American Paint Horse Association

The American Paint Horse Association (APHA) is a breed registry for the American Paint Horse. It is currently headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. It was founded in 1965 with the merging of two different color breed registries that had been formed to register pinto-colored horses of Quarter Horse bloodlines. One of these organizations was the American Paint Quarter Horse Association (or APQHA) and the other was the American Paint Stock Horse Association (or APSHA).

The APQHA was formed in 1961 in Abilene, Texas, mainly to register cropout horses from the matings of registered Quarter Horses. They also allowed the registering of non-cropouts ("solids") who had Quarter Horse conformation and bloodlines. The APSHA was formed in February 1962. The APSHA registration rules differed from APQHA in that they excluded gaited horses and mandated that horses that were mainly dark colored must have a minimum of three white spots three inches wide on their body, and that mostly white horses must have a dark spot at least six inches wide on their body. Both registries agreed to merge in 1965, although the APHA calls the APSHA its forerunner.

The need for these registries arose because, in the days prior to DNA parentage testing, the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) would not register horses with excessive white markings, sometimes called "cropouts", thinking that such markings were a sign of non-purebred breeding and was maintained for several decades because it was also feared that excess white increased the risk of horses producing a foal with lethal white syndrome (LWS). This policy was known as the "white rule." (The AQHA also would not register Appaloosa, cremello or perlino horses for similar reasons.) This policy arose in part from long observation of the tobiano spotting pattern, which is a dominant gene, and was known to not occur unless one parent is tobiano, a color not recognized in the foundation breeds, such as the Thoroughbred, that were the predecessors of the American Quarter Horse.

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