2007 Congress News
World Conformation Horse Association Holds Inaugural Meeting
by Carly Williams
The World Conformation Horse Association (WCHA) held its launch celebration on Wednesday, October 17 during the All American Quarter Horse Congress.
The idea of the WCHA began during the AQHA Convention in March of this year. Several Halter horse owners and trainers got together and decided it was time for Halter horse people to have a unified voice.
Once the ball got rolling, more people wanted to be involved. Over 40 people met in Tioga, Texas during the end of May to discuss the idea of forming a group to unite the Halter horse industry.
“It’s time to take the lead,” said Peter J. Cofrancesco, who led the launch celebration meeting. “We need to unite and work together. We can all agree to disagree, but as long as we can stand together, we can improve our industry.”
The group decided to have founding members join for $500 each, and take that money to begin forming an association to protect the halter horse. Within three months, nearly 200 founding members had pledged to support the association.
Over the course of 2007, the group and its founding members began to discuss the stigma that surrounds the Halter horse. After much discussion, they decided one of the things the association would hold most valuable is conformation, thus they decided to call it the World Conformation Horse Association.
The WCHA has a mission to stimulate interest and competitive opportunity with “conformation horses” and strives to preserve and promote the value of correct conformation, promote that conformation is the foundation for any horse to perform, and to protect, preserve and promote ideal conformation.
In addition, the WCHA has many goals that they would like to accomplish over the years. Two goals, however, were the most prevalent throughout the launch celebration. The first is to hold judges accountable. The WCHA will strive to have only the best judges approved to judge WCHA events by having these judges be honest with their placings and accountable for any class they judge.
Another goal of the WCHA is to attract new members. “Halter is the one class that anyone can show,” Cofrancesco said. “No matter what age or ability, any person can show a Halter horse. If you have a career that keeps you busy and you can only get to the barn to work with your horse once a week, you can still show a Halter horse.”
Cofrancesco went on to explain how the WCHA will reach out to people just getting into horses, as well as people who may have quit their horse career and want to come back, 4-H exhibitors, open show exhibitors, and anyone else who can provide a new face to the arena.
To help promote the WCHA to new exhibitors, they hope to form several levels of exhibition, similar to Cutting. These levels will apply to open and non-pro classes, and will divide exhibitors up to hopefully level the playing field for competition.
The WCHA also hopes to start a stallion and foal enrollment program that will culminate in a Breeder’s Classic horse show for all nominated foals. This program will also be divided into levels based on the stud fee of the nominated stallion.
Overall, the WCHA has many great ideas and is willing to put in the hard work to implement these ideas. Also, the founding members and executive committee are very open to ideas and suggestions on how to better the association. For more information on the World Conformation Horse Association, please visit their website at www.conformationhorse.com. While there, don’t forget to subscribe for their e-newsletter and keep checking back. Regular memberships will be available (via mail and hopefully soon via the website) shortly!
