Talk:List of North American horse breeds

Content

I'm presuming that content here should be the same as the navbox? If so, I'm sitting tight until that is sorted out. Montanabw^(talk) 21:29, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Content forks and other not breeds (or not American breeds)

Here's my take on the "not breeds" or the content forks. I agree that Mason has credible authors and as such is a mostly-credible tertiary source where we don't have better secondary sources. But all breed encyclopedias are less specific than the breed information of individual societies, though societies can also be prone to puffery and myth-building. My main thinking here is that we do need to figure out where to draw the line between different actual breeds and mere bloodline groups or national breed societies/registries (or people who want to puff up their bloodline group as a new breed for mostly commercial reasons). Also, I really want to be careful not to list mere "color breeds" (as opposed to "real" breeds with a color preference like the Friesian or the Appaloosa), particularly as several of them are mere commercial enterprises with few standards (we even once had a "bay horse registry" back in the 1970s, literally send in a photo of your horse and money, they'd send you a certificate). Third, there are some competition associations that record horses for tracking points and championships. They aren't breed registries in the true sense of the word. So...anyway, sorry to go on about this. Just want to clarify were I'm at. I guess if you agree with any of my thoughts below, just do as you see fit, pipe, propose move, propose split or whatever. The others we can discuss? 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

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1. First off, not every breed needs to be called "American" this or that, particularly "American Mustang." There is no other Mustang out there! I'd say best to use the WP article title for these. Distinctions can be mentioned in notes, perhaps. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
2. American Belgian Draft: Content fork of Belgian horse. Breed in USA may have developed different bloodline groups, but it's the same origin. Mason's itself acknowledges that there are European imports still added to the American bloodlines. I think we merged Brabant and Belgian quite some time back. I suppose, like the Shetland ponies, there's a possible argument for two articles, but I want to be cautious about splitting these. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
3. Ditto American Thoroughbred. That's patently ridiculous and Mason's needs to be spanked if they really are trying to say the Thoroughbred is two completely different breeds.
4. American Crème Horse. Not a breed, not a registry, if anything, just another name for American Cream Draft. A while back, there was a fad to call cream horses créme. This one should go bye-bye. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
5. American Sorraia Mustang. See Sorraia. This "American" variant is just a bunch of blue dun Mustangs someone is trying to sell for more money, IMHO. Pipe it, at least. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
6. American Miniature Horse. See Miniature horse. This one needs to be piped or moved. Or removed from the American breed list. Minis are all over the world, I can't say there's much of a nation of origin for any of them. Montanabw^(talk) 18:26, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
7. American Spotted: Mason itself says "this is not a specific registry or breed." Unlike the Colonial Spanish Horse, which is a recognized group of breeds, this is truly not even a group of breeds in the USA. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
8. American Spotted Paso: I think this is just a clique spun off from the "Spanish Jennet" crowd, but we can discuss. Montanabw^(talk) 18:34, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
9. American Sport Pony: I think this is actually the North American Sportpony. Silly name ("Sportpony" as one word, really, are we German now?) But we have an article. I dug around, can't find any other registry or breed society. So at least pipe, if not rename. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
10. American Standardbred: No difference between that and the Standardbred, which is an American-developed breed. Montanabw^(talk) 18:42, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
11. Appaloosa Pony: I see no difference between this and the Pony of the Americas. Content fork. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
12. American White Horse. This is a defunct color breed registry, was once called the "albino" registry, so you know how useful that is. Needs to go bye-bye, IMHO. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
13. Canadian pinto: Unless someone finds a breed society, I say "not a breed" just like there is no "pinto" breed in general, just a color breed registry. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
14. Canadian Cutting Horse. Ditto. Not a breed. Probably no breed society, though if you can find one, I can reassess. The cutting horse associations record horses for competition purposes, just like dressage or jumper associations. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
15. Canadian Sport Horse/Canadian Warmblood: If there are actual registries, then OK, but if not, then I question including them. Or maybe, merge into a single article like happened with Irish Draught (where, apparently the cliques disagreed and everyone went off to start their own club). Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
16. Chickasaw Horse: Pipe to Florida Cracker Horse. Depending on whose theory one follows, the Chickasaw is either the ancestor of the Florida Cracker or is the same breed. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
17. Morocco Spotted: Mason's says it's a defunct registry. I question if it ever was a breed. I say a designer crossbred that didn't work out. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
18. Welara: Name and registry might be American, but they've been crossing Arabs on Welsh ponies in the UK for a long time. Not sure we really want to call this an American breed. Montanabw^(talk) 18:37, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Evaluation notes

What a mess. It doesn't look like User:Montanabw's concerns from 4 years ago were addressed. This list-article has no sense of inclusion criteria—anything goes. See WP:LISTCRITERIA.

Some of these are "bands of horses" and are not a breed, nor even a type. Examples: Cumberland Island horse, Kiger mustang.

Some of these are individual breeders or very small breeds not recognized by anyone except a small group of owners. Examples: Blazer horse, American Sorraia Mustang.

