# AQHA/APHA DNA Testing



## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

I'd like to register my little boy under APHA and AQHA since those are what his parents are. How much would I cost to get a DNA test? His mom is a registered AQHA and dad APHA but I never got their papers so I don't know what their names are.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

daystar88 said:


> I'd like to register my little boy under APHA and AQHA since those are what his parents are. How much would I cost to get a DNA test? His mom is a registered AQHA and dad APHA but I never got their papers so I don't know what their names are.


You must know the names of the parents and have a signed transfer from the owner of the dam (whoever was her registered owner when she foaled the horse you intend to register). 

Also, you are only able to register with APHA from this cross. The only way to double register AQHA and APHA is if the registered APHA parent was also double registered AQHA. 

AQHA parent + APHA parent = APHA foal

AQHA/APHA double registered parent + AQHA parent = AQHA/APHA foal

AQHA/APHA double registered parent + APHA parent = APHA foal

^ that is how the current rules are, this is because while some APHA horses are pure quarter horse/thoroughbred mixture that AQHA allows, there is a lot of APHA horses that have something else from when APHA was an open registry that allowed colored stock type horses along with the quarter horses who couldn't be registered AQHA due to excessive white. A big clue as to whether or not an APHA horse at a glance could be have something other than quarter horse or thoroughbred lineage is if they or anyone in their ancestory has the tobiano pattern. Tobiano in APHA came from an outside source. The only way to register an APHA horse with AQHA after AQHA changed their rule on excessive white is to double register every horse behind them until both their parents are registered AQHA, this includes DNA on all their APHA ancestors and signed transfers of all those owners each of those horses ever had in their lives. This gets extremely expensive as someone has to pay for all the DNA testing (hopeless task if any of the APHA lineage died) and then to pay for all the owner transfers/AQHA membership for each of those owners for each and every APHA registered horse in the lineage. Very few APHA horses who were not out of two registered quarter horses have been able to be AQHA registered by getting all the DNA testing and owner transfers done for every single APHA horse in their lineage.


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## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

Oh wow okay. Thanks!


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

You CAN register him Pinto though, either solid or regular registry, if he's a gelding and meets the criteria.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> You CAN register him Pinto though, either solid or regular registry, if he's a gelding and meets the criteria.


If the colt is solid, a stallion report filed with PtHA is required which means the OP would need the registration info on the APHA sire (which they don't have since they never got the papers) and pay extra for a late stallion report. Unless the foal being registered is already registered with a recognized association that had a filed stallion report (AHA, AQHA, APHA, etc).

If the colt is pinto patterned and gelded, he can be hardship registered with PtHA without needing to know any information on sire and dam (since the OP is missing all that information), no stallion report required, costs $125, not as good as regular PtHA papers as it has substantially more limits if you want to show at PtHA shows but you would at least have some type of papers.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

(solid color with at least two Pinto characteristics, one colored parent within two previous generations or registered in an approved outcross registry) 

That's the criteria off the Pinto site. I was thinking as a gelding they'd do it but appears they won't, unless he's got full color. Mine are all reg'd with another registry so I don't have to deal with all the rigamarole, so I was mixed up.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> (solid color with at least two Pinto characteristics, one colored parent within two previous generations or registered in an approved outcross registry)
> 
> That's the criteria off the Pinto site. I was thinking as a gelding they'd do it but appears they won't, unless he's got full color. Mine are all reg'd with another registry so I don't have to deal with all the rigamarole, so I was mixed up.


Yep, and they require stallion reports for normal PtHA registration (hardship registration is the only way to register without one), whether it is a stallion report through PtHA or if they are already registered with an approved registry that had a stallion report). Read their rules a few times for forum members wanting to register a pinto horse and because I have also helped my mom register a filly with PtHA who was already registered HAHR which meant she didn't have to file a stallion report with PtHA. 

Since the sire is the one who is APHA registered but the OP has no papers, those papers would have to be found and transferred in order to register a foal of his as PtHA (without doing the lesser hardship registration). And if the OP were to get his papers and have him transferred, the foal still couldn't be registered APHA without the dam's papers and proper signatures. APHA doesn't like it when horses are sold and papers are not transferred to the new owner in a timely fashion. 

