An Impressive Horse, with a bad problem

As many horse breeders know, genetics are a key ingredient for producing a prize foal. What just came out in the past few years is that a famous Halter horse from years back is now causing problems for its descendants. In April of 1968 the horse Impressive was born and soon became one of the most famous Halter horses to ever live. Even with a $25,000 stud fee, Impressive ended up fathering 2,250 foals, and as of today is believed to have over 100,000 descendants, including Quarter Horses, Paints and Appaloosas. What Impressive's owners didn't know was that he was the carrier of a deadly genetic mutation.

Hyperkalemic periodic paralysis (HYPP) was linked to Impressive after it became apparent almost all of his descendants showed symptoms of this disastrous disease. Horses that are affected by HYPP often have severe muscle twitching that can even cause complete paralysis for several minutes. Luckily the University of California-Davis Equine Laboratory has done extensive research to try and find a cure for this disease. After putting horses on a low potassium diet, horses had attacks less frequently. A low potassium diet has also been found to cause attacks to be less severe when they do occur.

Although horses from the Impressive bloodline have been found to have greatconformation, many horse owners have decided to not breed horses that have been found to have HYPP. If you are not sure if your horse is HYPP positive, you can send a hair sample to University of California-Davis Equine Laboratory for testing. If results are found to be positive, they can advise you on steps to take to improve this genetic mutation. I personally had to send tail hairs from my 8 year old Paint Mare because she was having muscle convulsions. Luckily, we got the results back and they showed she was not positve for HYPP. It is good to know she is not a carrier, incase I do decide to breed her. So let me know what you know, would you breed a horse that is positive for HYPP? Or would you choose not to, even if it was a fantasitc show horse?