There are 6 entries for "mustang". Maybe have just one entry, followed by a list of the variants which have separate Wikipedia articles. Example: Mustang, including Cerbat, Kiger...

The Canadian Sport Horse is described by its association as "an evolving breed". American Warmblood and Canadian Warmblood are not really breeds. Their testing for registration is a recognition of quality and type. In my opinion, if a "registry" is fairly new (a few decades, perhaps) and still maintains an "open stud book", then it is not really a breed... yet. It's a breeding experiment.

Any breed that does not have an origin in North America need not be on this list.

This list-article needs a cleanup of content by:

1. identifying and stating inclusion criteria
2. removing those entries that don't qualify

I did a little of the work. Much more needs to be done. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 07:32, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Errm, Grorp, the criteria for inclusion here are exactly the same as in every Wikipedia page – what is reported in independent reliable sources. It really doesn't matter what you or I think constitutes a 'breed' as long as the sources treat it as one (and by 'sources' I don't mean some two-cent breed registry, but solid sources published by companies or institutions with an international reputation for reliability). Every entry is so sourced, I believe?

I share some of your concerns: in a country where anyone can apparently set up a website and P.O. Box address and start registering horses (say, an American Pinkfoot Registry for any horse with three or more de-pigmented hooves), there'll inevitably be some it-exists-because-I-say-so breeds; whether or not we list those should depend not on our own opinions but on whether or the sources report them. I've reverted some of your edits – which eliminated a good deal of sourced content – and made a start on doing what I'd intended to do when I created the list – i.e., adding notes, images, altnames etc, and resolving naming conflicts.

You're wrong about the Canadian Warmblood, by the way (an article I wrote recently because of the dire muddle at Canadian Sport Horse). As I was interested to discover, the criteria for registration include descent from at least one of twenty-five particularly notable European warmblood stallions. I believe that your criticisms do however apply to most or all of the famous European warmbloods, but that doesn't stop us from considering them as breeds, does it? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:25, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: This is an old thread I barely recall writing. My newer questions are at Talk:List of horse breeds § Sport horses, warmbloods, and new breeds with open stud books where I had (since I wrote this thread) noticed that List of horse breeds already makes a distinction between 'breed' and 'type', indicating that the open stud book ones (new breeds) go under 'type' (not 'breed').

A lot of these minor breeds rely solely on two sources: Porter's Mason's World Encyclopedia of Livestock Breeds and Breeding and FAO's Breed data sheet]. FAO is clearly just a list of names (a database with almost no information in it except for a list of names). As for Porter, I don't have access to the sixth edition (google book's snippet view is next to worthless), but the fifth edition is available online to read at Open Library [1] but is merely a list of breed name with no further information.

This brings me to the subject of tertiary source. FAO and Porter(5) are tertiary sources. See:

• WP:TERTIARY
• Wikipedia:No original research § Primary, secondary and tertiary sources
• WP:Tertiary-source fallacy
• WP:Identifying and using tertiary sources

...which means to me that unless you have some secondary reliable sources to back them up, then some of these minor things aren't breeds... just entries in someone's tertiary database. Please read the above 4 tertiary WP sources for more details on why that is so.

That said, I don't really care if something is or isn't a breed and I don't have any preconceived notions of any one in particular, but I'm basing my thinking off the old debate over "color breeds". List of horse breeds supports my viewpoint. I think we should use that article as the standard for this sort of distinction. So for sub-lists (like List of North American horse breeds) and larger templates (like Template:Horse breeds of Canada and the United States), we should make a similar distinction. Large templates can be broken out into two sections (rows) for 'breed' and 'type'; or even three rows if you want to separate out the 'extinct' breeds.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:26, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken about the Mason encyclopaedia, Grorp – the sixth (and apparently only!) edition is nothing like the fifth edition of the World Dictionary. It's a massive work written by world-level experts and published by a respected academic publisher. It's a secondary source, obviously. It's also pretty much the standard work of reference for animal breeds. I'd own a copy if it didn't cost €380 (down from about €900 a year ago). I can send you any page you want up to 500, and many after that. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:16, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you send me a few sample pages? Just enough to get the sense of the book. Any breed(s) would do, but maybe some of these rather obscure ones that we've had discussions (or edits) about recently. I would very much appreciate a sampling.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 10:10, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, of course, Grorp. Please email me (via Wikipedia) so that I have your address (can't send attachments otherwise), and name a couple of breeds you'd like to see the entry for (Tiger Horse, perhaps?; or Canadian Warmblood?; or what?). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:47, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: I sent you an email. Thanks for the offer.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 07:14, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Format suggestion