It would be wonderful and yet frightening if you could register any foal with a simple DNA test (without even knowing the parents' names as the registry would locate them by DNA for you). Wonderful because it would be easy to register horses whose parents ended up with lost papers. Frightening because so much more bad would come about. One backlash of cutting out the need for papers and signatures for registering offspring would be that stallion owners would stop shipping semen as they would have no way to control how many mares were inseminated from a single shipment as all the owner of the mares would need is a DNA test to prove parentage for registration without needing all their mares listed on the stallion's breeding report or require the signature of the stallion owner at the time of breeding in order to be able to register each foal.


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## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

My plan is to get Cowboy a DNA test to find his parents registered names. With that information, I'll know their last owner who had them WITH papers and I'll be asking them to transfer them over so I can register Cowboy under APHA. I do not plan on gelding him at this point so PtHA wouldn't be an option. 

We don't ship semen at all so we don't need to worry about that. Plus Smokey was the only stallion with her for a 5 months from the time she was bred with was June 24th and he was born June 20th. I'm 100% positive Smokey is the sire.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

SunnyDraco said:


> Yep, and they require stallion reports for normal PtHA registration (hardship registration is the only way to register without one), whether it is a stallion report through PtHA or if they are already registered with an approved registry that had a stallion report). Read their rules a few times for forum members wanting to register a pinto horse and because I have also helped my mom register a filly with PtHA who was already registered HAHR which meant she didn't have to file a stallion report with PtHA.


The stallion report thing is crazy confusing with Pintos. I bred Skippy (AQHA only) to Patti (PtHA only, though she could have been NSH if I'd wanted to spend all that money) and produced Chippy (only PtHA eligible). So, I duly sent in a stallion report as required of old, and they sent the money back to me and said it wasn't necessary. All I had to do was to fill out the Breeder's Certificate on the registration app and send in 4 pics of her and we were good. I asked about other foals I've bred for this year and was told the stallion report is no longer necessary. BUT IT'S STILL IN THE RULE BOOK AS BEING MANDATORY, FEE LISTED AND SO ON.

They've also changed their registration fees so that the solid reg is the same as the full color reg. It didn't used to matter when you reg'd a solid, it was $15. Now, I just did Ducati's before Color Congress, it's the same as the full color horses and cost me $80 because he was 2. Won't make THAT mistake again, that boy has some of the most expensive registration fees I've ever spent. 

And DON'T get me started on the DNA testing and such for these various registries! HOLY COW! First, Skippy was born and is an Impressive descendant, so had to be DNA'd to find his HYPP status, N/N. But they evidently didn't require his PARENTAGE DNA test at that time (if you did hand or pasture breeding they didn't/don't). 

Then they decided the 5 panel is mandatory for breeding stallions, so I did that TWICE because I had already done it through Animal Genetics BEFORE it was a requirement and they won't accept it. Gosh, guess what? Davis got the exact same results they did, surprise!!

And now I got letters in the mail and I need to PARENTAGE DNA all of my QHs because it didn't used to be required to DNA test them when they were born but now it is. So in order to register my foals next year, I have to parentage verify all of the involved horses, Skippy, Goldie (and Pepi was included in that). So how much money am I up to now? 

Then I had to do the SAME Tests for APHA to reg Ducati and of course by the time I got everything back, he was late on his reg for PHBA and PtHA so I paid extra for those registrations.........I forget exactly how much I spent but I think his registrations and all the testing just for HIS reg was close to $500. 

So, you want to know why a good, registered (or in Ducati's case triple reg'd and Twoey is double reg'd) is darn expensive? Look at all the FEES! I know you get all this Sunny, AHA isn't cheap but lemme tell ya, these other registries are making it look downright reasonable. Oh and don't forget, all of these registries require Membership to do anything, or they charge a fee that's an equivalent to membership each time you do something......Yeah......My wallet gets sore!


