Answers Every Rider Needs

Life is full of changes! The good news is ... reporting changes to ABCR is easy!

Let us know any change regarding your address or your horses. Horse related changes are:

• Stallion has been gelded
• Horse deceased
• Color of the horse has been changed etc.

You can find our online change form here, or send us a quick note at abcregistry@aol.com.

For Horse Transfers, please use the back of the horses pedigree.

Please help us to keep the books updated! THANK YOU!

Register your Curly Horse at ABCR include the following advantages:

• Identification of your Curly Horse by DNA and description/pictures documented in the ABCR database and in the pedigree certificate you receive
• Recording of your Curly Horse’s bloodlines, approved by DNA in the Full and Blood Percentage Book which is important for breeder’s programs 
• By making the data of your horse available to the large database driven collection of registered Curly Horses (containing more than 5,600 entries of Curly Horses worldwide) you support further research on the unique traits of the Curly Horse.

Before a closed book was implemented at ABCR, every horse with a curly coat and known or unknown parentage could be registered. Then, in the 1990s, the CS Fund, a grant-making, California-based foundation, gave some scientifical advice to close the books. The following excerpt explains about the reasons for this and is taken from Equus, March 1990:

"... In an effort to prevent the loss of these minor breeds' gene pools, the CS Fund commissioned a pilot study of the American Curly Horse, a breed numbering fewer than 1,000, whose signature kinky coat and obscure origins set it apart from the mainstream of modern horsedom. What the study found may help save the Curly Horse as well as provide the means through which other threatened domestic equine breeds, including the Shire, Cleveland Bay, Hackney, and Lipizan, may survive.

The CS Fund's study combined three approaches:

• laboratory analyses,
• pedigree searches, and
• painstaking examination of written and oral historical records

to define the Curly breed.

A research study performed in 1975 by Keith Farrell, PhD, of Washington State University, had already disclosed that the only significant difference between curly horse hair and straight horsehair is in the shape of the shaft. As with human hair, curly horsehair is oval in shape while straight hair is round.

When D. Phillip Sponenberg, DVM, PhD, of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg, Virginia, examined the first two stud books of the American Bashkir Curly Registry, he discovered that two mechanisms appear to govern the appearance of curly coats in offspring. Some registered Curly Horses had been produced by two straight-haired parents, and, therefore, the characteristic had resulted from a recessive gene. This genetic "hiccup," if you will, can pop up in nearly any breed of horse, but it probably occurs most often in Percherons. The majority of the registered Curly Horses, however, were products of matings in which at least one of the parents was also curly coated, suggesting the existence of a dominant gene. In other words, the coat characteristic must be visible in the parents to appear in their offspring.

An important genetic distinction exists between the two varieties. "The recessive type," says Shan Thomas, administrative director of the CS Fund, "is first and foremost a member of his parent's breed. He is a Missouri Fox Trotter or Quarter Horse upon whom nature bestowed a curly coat. The second, dominant type might be a breed." Currently, the American Bashkir Registry does not distinguish between the two types.

Blood-typing of 200 curly-coated horses as well as 12 straight-haired horses of Curly Horse pedigree were then performed by An Bowling, PhD, of the serology laboratory at the University of California-Davis. The intent was not to verify parentage, as is usually the purpose of the procedure, which identifies and compares blood components. Instead, the CS Fund was hoping the blood would provide some clues as to how a horse becomes curly coated, whether the Curly Horse is distinct genetically from other breeds of horses, and whether there is any difference between the recessive and dominant types.

Although the blood-typing results verified the findings of the other areas of research, they did not identify characteristics unique to the Curly Horse. "There was no single marker common to all horses with curly coats," says Thomas. "If one had been found, this would have led to further study to see if such a marker were directly related to the gene for curly hair."

Genetic diversity was the primary finding of Bowling's work. Within the group of sampled horses, 110 of a possible 135 equine variants were present. This high number is not surprising, says Bowling, in a registry with an open studbook and active crossbreeding program. About half of the markers identified were "rare and unusual," a rate consistent with other breeds, but they were present in only four percent of the tested population. Blood-typing of one Curly disclosed a variant that had not been identified in any North American horse tested but only among South American horses of Spanish ancestry.

Bowling found that the blood components of the 212 tested horses most closely resembled those of the Quarter Horse and Morgan, breeds commonly used for crossbreeding. But a few of the horses also had some variants not usually found in modern North American breeds.

