ARTICLE - Year End Registrations and Transfers per Equus Magazine

So I got my January 2009 issue of Equus magazine today. They do a year-end comparison of stats from previous years on new registrations and transfers of ownership among the major horse breeds that are popular in America. Here's the stats concerning the TWH registry, the only USDA-recognized TWH registry being TWHBEA.

New Registrations

2003: 14,978
2007: 9,345
2008: 9,200

Transfers of Ownership

2003: 17,511
2007: 13,272
2008: 12,100

So what does this mean? Well, they do a complete comparison chart in the magazine, so this gives us a comparison between breeds. First, it's important to note that all the breeds listed had a decrease in transfers of ownership except the Saddlebreds. All breeds had a decrease in new registrations except Quarter Horses and Saddlebreds. I do think this is a trend we will see for a while because of the downturn of the economy, especially in the horse industry.

So what it comes down to is where is the largest decrease. Here's the percentages I came up with from the data in the article.

Appaloosas: NR 5% decrease, TO 11% decrease

Arabians: NR 1% decrease, TO 5% decrease

Half-Arabians: NR 7% decrease, TO 14% decrease

Morgans: NR 14% decrease, TO 5% decrease

Paints: NR 9% decrease, TO 12% decrease

Quarter Horses: NR 3% increase, TO 2% decrease

Saddlebreds: NR 2% increase, TO 1% increase

Standardbreds: NR 1% decrease, TO 2% decrease<

Tennessee Walkers: NR 2% decrease, TO 9% decrease

Thoroughbreds: NR 3% decrease, transfers are not tracked.

So should TWHBEA be worried? You bet. It's not a huge decrease compared to some of the other breeds, but it is still a decrease. Plus, with TWHBEA, their goal is to force everyone who transfers their ownership to pay for a membership. The membership fee is tacked onto the transfer fee when a new TWH owner has their horse's papers transferred into their ownership. So, this means that if the transfers of ownership are down, then so is the amount of new members.

I don't know if this is a good representation overall, though, because of the serious downturn in the economy and the long-term downturn we've seen in the horse industry in general for the past few years. So, since Equus reports this information every year, we might get a better idea of what's going on when our economy turns around.