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

daystar88 said:


> My plan is to get Cowboy a DNA test to find his parents registered names. With that information, I'll know their last owner who had them WITH papers and I'll be asking them to transfer them over so I can register Cowboy under APHA. I do not plan on gelding him at this point so PtHA wouldn't be an option.
> 
> We don't ship semen at all so we don't need to worry about that. Plus Smokey was the only stallion with her for a 5 months from the time she was bred with was June 24th and he was born June 20th. I'm 100% positive Smokey is the sire.


Most registries are not able to test a DNA sample against their entire database to tell you which horse is the parent. APHA and AQHA are seperate registries so even if you sent in DNA to one and they could run a test against their database, it would only tell you one parent. You would have to be able to run DNA against the databases for both AQHA and APHA and hope the dam and sire both had DNA on file as it hasn't always been required. I highly doubt that AQHA and APHA will run DNA against their entire database to locate parentage. 

My mom got stuck not being able to register a filly with AQHA because there was a person who had bad contact information (no way to locate) that needed to sign papers and pay a fee. Didn't matter that everything else was in order for the papers including DNA test on the filly, AQHA had outdated/bad contact information on one person and so the filly could not be registered. 

At this point you have grade horses because you don't have papers. You might want to talk to customer service for both AQHA and APHA and ask if you can run the DNA test for both the AQHA dam and the APHA sire to identify who they are and who they were last registered to which may or may not be dead ends depending on how current contact information is and if they are still living. I personally doubt they both have that ability, most registries cannot test against their entire database. If you can run DNA on the parents against the entire databases on AQHA and APHA, find both parents and get transfers from their last recorded owners, you have won the powerball lottery. It will also be very expensive if you can identify the mare and stallion by DNA alone, you have a better chance of identifying by DNA if you at least have an idea of their registered names are so the DNA can be run against names similar and hope there is DNA on file to test against. 

I am not sure why you mentioned shipped semen? I was talking about a giant backlash to the entire breeding industry if you could register by DNA alone without all the paperwork and signatures.


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## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

SunnyDraco said:


> Most registries are not able to test a DNA sample against their entire database to tell you which horse is the parent. APHA and AQHA are seperate registries so even if you sent in DNA to one and they could run a test against their database, it would only tell you one parent. You would have to be able to run DNA against the databases for both AQHA and APHA and hope the dam and sire both had DNA on file as it hasn't always been required. I highly doubt that AQHA and APHA will run DNA against their entire database to locate parentage.
> 
> My mom got stuck not being able to register a filly with AQHA because there was a person who had bad contact information (no way to locate) that needed to sign papers and pay a fee. Didn't matter that everything else was in order for the papers including DNA test on the filly, AQHA had outdated/bad contact information on one person and so the filly could not be registered.
> 
> ...


I did talk to both AQHA and APHA and they told me they could run the test and have it under one price to make it easier. What I was told would happen is APHA would get their results and then send the sample to AQHA to do the test next. I am willing to pay for whatever it is to get him registered. And to be honest, I know it's difficult to locate owners and such so I'm praying I do win the powerball lottery here. 
Sadly, I don't know the parent's registered names, only that they were both born in 2002 and the sire was related to Mr Gunsmoke which is why they named him Smokey. Smokey also had smoke or smoky in his registered name as well I was told by the woman who last had his papers.

I meantioned shipped semen thinking you thought that's what we did. That's why.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

The one good thing about all the DNA testing for APHA & AQHA is they both use UC Davis. Depending on their contract with them, if Davis ran DNA on that foal, it may be accessible to both sides. BUT....... if he was conceived live cover and reg'd that way, they may not have required any DNA testing, to register him.

Have I mentioned recently how much I hate this 'new, improved' version of the forum? With its freezing and skipping and nonsense? Tata for now, I'll try again later Maybe.


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## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> The one good thing about all the DNA testing for APHA & AQHA is they both use UC Davis. Depending on their contract with them, if Davis ran DNA on that foal, it may be accessible to both sides. BUT....... if he was conceived live cover and reg'd that way, they may not have required any DNA testing, to register him.
> 
> Have I mentioned recently how much I hate this 'new, improved' version of the forum? With its freezing and skipping and nonsense? Tata for now, I'll try again later Maybe.


You aren't the only one with that problem on this forum.. It's been happening to me non stop!

