A Texas judge reaffirmed on May 16 his earlier decision that an American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) rule restricting the number of registered foals produced through embryo transfer violates the state’s antitrust
law.

Negotiations between the AQHA and a coalition of horse breeders seeking to overturn the association rule have failed to produce a final settlement agreement, according to a report in the Amarillo Globe-News, so the case is headed to trial June 3 in Amarillo.

The suit against the AQHA was filedin 2000 by cutting horse breeder Kay Floyd and a half dozen other breeders who believe the association should register all foals resulting from embryo transfer rather than restricting it to one per year.

Embryo transfer is a procedure that allows multiple eggs to be collected from a mare, fertilized, then implanted into surrogate mares. The AQHA adopted the embryo transfer rule as a way for breeders to get more progeny out of older mares who were still ovulating but not healthy enough to carry a foal to term