Interestingly, these components are present in the blood of the straight-haired feral horses of Nevada's Great Basin region. Three separate groups of Curlies from Nevada, Canada, and the Dakotas retain the most remnants of the original genetic pool, indicating that these horses are likely descendants of feral stock. The result, says Bowling, is that the horses are a "source of some unusual genetic material that can't be found elsewhere." At the same time, Curlies carry a heavy mix of characteristics common to other domestic breeds.

In the historical section of the study, four theories of the breed's origin were scrutinized. The unusual coat has variously been ascribed to the introduction of horses from Russia or from South America, mutations in native-born stock, and the remnants of pre-Spanish horses that unaccountably escaped extinction when all other equidae on the continent were wiped out eons before. Though the study did confirm the presence of curly-coated horses in both Russia and South America, it was "unable to prove that a dominant curly-coated horse breed was introduced or imported to North America," says Thomas. It also confirmed that the Curly Horse did not obtain its unique coat from the Russian Bashkir breed, which, in fact, is a straight-haired horse. Instead, evidence appears to point to a "spontaneous mutation" or adaptation of feral horses and that this adaptation can be the result of either a dominant or recessive gene.

"From both the empirical evidence and the blood work," says Thomas, "there is justification for two and possibly three coincidental mutations that resulted in curly horse breeds in Russia, North America, and South America. These three breeds have common ancestors. You don't see these mutations among horses with pony ancestors, for example. Isolated mutations are not uncommon in nature. We suspect that in these three separate groups of horses, the mutation was instigated or supported by severe environmental conditions. There is good anecdotal evidence that curly-coated horses can survive cold better than those with straight hair. And interestingly, the regions where these three curly-haired groups developed are all similar in environment, being high-altitude plains."

The fact that a curly coat remains in these horses, continues Thomas, "is only one sign of a breed that once existed and has now been nearly crossbred out of existence. The Curly Horse breed is now three distinct types: the stock-horse type from crosses with Quarter Horses, Appaloosas, and Paints; the Fox Trotter type; and a more-refined type from crosses with Arabians, Morgans, and Saddlebreds." Although the curly coat remains in some of these crosses, the horse is genetically more Quarter Horse or Morgan or Fox Trotter than pure Curly.

Owners and breeders of curly-coated horses can go in several directions now that breed genetics are better understood, says Thomas. "If interested, they could attempt a regeneration program. With attention to genetics and by tapping the three pockets of original gene pool left, they might be able to use linebreeding to recreate what once was. DNA research, though expensive, would help this project significantly by giving very specific information about group membership. Unless this happens, the original Curly Horse breed can be considered extinct.

"If breeders choose, alternately, to move forward from here," she continues, "it would be necessary to acknowledge in the registry the existence of the three subsections of the breed, standardize within these types, stop crossing between the types, and close the stud books."

At the 2016 Convention there was discussion about what we could do about keeping track of rescue Curly horses. The Registry started by offering DNA testing to try and identify parentage and/or relatives of these horses. If the DNA showed there was Curly heritage, but no identifiable parents, the Registry would present the owner with a Certificate of Acknowledgement of that information. But we couldn't register these horse.

The Board discussed this several times since that Convention and decided to put a vote to the membership about creating a new book so that these horses could be registered. This book would be for any Curly coated horse with no verifiable registered Curly parents. These horses and any curly coated offspring would not move out of this book.

After discussion, a motion was made to create a Curly Coated Book, it was seconded, and the motion passed. The current registration process will apply for this book.

Deriving from the Arabian Horse, Cerebellar abiotrophy is a recessive disease that affects the coordination controlling area of the brain. Latest studies found that it can... be passed on to other breeds that carry Arabian breeding influence. Carriers of the CA gene seem to be healthy and show no clinical symptoms.  Owners of Curly Horses can test their horses for CA before breeding purchasing our CA-DNA testing kit in our shop.

Further information about CA and the Curly Breed can be found in this article(opens in new tab).

Like in other horse breeds such as Quarter Horses, genetic diseases can occur in the Curly Horse breed as well. For more  information about PSSM, have a look here.

ABCR provides a quality assured online pedigree database for ABCR horses to help breeders determine possible risks due to the parentage of their Curly Horses.
We would like to encourage all of our breeders to have a closer look at this topic and act accordingly. ​