Public knowledge of diseases of Arabian horses

Hi, My name is Troy Patterson,

I was pretty shocked the other day when I came across a blog about the Arab stallion Marajj discussing the fact he is a carrier of the gene for CEREBELLAR ABIOTROPHY and what should be done about it.
One person suggested that the horse be gelded and most everyone followed suit. This statement with so many followers goes to show that much ignorance still exists about such diseases that require two carriers to produce an affected foal.

For anyone reading this that agrees with this Im hear to tell you that this horse need not be gelded, nor any other suspected carrier of a recessive gene that produces disease, AS LONG AS A TEST IS AVAILABLE TO DETERMINE STATUS! What the criers of gelding this horse, and other carriers dont understand is that there is a indirect test available for this disease now.
This means that the disease can be controlled with appropriate testing, controlled breeding and eventually taken out of the breeding equasion altogether.

Its the horses that are carriers of lethal recessive diseases that produce affected foals who's breeders do not publically disclose these individual horses carrier status' that should be of more concern to the public. One disease that comes to mind is Lavender Foal Syndrome for which there is no test for at this time.

Then you have Epilepsy which is suspected of being a dominant disease which no testing exists for either.

So......