Cloned Quarter Horses, Antitrust Law, and the Freedom to Certify

If you’re used to thinking of antitrust law’s victims as huge corporations like Google and Apple, consider a case from Lubbock, Texas. The victim: the American Quarter Horse Association. The issue: who gets to decide what a quarter horse is.

The AQHA maintains a registry of quarter horses—a variety of horse noted for its sprinting speed and maneuverability. To run a registry of a particular breed of horse, of course, you have to decide which horses qualify, and the AQHA has held since 2004 that cloned horses don’t qualify .

But last week, a jury found that the AQHA is violating antitrust laws by refusing to register cloned horses, and now a court may order the association to change its rules. The case was brought by people who own the offspring of cloned horses. They argued that the AQHA, which ran the registry, dominated the market for registered quarter horses, that it excluded people with cloned horses from competition, and that it artificially drove up the price of quarter horses.

Perhaps so. But the market for AQHA-registered quarter horses was created by the AQHA. It reflects the value people place on the AQHA’s certification that a horse is a quarter horse. That value comes from the value people in the field find in the AQHA’s judgment, based on its standards , that a given horse is indeed a quarter horse. If the AQHA isn’t free to set its own standards and enforce them, it can’t create that value. And while being forced to include clones may (or may not) be a small infringement on that freedom, a similar argument might be made by owners of other horses excluded from the registry. What are we to say when the owner of a half-Clydesdale, half-pony turns up and demands to register it as a quarter horse? Will the AQHA have to go to court and prove to a jury that this animal is not a quarter horse?

The point of having a certification process is to apply your own standards, your own judgment, and your own expertise. That requires freedom. And if the AQHA doesn’t have the freedom to decide what to certify as a quarter horse, other organizations may not be free to decide whom or what to certify in their fields, either. That’s especially important because private certification is often an alternative to government regulation.

Then again, offering an alternative to government policy is one form of competition antitrust doesn't protect .

Note: The young quarter horse shown is presumably not a clone.

spiderID=3381

‍