reCriteria for the Heritage Walking Horse

In order to obtain a certified Heritage Walking Horse registration certificate, either 100% or in one of the other categories, your horse needs to comply with the criteria below AND show the signature gaits and disposition in a video. Video guidelines can be found here. 

Categories have received simpler labeling to make it easier for breeders to remember the various categories. The following applies to all horses registered

with the International Heritage Walking Horse Association:

The IHWHA is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of horses with rare bloodlines which perform the evenly time, nodding gait known as the running      walk. Bloodlines without a basis in gait are not desired. For that reason, all horses, foals or adults, registered with IHWHA must be gait certified with a  video following the video guidelines on this website.

Color genetics is a science and does not lie. It is one way to determine that horses registered prior to bloodtyping and DNA testing do trace to the animals

indicated on pedigrees. Various colors and patterns are exhibited within the Heritage Horse ranks. All colors, patterns, and modifiers must trace, generation to generation, to horses of those colors, patterns, and modifiers registered in the original TWHBAA Studbooks.

  LEVEL 1-  100% Heritage Walking Horse
 The 100% Heritage Horses (or The pure  Heritage Horse) must have all older bloodlines, with a minimum of four stallions and/or mares with pre-1950      registration numbers still showing on the registration certificate.  Foals born of two Heritage parents will be eligible to be registered in this category regardless of how many numbers are still showing on the papers.These horses will have no modern show horses in the pedigree that were shown padded/stacked after 1976 and no Pride of Midnight.


Level 2  - will be comprised in two different categories.

           Level 2A  - This level will be for horses who do not have the required minimum of four pre-1950 numbers on their four generation registration

                                certificate but are otherwise old bloodlines with NO Pride of Midnight or modern stacked/padded show horses after 1976. If bred to a

                                Heritage Horse, their foals will be considered full Heritage.

            Level 2B - Horses that are all old bloodlines, with a minimum of 87.5% Heritage blood, except for ONE line to a  performance horse shown after 1976.                                  This show horse may be the descendant of any stallion.  If the horse meets this criterion and is bred to a 100% Heritage Horse, the foal will

                               be   registered in Level 1 as a full Heritage Horse with the percentage of Heritage blood on the registration certificate.                

.
 
 Level 3
 This category is for those horses that have a majority of old bloodlines (at least 70%) but have no more than two performance horses exhibited after 1976 on their papers.These performance lines can only  trace to Pride of Midnight ONE time and may not be linebred to POM. These horses are not considered Heritage nor will

their offspring.   No horse registered with IHWHA will have more than two lines to any performance horses shown after 1976 or more than one line  to Pride of Midnight.

All persons conducting business with IHWHA must be a minimum of eighteen (18) years of age. 
​Any person or persons who willfully register or record false pedigrees will be forever barred from making any further transactions with IHWHA and the false transactions will be cancelled.

The owner of any IHWHA registered horse which is exhibited in an unsound manner that results in an upheld VMO, DQP, HIO or USDA  ticket for soring, scar rule, foreign substances, pressure shoeing, or repeated violations, will have all rights to do business with IHWHA, suspended indefinitely. This suspension includes registration of foals, transfers, and/or conducting any business with IHWHA.

IHWHA will not be held liable for any delays or losses due to irregularities of the Postal System.

Registration of adult horses who are already registered: Provide IHWHA with a completed pedigree form and a completed  DNA results form along with a payment of Twenty Five Dollars ($25.00) and a request for IHWHA registration form. Horses which are already Heritage Certified can be converted to IHWHA registration by sending in a request and $10 to cover postage and supplies. Video guidelines can be found here. 

How to register

Old bloodlines

Naturally gaited

Sane & sound

​Using horse