Dave Stefanic and Gary
Black
Thank goodness the signs of
spring are here, because we are all plenty tired of mud and the
cold. As we’re anxiously waiting for spring to arrive this 2008
season, we can surely dig out the leather and polish and get ready
to "be doin’ some serious riding again."
The KMSHA and SMHA are proud
of this 2008 Stallion Edition and hope it gets you excited about
doing what we know you love to do the best--riding and breeding our
Kentucky Mountain Saddle horses.
We certainly have outdone
ourselves this year by putting out our biggest (and we hope you
think) best Stallion Edition ever. It showcases the "top guns" of
our wonderful KMSH and SMH breeds. We both hope you enjoy every page
of this issue.
Now we’d like to challenge
you to help us grow our breed beyond everyone’s wildest
expectations.
In 2006 KMSHA and SMHA,
through the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority (KHRA), distributed over
$64,000 back to our breeders and exhibitors through our High-Point,
International Show, and Futurity programs as well as our Trail Rider
and Competitive Trail Groups. For 2007 we have been informed that we
have earned $74,000 for distribution by July 1, 2008, and it all
goes to our qualifying breeders and exhibitors--the KMSHA and SMHA
get absolutely none of the monies at all, not even for
administrative costs.
Every three years the
non-race breeds must submit a program to the KHRA together with
their counts of horses who comply as Kentucky bred horses and whose
stallions stand in the state of Kentucky to be eligible to receive
money from the program.
The Mountain Horse breeds
and associations have been directed by the KHRA to merge their
respective databases in order to come up with a way to make sure
each horse only gets counted once. The reason for this KHRA
directive of the Mountain Horses is one that is meant to be
completely fair to the other non-race breeds, who submit their total
eligible horses--each to be counted as only one unit (1x). This
would be considered to be in compliance with the KHRA rules and
regulations.
Non-Compliance will mean
that our (KMSHA and SMHA), as well as the RMHA, UMH, and MPHA
allotments of incentive funds from the state of Kentucky will be
distributed to the other non-race breeds instead. The result?
ALL Mountain horse associations
will receive nothing…not even a penny! We’re talking in round
numbers of over $200,000 per year of combined loss to the Mountain
Horse community!
At the KMSHA, we have tried
for over two years to cooperate with the other Mountain Horse
associations and to extend an offer of help and resources in order
to comply with the KHRA directive. So far, our offer has landed on
deaf ears.
On March 6, 2008, we wrote a
letter and sent it via e-mail to the directors of the other Mountain
Horse Registries to inform them of our concern that absolutely no
activity has yet to take place to merge our databases in order to
count our single, double, triple, and quadruple registered horses as
"one unit only,"
and to qualify for the next three years of the Kentucky Breeders
Incentive Program for 2009 and after. This "compliance directive"
from the KHRA (Kentucky Horse Racing Authority) NRBIF (Non-Race
Breeders’ Incentive Fund) must be implemented by the end of this
year (2008). As directors of the KMSHA and the SMHA, we believe it
is an "urgent and necessary matter."
The 2006-2008 distributions
have already been approved with leniency because we had pleaded that
we had no time to merge our horses to be counted once, since many of
our horses have multiple registrations. All the associations
received a 25% penalty for this non-compliance. But we were told
that this leniency won’t happen again in the future.
This brings us to the content
of our recent letter to our brother/sister Mountain Horse
associations shown below.
At this time, the Mountain
Horse associations have not even started to put their heads together
to work on a combination plan to be ready by the end of 2008.
Yes, we’ve already tried to get
the groups together several times over and yes they all have been
informed for months now by the KHRA of the consequences and nobody
has made the first move. We need to design a combination
database or something else to get the task done, but anything of
this magnitude will take time.
We don’t believe the members
and previous recipients of the incentive fund’s money want to see
this money disappear, but it will if all the organizations can’t
cooperate and get started soon on the process. We believe it is our
responsibility to commit our resources to get the job done for our
members, breeders and owners.
Now we’d like to challenge
you to get involved by writing to the board members of your
respective associations and asking them to cooperate with us in
order to help the ENTIRE Mountain Horse industry. It’s time to get
beyond KMSHA vs. UMH vs. RMHA vs. MPHA politics and think about the
future for the sake of our horses and additionally to help ourselves
during trying economic times.
If you want to help, please
write or call and tell your respective Mountain horse registry or
registries to get off their hands and get something going ASAP.
Let’s all work together as one in order to take advantage of this
program that will increase the numbers and quality of all our
Mountain Horses.
If you would like to know
more details about the Kentucky Non-Race Breeder Incentive Fund go
to
http://www.khra.ky.gov/breedersincentive . Click on the Non-Race
button on the left side of the screen.
So far this program has
already stimulated the economy by bringing horses and their owners
from all breeds to our state to relocate and collect their fair
share, as well as those competitors and exhibitors in our show and
trail rider incentive fund payback programs.
Here’s your chance to be a
mover and a shaker for yourself and your association. Good Luck,
remember Mountains can be moved!!!
Your Directors,
Dave & Gary
Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse
News
