15/09/2026
ASHS Members, an informative read
Dear Friends, Members of the ASHS and Fellow Breeders,
I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that I have recently faced a Disciplinary Committee Hearing of the ASHS.
This hearing was at the behest of the current CEO of the ASHS, Mr Mark Bradley, as well as the former ASHS Chairman, Mr Larry Cutler.
Mr Bradley was appointed CEO when Mr Cutler was Chairman of the previous Board in January 2026.
There were five (5) official complaints made against me regarding a number of Facebook posts that I had made on social media.
I had made the personal decision to campaign strongly against the motion to change the registration criteria for the Stock Horse stud book.
I believed that there was no adequate information being made publicly available to all members as to why such major, far-reaching and draconian changes were being implemented.
I fashioned a simple debate to alert the membership about these impending changes to registration and to inform them of the detrimental influence it would have on the breed.
I felt it was only fair to also warn people that, for certain members and registrations, there would also be a massive increase in costs .
Ultimately, my campaign was intended to encourage members to vote and try and block the motion.
This was posted on both my own personal page and the page for our stallion Nonda Southern Cross - Denzel which has an extremely large following.
It is significant that these written complaints came from five (5) female members of a society of some seven and a half thousand people.
The members of the Disciplinary Committee that heard my case were independent individuals who held no connection to the ASHS.
I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank them for taking the time to consider my case.
The Disciplinary Committee Hearing made the decision to officially suspend my ASHS membership for six months.
I would like to assure everyone that, since my husband Dr David Pascoe reminds a full member, he will be the full custodian of our Nonda horses while I am out there sitting on the bench.
I would also like to take this opportunity to say how much I have appreciated all of your calls, emails, texts and messengers of support over the past few months.
You have been deeply inspiring.
During this issue I also took a stand regarding the appalling treatment by the Board of Mrs Lorna Fanning and the matter of her Life Membership.
Lorna is a kind, generous and deeply inspiring Australian and it was my honour to defend her.
I would now like to formerly respond with the following statement:
.’Sometimes in life, victory can be bittersweet.
This is one of those occasions. .
I am extremely proud to come from a courageous old Outback family who not only helped to pioneer this country but also willingly went to war and gave up their lives in order to defend it.
I know from my own family history that you cannot turn up at a gunfight unless you are willing to take a bullet.
You have to be prepared to fight hard enough to win.
Sometimes you shoot the soldier - and on other occasions, you end up shooting the messenger.
Along with so many other highly respected and knowledgeable supporters, I willingly stepped up for the fight.
The motion to change the registration of the ASHS was ultimately defeated at the AGM on 30th of May in Melbourne.
The actual percentage of the winning vote has, rather curiously, not been revealed to the membership for reasons that best known to the former ASHS Board
The defeat of the controversial Heritage Horse motion was an enormous victory for the vast majority of ordinary breeders.
The truth is that the ASH is a type of horse that has slowly been evolved into a blended breed.
It is as much a blended breed in 2026 as it was back in 1971 when I first became a founding member of the ASHS some 55 years ago.
Any diligent and thorough examination of pedigrees will show you that the vast majority of the breed is a woven tapestry of the various and different bloodlines that have been available in Australia right right since the days of early settlement.
These breeds includes the English Colonial Thoroughbred, the American Quarter Horse, the Arab as well as various other pony breeds.
The decision to narrow down the stud book to favour one single category - that of the Heritage Horse - has failed to show any basic understanding of animal genetics.
The same ‘closure’ or ‘narrowing’ of the Stud Book has been tried on various cattle breeds with ultimately disastrous outcomes.
The Heritage Motion also failed its members with the most basic premise of democracy.
It was a decision that came from the Board itself and it was a decision that was then imposed upon the membership.
It did not rise up organically
from the grass roots of the members, it did not travel through through the branches to state level - and it did not gather up the momentum to make it all the way to the AGM.
That is how true democracy really works - and that is how the ASHS was originally designed to function.
Instead, the carefully crafted plans for the Heritage Horse to dominate the breed were designed by certain members of the Board behind closed doors.
The Board then attempted to use their authority and influence to force the motion down onto the membership.
When news came out that this motion would be voted on at the AGM, there was barely any real communication or explanation to the membership.
The meeting was set down to be held in Melbourne and - with both the Chairman Mr Larry Cutler and board members openly asking for proxies - the intention was clearly to ‘push it through.”
It later emerged that the Chairman and a number of members of the Board either owned - or had previously owned - Heritage Registered stallions.
Since there was a complete failure to disclose this information to the membership, the suggestion of vested interest has never been openly disclosed.
The Board failed to provide members with reasonable amounts of information for or against the proposed motion.
That was not fair to the general membership that is scattered right across Australia.
Even more concerning, however, was the fact that the Heritage Horse is not based on properly authenticated and accurate pedigrees.
For those with even a very rudimentary knowledge of pedigrees, an examination of the Heritage ‘breed’ will show the influence of the early American Quarter Horse.
More concerning is the fact that large numbers of these so-called ‘heritage ancestors’ are, in fact, actually Stud Book Thoroughbred horses.
Admittedly, there are several ‘genuine’
lines of stock horse that have been around since Settlement, but in reality they make up a relatively small percentage of the breed.
There was a genuine lack of knowledge about horse
pedigrees back in the early days and sometimes names were misspelled, which often gave the impression it was a completely different horse.
While mistakes happen, there has never been any genuine attempt to correct and authenticate these pedigrees.
There is simply no understanding of the Australian Thoroughbred Stud Book, what its major colonial bloodlines are - or the profound influence they have played in the creation of our breed.
Put simply, the ASHS Board Heritage Motion attempted to ‘preserve’ the ‘Heritage Horse’ by assessing and allocating percentages.
While it might seem like a reasonable mathematical theory, genetics tend not to work like that.
Breeding is never about ‘percentages’ but rather, it is the practical combination of ability, function, soundness and type.
While porcelain horses might be beautiful to the eye, they remain on the living room shelf because they serve no other purpose.
For the past five or six years, I have contacted individual board members and office staff at the ASHS and told them that so many pedigrees were inaccurate.
I have even offered to sit down with a couple of laptops to help people compare and correct these pedigrees for the sake of the integrity of the breed.
All of my efforts were either brushed aside or simply ignored.
I believe that is utterly unforgivable because any studbook in the world is worthless without integrity.
The decision to suddenly change the rules of the ASHS stud book in order to ‘preserve’ a ‘curated’ breed based on inaccurate pedigrees is as stupid as it is embarrassing.
A stud book must always be accurate because it is impossible to line-breed horses in order to duplicate and enhance the great ancestors if the pedigrees are inaccurate.
Breeders should be given the luxury of being able to use wide-based genetics and always be encouraged to take the big risks needed in order to advance the breed.
Even the ultimate failures of any of these breeding decisions are important because they will act as a deterrents to others.
The brutal truth is that the competition arena and the sale ring will always dictate the next direction of any breed of horse.
I believe that, as breeders, we carry the responsibility to always seek the truth and do our best to get it right.
Even more importantly, I believe in the next generation of young Australian Stock Horse breeders and their God-given right to try and breed the best horses in the world.
In order to do so, however, they must have faith not only in the accuracy of their stud book - but also in the absolute integrity of the Australian Stock Horse Society.
They deserve nothing less.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish my fellow breeders all the very best in the breeding season ahead.
I hope your foals turn out to be champions and that we all soon share in some wonderful, drought breaking rain.
Kind regards
Heather Pascoe.
