Cerebellar Abiotrophy in Arabian Horses

The 2011 WAHO conference was held in Qatar starting on the 1st of November with the bi-annual registrars meeting and ended formally with the final day of the general assembly on Friday the 4th.
On that last day of the conference, a major decision was made about the testing of genetic disorders.

Following three days of very interesting lectures about the genetics of horses and the Arabian Horse in particular by Geneticists Professor Matthew Binns, Dr. Michael Bowling and Assistant Professor Dr. Samantha Brooks, the conference was well informed enough to take a stance in dealing with genetic disorder testing.

It was clear to everybody that the genetic disorder testing must become a normal part of every breeders decision-making process.  Since in some countries the registries have already implemented a mandatory procedure to test in one way or another, it does not make sense for WAHO to make additional restrictions or certain rules that would govern such procedures.

Therefore it was decided that all testing done through the registries, be it mandatory or voluntary, will be governed by each national registry as their members can decide on a national basis what suits them best. At the same time, existing procedures already established in some countries can remain unaltered.

To keep within the compliance of the WAHO definition of an Arabian horse, the compliance with this definition needed revision, and so a new definition of the compliance was passed as well. It now reads:

"It is a mandatory WAHO rule that a horse entered in a studbook or register for purebred Arabian horses fully accepted by WAHO, must be acceptable to the Registration Authorities of all WAHO Members and must not be rejected on a pedigree basis, nor on the basis of genetic disorder test results, nor on the basis of phenotype."

...meaning that genetic disorder testing may even be a mandatory prerequisite to registration at a national level, but when the test is done, the horse must be registered regardless of the test results. It was also decided that those test results will not be printed on any official document, like passports and registration papers nor be published in any official studbook or register, printed or online.