@Justlettersandnumbers: I know you like these tables, but they are cumbersome to view as well as to edit. In light of all these "minor American cross-breeds" that have been getting redirected to this page (and I expect more to come), have you considered using glossary format? You could put a sentence for each breed that has its own standalone article, or just use {{main|abreedname}} for those. Then for the minor breeds you can write a small paragraph (or even a large one). You could put an anchor for those so the redirects go right to the appropriate paragraph. Here is a sample of how it might look. (Do look at the code, too.)   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 06:50, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

sample

Appaloosa Main article: Appaloosa Blazer horse Modern breed of riding horse, bred particularly for ranch work; developed by Neil Hinck of Star, Idaho, from a single foundation stallion named Little Blaze.[1] Tennessee Walking Horse yada yada short blurb about the TWH goes here maybe. Different style; uses wikilink instead of template:main.[2] Thoroughbred Derives directly from the British Thoroughbred; some lines and some coat colors would not be eligible for registration in the General Stud Book.[3] Tiger horse A gaited, leopard-spotted riding horse, bred from Appaloosa, Paso Fino and Colonial Spanish stock; height 147–152 cm.[4] Walkaloosa Derives from Tennessee Walking Horse and Appaloosa, displays leopard spots and ambling gait.[5]

@Justlettersandnumbers: Did you have any opinion at all?   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 10:06, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Grorp, I'm sorry to have been slow to reply here; often when I don't answer something it's because I have nothing interesting to say. I don't know, I don't have any trouble either reading or editing the page as it stands. I don't particularly 'like' this table format, but have adopted it in dozens of pages because I've seen it used in many hundreds. To be honest, I think we should concentrate on improving the content of our pages, and not concern ourselves too much about the format or the article title or whatever. There are people who spend their entire wiki-lives doing that, and while it may be satisfying to them, it tends to be a massive and bottomless time sink for the rest of us. I certainly dropped the ball on this page – I created it as a very rough outline, meaning to return to fill it out and put it in order, but never did so. I'll try to do a bit more soon, perhaps. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:53, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: I'm happy to fill in some of the content, but I can no longer see well enough to edit these sorts of tables. I'd be happy to reformat the page, using existing content, and then start adding a short paragraph or sentence for each one. But it's unlikely all of the photos will fit well unless there's a paragraph big enough for each (which is unlikely). How about I do a few and you see if it looks workable.

One of the reasons I think this format works is because it is "scalable". When you have a non-notable article that you redirect to here, you can put a larger paragraph in this new format and it won't look awful. When you have a table, you really need to trim the content severely or you wind up with an enormous "row" in the table. Take Blazer horse for example. The old version is just one paragraph, and it could have been plopped into this page without changing anything. Then add an anchor for the redirect to land right there.

Okay, I did some, from the beginning of the list up through American Thoroughbred. What do you think? Should I continue?   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:58, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Recording Justlettersandnumbers's revert here, with edit summary Thanks, but just can't see how this is an improvement over the usual format for these lists. JLAN, it's better to keep discussions in one place.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 20:37, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

OK, you tried it out, I reverted it. My principal reasons were: it doesn't allow for a small ID image of each breed, as seen in dozens or hundreds of lists of this kind (list of examples on request if you really insist, but don't we both have better things to do?); there's no need for an explanatory sentence/paragraph when there's a blue link to take readers to the page; and the bold-face redlinks are ... well, surprising, to say the least – and would I imagine sooner or later be condemned by the MOS police. I'm sympathetic to eyesight difficulties, of which I have a good number of my own; doesn't magnification help? Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:25, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Anchors: Value, use, and code

For those articles which have been merged into this list-article, having them redirect to an anchor brings the reader directly to the entry in the list that they were trying to find out more about.

For example, see Moyle horse (no redirect) or Moyle horse (with redirect).

When one changes an article into a redirect that points to this article, one should (a) add an anchor in List of North American horse breeds at the start of the table entry, and (b) set up a proper redirect for the source article.

The code of the anchor is:

{{Anchor|anchor-name-goes-here}}

Example code of a redirect to this article:

#REDIRECT [[List of North American horse breeds#anchor-name-goes-here]]

{{Rcat shell|
{{R from merge}}
{{R to anchor}}
}}

[[Category:Horse breeds]]
[[Category:Horse breeds originating in the United States]]

Feel free to cut-and-paste the above bits of code for any minor breeds which now (or later will) redirect here—just change anchor-name-goes-here to something appropriate. More information about anchors can be obtained at WP:ANCHOR or Template:Anchor.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 18:38, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Grorp. The reason I didn't know what purpose it'd serve was that I'd just redirected that page, so didn't expect your anchor to work. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:23, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Moyle

Gang, I’d like to see the Moyle article restored. There’s an interesting history behind that little group that I think is of adequate notability for WP. We have a lot of very small regional animal populations that have articles in here, and if the issue is whether it’s a breed, I’m not going to die on that hill. However, Wikipedia has a problem with some anti-Mormon bias, and I think these little horses fall into that. The great basin in general, it’s kind of an interesting place. Montanabw^(talk) 16:10, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, Montanabw, no objection from me if you want to source and write an encyclopaedic article. Strange, I'd thought you might be pleased to see it redirected, given that you AfD'd it in 2010. HNY, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:52, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I subsequently rewrote it. Will fix. Montanabw^(talk) 18:06, 7 March 2024 (UTC)