If they both use UC Davis then it shouldn't be a problem. I don't know his parent's registration names and a DNA test was my only hope of finding out.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

daystar88 said:


> You aren't the only one with that problem on this forum.. It's been happening to me non stop!
> 
> If they both use UC Davis then it shouldn't be a problem. I don't know his parent's registration names and a DNA test was my only hope of finding out.


Don't hold your breath, it's a slim chance at best. Neither of them has been real on the ball with the DNA thing, they're just now starting to really get behind it and use it to some kind of potential. I hope they can help you.


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## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> Don't hold your breath, it's a slim chance at best. Neither of them has been real on the ball with the DNA thing, they're just now starting to really get behind it and use it to some kind of potential. I hope they can help you.


I'm crossing my fingers they can help. And thank you! It's the only way I know to register my baby boy.


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

"At this point you have grade horses because you don't have papers. You might want to talk to customer service for both AQHA and APHA and *ask if you can run the DNA test for both the AQHA dam and the APHA sire to identify who they are and who they were last registered to which may or may not be dead ends depending on how current contact information is* and if they are still living. I personally doubt they both have that ability, most registries cannot test against their entire database. If you can run DNA on the parents against the entire databases on AQHA and APHA, find both parents and get transfers from their last recorded owners, you have won the powerball lottery. It will also be very expensive if you can identify the mare and stallion by DNA alone, you have a better chance of identifying by DNA if you at least have an idea of their registered names are so the DNA can be run against names similar and hope there is DNA on file to test against." Quote from a prior post.

This I can answer - you cannot send in the baby's DNA looking for a match as he has never been registered so his DNA is not on file. In order for them to find a horse, the actual horse has to be in the database. This is for both APHA and AQHA. They can't say X horse is related to Y or Z without X being in the database. As long as the actual horse you are testing is in the database then they can give you a name and you can look up the information you need. Mom is AQHA so you send her hair to them and if she was DNA typed then they give you her name and you can look up last recorded owner. Same for Dad. Pull hair send to APHA and for $60 they can tell you his name if he is in the database. Then you look up his last recorded owner. File all the requisite paperwork for both sire and dam, register the mare with APHA, add late fees and then you can register baby. I've been this route with one mare and it still took two years to track down everyone I needed a signature from and cost a small fortune to get her registered so I could register her babies. I was extremely lucky that both her parents were DNA typed as APHA does not have the rules in place AQHA does. Depending on the age of the sire and dam and breeding history there may not be DNA on file for them in which case you will not be able to find out what you need. As a pp said like hitting the lottery. Hopefully you will.
ETA to clarify - the mare will not have APHA registration papers she will just be listed as eligible to have her babies registered APHA as long as there is an APHA sire.


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## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

QtrBel said:


> "At this point you have grade horses because you don't have papers. You might want to talk to customer service for both AQHA and APHA and *ask if you can run the DNA test for both the AQHA dam and the APHA sire to identify who they are and who they were last registered to which may or may not be dead ends depending on how current contact information is* and if they are still living. I personally doubt they both have that ability, most registries cannot test against their entire database. If you can run DNA on the parents against the entire databases on AQHA and APHA, find both parents and get transfers from their last recorded owners, you have won the powerball lottery. It will also be very expensive if you can identify the mare and stallion by DNA alone, you have a better chance of identifying by DNA if you at least have an idea of their registered names are so the DNA can be run against names similar and hope there is DNA on file to test against." Quote from a prior post.
> 
> This I can answer - you cannot send in the baby's DNA looking for a match as he has never been registered so his DNA is not on file. In order for them to find a horse, the actual horse has to be in the database. This is for both APHA and AQHA. They can't say X horse is related to Y or Z without X being in the database. As long as the actual horse you are testing is in the database then they can give you a name and you can look up the information you need. Mom is AQHA so you send her hair to them and if she was DNA typed then they give you her name and you can look up last recorded owner. Same for Dad. Pull hair send to APHA and for $60 they can tell you his name if he is in the database. Then you look up his last recorded owner. File all the requisite paperwork for both sire and dam, register the mare with APHA, add late fees and then you can register baby. I've been this route with one mare and it still took two years to track down everyone I needed a signature from and cost a small fortune to get her registered so I could register her babies. I was extremely lucky that both her parents were DNA typed as APHA does not have the rules in place AQHA does. Depending on the age of the sire and dam and breeding history there may not be DNA on file for them in which case you will not be able to find out what you need. As a pp said like hitting the lottery. Hopefully you will.
> ETA to clarify - the mare will not have APHA registration papers she will just be listed as eligible to have her babies registered APHA as long as there is an APHA sire.


