One Point for Katie.

I gotta give it to her. I’m not sure when she made the change. Maybe it was after Ethel or when she bought Sophie but Katie has confirmed that at least Sophie is tested behind the scenes.

In the first photo she is admitting that Sophie is not panel clean. After a friend did some digging turns out her sire is a PSSM carrier. Which makes me believe Sophie is as well.

Now since Katie had said she wanted to do icsi with Sophie from the beginning I believe she was either tested early on or was sold with that information already known (in which case Katie would have gotten a good deal on Sophie so good for her). Now it finally makes sense to me why she would do ICSI with a mare who didn’t really compete at a high level. It’s because she can test her embryos and use clean ones. This is a very good and ethical thing Katie is doing and I wanted to share.

This also makes me believe that Beyoncé is negative for anything that takes one copy to effect the foal (like PSSM) we know she has a copy of HERDA through Peteys papers. If a horse carriers HERDA they will not be affected. If they carry two copies then they will. PSSM only requires one copy to effect the foal. If she’s isn’t genetic testing Beyoncé foals then she’s not worried about PSSM with Beyoncé. Which is good news.

(I want to make a quick note that breeding a carrier of Herda to a non carrier is a very common practice and most breeders do it because it doesn’t affect the foal. Just effects who you breed it to later down the road)

Now all this being said she’s testing her mares though UC Davis and not through AQHA. That’s not illegal and perfectly ok for her to do as long as she’s disclosing it to clients when asked. Just makes it a little annoying to us. Ethel on the other hand I don’t think is tested. I think she tested everyone after Ethel was determined to become a recip mare. I say this because Rosie’s owner stated Ethel was not tested when she talked to Katie. With only two living foals and one foal having already being confirmed clean (Piper) I can see why she didn’t test Ethel after Patrick. Do I think it’s right? Eh not really it would have saved Rosie’s owner a little bit of time and money but it would have been to prove for one horse that she doesn’t even own anymore so I can see the thought process of letting the owners get the test. Ethically should have been done before breeding but I’m giving her a tiny bit of praise in this post for improving so I’m going to move on 😂

So there you have it! Sorry for the long post there was a lot of thoughts running through my head about this and it’s hard to just make the statement without telling the whole story (and keeping new members in the panel testing drama up to day)