiz Vona was a mare, who at age 25 was a maiden. From
25 on, she had produced five live foals in as many years. The anonymous
letter said the AMHA should check their computerized registry to see
if there was any precedent for this, should consult experts as to the
likelihood of this, and that if they ever paid an announced visit to
check on Senora Showbiz Vona, she'd likely have just died "like so many
others."
- Senora Showbiz Vona had been blood-typed at 25 when she started her
foaling career.
- The AMHA did a computer search of their registry and found SSV to be
unique. I believe she was also the only 25 year old maiden mare to
have ever produced a foal. They also consulted experts who said it
was possible but improbable for a 25 year old maiden mare to produce
a live foal, and improbable verging on impossible for such a mare
to produce 5 live foals in succession.
- The AMHA did nothing at this point.
- The AMHA received two more anonymous phone calls making the same point.
Then, an AMHA member signed their name to a complaint? request for
an investigation? At this point AMHA moved ahead.
- I don't remember if AMHA gave Carlyle notice that they would be
investigating.
- On December 14 '91, AMHA officials paid a surprise visit to Carlyle (in
New Hampshire) to re-blood type SSV and examine her against the description
on her registration papers. The owner said the mare was in Rhode Island.
She initially said they could go down to Rhode Island and look at her,
but then withdrew this offer after talking to her lawyer. Further
discussions produced an assurance of cooperation providing a blood or
hair sample from the mare.
- I don't remember exactly what happened next, but over the next several
months AMHA made repeated requests for the cooperation they were seeking.
I don't remember if they visited the farm again.
- In July '92 the AMHA received a notice of death from Carlyle for SSV. The
death notice said the mare had died on December 10 '91. Carlyle said
that they were unaware when AMHA visited them that the mare had already
died.
- AMHA evidently had affidavits from a few people saying that they had
had conversations with Carlyle in December and January in which they'd
been told the mare was in foal, with no mention of her being deceased.
AMHA has required blood typing for several years now. It started with
stallions, then included mares producing foals, and now includes every
horse being submitted for registration. The significance of the mare
being 25 is--and I am not saying that this is what happened, few will
ever know that--her sire and dam are probably dead and not available for
blood testing. Any full or half siblings could also be dead. If the
horse originally blood typed as SSV was not SSV, there would be no easy
way to confirm this. (Anybody know the state of blood-typing technology?)
She'd match up fine with her offspring, but would be vulnerable to an
actual physical inspection by a vet (teeth, etc.) The sad thing is
that all these factors also work against Carlyle--if SSV really was SSV,
relatives may be hard to find to prove it.
Linda B. Merims
Neal Bauer
the breed registry on a basis of trust in Morgan breeders and a belief in
their integrity. This can no longer be the case. The financial costs of
the legal battle have also put a great strain on the AMHA.
I think AMHA members will be receiving the written court decision in the
near future.
Neal
Karin L Tracy
617...@lmsc5.is.lmsc.lockheed.com
The Morgan Horse registry now requires everybody to be bloodtyped, but
that just started in 1992 I believe. Before that the stallion had to be
bloodtyped and maiden mares. I don't know when that requirement began.
As you probably know there is an ongoing "controversy" in the Morgan
world between "old type" and "new type". In my mind the old type is the
heavier bodied, smallish, draft type; very compact, muscular body. And,
once again in my mind, the new type is the longer, leaner, more saddle-
bredy type. Both are upheaded and have some similar traits that make
them definitely Morgan, but again they aren't alike. You have to see to
believe, I guess. And, again, that's my view. There are folks in the
Morgan world who believe the old type had the longer neck and were tall,
tall being relative. We're not talking Warmbloods here. 15.3H is a
fairly tall Morgan. Well anyway that's my opinion. And, as we've seen
with other breed (Quarter Horses that are almost pure Thoroughbred, etc.)
it does happen. I may be old fashioned/traditional, but I prefer the old
type (my version anyway- ;-) )
Happy Holidays All,
Diane, Spring (old type Morgan mare) and Dancer (her 20 month colt)
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