I did talk to both AQHA and APHA and told them the situation and they told me I could still get a test done. They said it would be easier if I know who the parents were, but since I don't they said they's run the test to find a match.


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Please any genetic (or math probability) experts step in as it has been 30 years since my animal genetics and while I have kept up somewhat I am not nor do I claim to be an expert, it is my understanding that there are twelve specific gene markers used to identify a horse. Each marker consists of a pair of alleles and represents a donation from the sire and dam. Each marker named is location specific on the strand. They use the size of the actual donation (allele) to determine matches. So lets look at an example from just a few markers. Results are based on exclusion not inclusion and in the end you may likely have several prospects included. Say the foal has the following 
A 50/72
B 101/97
C 72/65
D 89/64
Keep in mind in 2002 there were approximately 156,000 new QHs in the registry but they do not separate the DNA by year so there are exponentially more horses used to compare to and as they are all QHs they are all related to some degree. If you only gave a sample from the foal for comparison you would have to include every horse that had both or either one of the alleles from the markers from each pair. SO any horse with A50/72 would match as would any horse with A 50/? or A 72/? That could be thousands upon thousands of horses. To narrow it down they add more markers. So they take the pool from marker 1 (A) and look at marker 2 (B) any horse that has one match from A and one match from B is included in your potential with all others being 100% excluded. Your pool of matches would now include any horse with one match from A and either B101/97 or BA101/? or BA97/? and be somewhat narrower. You would continue with each marker until you went through all twelve. The more number of offspring any closely related horse has increases the number of potential matches so if there are famous horses that were used for large numbers of breedings in the pedigree you increase the number of potential matches. Since you only gave the foal sample you cannot determine which allele came from sire and which from dam. There could be a small reduction since you would compare the foal to the AQHA data for the mare only and to the APHA data base for the sire only meaning you would only include matching females from AQHA and matching males from APHA but both would have to have at least one allele from each set though some may match both. It won't narrow it down to just one horse. Now if they will cross check the matches with year born, color and sex they would decrease the pool even further but you could still have more than one match. If the parents have never been DNA typed though even if there is a horse that matches it would not be the horse and you wouldn't know that. The simplest way is to get samples from each parent and send them in. They will run those against their database for an exact match which they can easily do. If they find an exact match you have the information you need to proceed for that horse if they don't then you know your baby cannot be registered. You do know where the two horses are, correct? So asking the new owner to pull samples could be done and sent in if they will cooperate. For AQHA if your mare was born after 1989 then she had to be typed to register her foals. If this is her first foal (first foal to be registered) or if her dam was born prior to 1989 then she may not be in the database. If the sire has registered offspring then he is in the database as that is a requirement of APHA but if none of his offspring have been registered then there was no requirement to for DNA typing and he may well not have DNA on file. I have been told they don't do this but who knows they may decide in some cases it is warranted. In the case of my mare she was in the database so they had an exact match. I wasn't looking for parents. I was told she was registered so I was specifically looking for her. That info gave me her breeder and list of owners. I would suspect though that once they have a list of potentials they will require a parent verification to be done with the registration. As it is I can't imagine them offering this based on the amount of time and resources they would need to use. I wish you the best of luck with this which ever way you proceed and look forward to the results.


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## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

I do know the person who has both parents and could ask them to send in a sample instead of Cowboy. It would narrow the search down by a lot since they are both registered. I'd pay for it, but she'd send it in.


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

That would be the way I would proceed. That way you know right off if there is DNA on file for the mare and stallion and would have their names so you could see their pedigrees. Just because they are registered does not mean they have DNA on file. If they do have DNA on file then you can get the list of owner's and their info and get everything transferred as long as addresses are good and past owner's cooperate..


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