04/08/2026
I don’t think that color or pattern should come before clean genetics, correct conformation and a good temperament. A great horse is never a bad color/pattern, or lack thereof. When I bred Godiva in 2018, I knew full well that the resulting foal would be solid and that didn’t sit well with a few people. My intention was to produce a correct foal with clean genetics and the fantastic temperament of both parents, and that’s exactly what I got. Truth be told, I wish I could have produced 10 more like her, she’s grown up to be a fabulous mare. If people are breeding strictly for color, they shouldn’t be breeding. I will take a plain generic looking horse with a great mind, correct conformation and a kind disposition over any loud flashy horse that’s an absolute trainwreck.
There has been a bit of an uproar in online spaces over the idea of 'color disappointment' recently.
In breeds like the American Sugarbush Harlequin Draft, breeders will often be challenged over color, and will also see plenty of people who want to try and ride the coattails of their marketing- by producing a draft cross with color and not much else.
Color is what draws many people to our breed. They enjoy the idea of a big draft horse with a loudly patterned coat that can stand out in a crowd- both in size and beauty. Many people are shocked to learn that we don't require color to register breeding stock, and that we don't penalize solid colored foals.
The point of any bloodline registry is first and foremost PRESERVATION. Not just of overall type, but of history, pedigrees, ideals, and standards. Any registry worth its contents will place the preservation of bloodline and quality above all else. This means not only doing everything to ensure the continued tracking, breeding, and registration of breed horses, but also the bucking of fads, the refusal to bow to trends that will harm the horse, and the commitment to the production of healthy horses.
Where many registries fail in preservation is to let the health of the horse suffer, and to promote the marketable over the ethical. Color is the selling point to nearly all LP breeds. To the point that it supercedes health, ability, history, or ethics. Foals without desired color in many color breeds were, or are still, denied registration. Or registration is offered at a lower tier, denying the opportunity for showing, for recognition. Condemning a solid horse, especially a gelding, to a life with no place within a breed's community, except for the 'privilege' of paying for papers that offer nothing in return.
This is where our breed has differed from other color preference breeds, especially both draft and LP based ones. From the very beginning of the Sugarbush Hitch Company, solids have been embraced, awarded the Sugarbush name, and registered dutifully within the founding studbook. There were no 'lost' solids that required tracking down, no solid foals scattered to the wind without papers only to color up later and be a question of parentage.
When ASHDA launched in 2014 as a continuance of Mr. Smith's registry, we kept those ideals. Solid foals have full registration. They don't need to buy in for rights to show or earn recognition. They aren't excluded from any area of our breed. We don't have color classes, because we don't offer competition where our solid horses are excluded. We allow solids to breed with other solids, producing foals that are guaranteed to be solid, but that meet every other mark.
The reason we do this is because you can add color in one breeding. The LP gene, in whatever expression it forms, can be guaranteed in one generation. Conformation, health, temperament- these things can take ten generations or more to prune out of a bloodline. And, attached to something as desirable as color, faults can set in for a very long time. Today, you will still hear about bad temper, weak pasterns, PSSM1 and HYPP attached to bloodlines that are decades in the past; still being bred forward because that bad temper is pretty, those weak pasterns have spots, those genetic defects won an award. But the horses that did get culled from the breeding pool, they simply had a solid coat, and any number of actually desirable traits.
Not in ASHDA. The American Sugarbush Harlequin Draft is a breed with LP and solid horses, both. It has been from the very beginning. We do not devalue any horse due to its lack of spots, and we do not dictate to our breeders that they must place color above all else. It makes no sense for a registry to penalize a solid within their own population, but allow and encourage solid horses from other breeds to cross in. It shows that bloodlines have no worth in the longterm, only the ability to produce color before any sort of other quality testing is enforced.
Every single foal born to our breed has a place with us, whether they are a nose-to-toes leopard or a shining, solid bay. By making sure that solid foals aren't second class citizens, or unwelcome entirely, we have cultivated a standard where our breeders can celebrate health first, without a worry that a solid coat will create an undesirable foal out of one that hits every other mark in health testing, conformation, temperament, and ability.
Whether you like your Sugarbushes with spots or without, there is no doubt that they are a truly sweet ride 🍁
📸 of ASHDA E-Designation gelding, Sugarbush Constantine, owned by Katrina Valentine.
