There are many different benefits to participating in Assessment Tours.  It all depends on what your end goals are. Getting an independent classifier to go over your foal/pony/horse for an honest assessment of your horse’s conformation and movement/ridden or jumping styles, helps you as the owner to find the right discipline best suited to it’s conformation/movement.  And or this helps you to find the perfect home for your horse (if you are planning to sell).  You can use the scores to promote the sale and many people like to buy horses that have been independently assessed.  It really is quite useful for many areas of owning/breeding horses.

Time and again disputes occur as to who the rightful breeder of a horse is. Often these disputes do not arise at the time the foal is registered with a studbook, but when said foal has grown into an athlete that competes and performs successfully at top level.
Arguments can be made that the person responsible for the creative pairing of pedigrees should be considered the breeder, or that the person who registers the foal with a studbook is its breeder. But there are many grey areas, for instance embryos that are purchased & carried to term in surrogate mares. Is the breeder the person that was responsible for the conception of the embryo? Or the owner of the mare at the time the foal was registered, even if the mare in this case is not even the biological dam of the foal?
Due to disputes that have occurred in relation to this issue not only between breeders but also between studbooks, the WBFSH has often been called upon to make a statement as to who the rightful breeder of a horse is. At the last two joint meetings of the WBFSH board and executive committee this issue was debated in depth. Following these deliberations, the WBFSH recommends that:

“Unless there was a contractual agreement at the time of sale of a pregnant mare, whereby the rightful breeder of the foal in utero sold with the mare is clearly defined, the rightful breeder of a foal is the entity that owned and/or had full rights to the mare (in the case where a mare may be leased for a breeding season) and registered the foal upon its birth with a studbook to obtain registration papers.”

You don’t need to be a member to have your foal or horse assessed in the Tour.

Yes we do.

To be classed as an ACE Warmblood it has to contain 25% warmblood.

Percherons are classed as Cold Bloods, TB and Arabs are classed as Hot bloods.

If it has 50% Percheron, 25% Hot blood, and 25% Warmblood it can go into the Warmblood register.  If there is no Warmblood breeding then the horse or foal can go into our Sporthorse Register.

You don’t have to be there. We can go to where the mare and foal is. We just need someone to show us the foal. You can enter them over the internet on the ACE webpage or by ringing the ACE office.

You don’t need to be registered to enter in the tour. Conversely, it’s not a requirement to have a horse assessed to be registered. You can register your horse without an assessment.

No, the mare does not have to be assessed, but it’s a good idea to have the foals assessed. And no, you don’t need to be a member of ACE Group Inc. to have your horse assessed but there is an extra fee of $30 for non members.  Registrations of horses are a members only service.

If you say “YES” to this question, then we will arrange to have the ACE Brand with us on the Assessment Tour. It is important that you have a gas bottle on hand as we can’t do the branding without it. If your horse needs to be sedated, please arrange to have your vet on hand on the day to administer the sedation.

We ask people to nominate where they want the inspection to be held, on the application form question “Location Preference for the assessment”. If you have multiple horses, it can be on your property or sometimes a large horse complex will open its doors to anyone in the immediate area who wants to bring their horses. So it’s more the owners need to find the location and we come to you.