The method used by the Foundation Appaloosa Horse Registry is simple. It is easy for anyone to determine their horses Foundation percentage themselves. You just need a basic working knowledge of fractions and percentages. The system is based on a single concept – other breed blood which is added into a horse’s pedigree for horses registered with ApHC with numbers higher than 69,999 subtracts from that horses percentage of foundation Appaloosa Horse blood. It’s that simple.

For FAHR registration purposes, all horses with an ApHC number lower than 69,999 are considered Foundation 100%.  That’s right; FAHR doesn’t just use the ApHC F numbers as foundation, but also includes all of those registered up to 69,999 as foundation or 100% for calculating purposes. The number of 69,999 is used because that is the eighth stud book, and the time when many felt the ApHC books should have been closed to crossbreeding. The purpose of using the 69,999 for FAHR registration was to have a blood pool to breed up from, since there were not many horses around at the time.

All horses carrying a “NC”, “ID”, or “PC” prefix before the ApHC number must trace to either F # or a horse with a registration number of 69999 or less to be given any kind of percentage. Some are 100% and some are 0% regardless of their number.

If another breed appears in your horse’s pedigree,  behind a horse with a number of less than 69,999 that does not matter. If he shows up as a sire or dam of an ApHC registered horse after 69,999 that will bring down that horse’s Foundation percentage.

A sire or dam contributes 50% to their offspring’s genetics. So, a horse possessing an ApHC number that was higher than 69,999, which also has another breed parent can only be a maximum of 50% foundation blood.

To calculate any FAHR percentage of foundation blood you would keep moving backwards in their pedigree until you arrive at a registered ApHC  horse foaled with a number of 69,999 or less or an F# (100% foundation), or another breed (0% foundation). You then determine the horse it was bred to the same way, add those two percentages together then divide by 2 and you have the percent of the resulting horse. Below is an example of how to calculate.