Breeding, Government Regulation, and Marketing Cartel: Stallion Enrolment in the United States and Canada

The 1890 Report of the British Royal Commission on Horse Breeding laid the groundwork for a movement that sprung up in the early 20^th century across North America to regulate the breeding of horses through what was known as enrolment programs. The Commission set out to decide what forms of “unsoundness” or illnesses in horses resulted from hereditary transmission, and in doing so established a document that future horsemen and governments in various states in the United States and provinces in Canada could use to set standards for enrolment. But ideas concerning “heredity” in the pre-Mendelist period, not only remained impervious to the new attitudes emerging from embryonic genetics, but also became irrevocably entangled with a purebred breeding system that was based on culture and organization. Did purebred breeding reduce “hereditary” defects? Was quality in purebred breeding more important than avoidance of “hereditary” defects?  And who should be the judge of quality? All of these questions led to contentious reactions from horsemen as local governments attempted to restrict which stallions could stand for public service.

Quickly, the purebred breeders saw that the enforcement of purebred breeding as the standard by which stallions should be judged served their marketing interests well. Buyers resisted the pressure to enforce the use of purebred stallions by legislative activity, arguing that quality and “soundness” were not inherent in purebred horses. Purebred breeders were well organized, and managed to overcome the objections of ordinary horsemen; in the end governments legislated to enforce the use of purebred breeding in conjunction with the stipulations set out by the British 1890 report.

While I deal with the background to stallion enrolment across North America, I will concentrate on the situation that evolved in Ohio and Ontario, in order to illustrate in some detail the nature of the conflict.