Most breeders have short term goals. Their breeding program is to produce a foal better than the sire or dam, one for a fad or market. It ends there, and compares to a cross-breeding program. For example, in one generation a breeder can produce, by breeding opposite qualities, a show winner with 'quality and refinement'. But then, in each passing generation, the animals lose the very traits that made them unique.

Every breed registry is subject to political pressure and conflicting interests. Talk to breeders and they will tell you their concerns about the future of the breed. These are not theoretical musings, these things are happening now. Every breed registry is feeling the pressures of change.

On the other hand, each breed has legacy breeders, those that are dedicated to a breed's original standard and will not change. There are certain things that legacy breeders do, things that are not mystical or secrets handed down from past generations. They are sound breeding principles that are common knowledge, but ignored by most breeders. They are principles that are shoved aside through politics and fads, economics and personal whims.

Legacy breeders breed by the standard. That seems too simple to be true. They breed to good qualities, not away from bad. There are no surprises in a legacy breeder’s barn, he continues to breed good qualities to good qualities to the point where his foal crop is predictable. At that point even his culls are better quality and truer to breed type than the best of other breeders. Legacy breeders study pedigrees, family lines and individual ponies. They know family lines and the traits passed on by those lines and where they came from, the genetics that carry on. The genetics that do not change the breed. The genetics that breed true to the standard. ^{*In many Welsh lines thorobreds show up within the first eleven generations ie: crossbreeding, thus loss of bone, Welsh type, body type, movement and pony quality.} Yes, so do Arabians, but Arabians were set loose on the mountains to breed through natural selection to increase size; barbs, akhal teke, hackney, morgan, drafts and others also had the run of the British mountains until the government realized the indiscriminate breeding with the mountain ponies that was happening and closed the mountains to all but approved stallions. Thorobreds were introduced by indiscriminate breeders on purpose to produce not only larger Welsh, but the crossbred known as British Riding Ponies.

Every registered breed has it’s own breed standard, and to the legacy breeder this standard is revered. Legacy breeders appreciate the breed’s unique character, and are dedicated to preserving these qualities. It would never occur to a legacy breeder to "improve" the breed. Legacy breeders believe in the breed and will not change for any judge, for any market trend, for any amount of money. . . .

YOU too can be a legacy breeder.