29th March 2007 Just as there is more than one way to have a "QSO", there is more than one way to breed horses. The Jockey Club, however, insists on the old-fashioned method for breeding thoroughbreds (the contesters of the horse world) - even though there are more modern, efficient, practical, convenient, and inexpensive methods. Here's an extract that's worth a read.
"To be eligible for registration, a foal must be the result of a stallion's natural service with a broodmare (which is the physical mounting of a broodmare by a stallion), and a natural gestation must take place in, and delivery must be from, the body of the same broodmare in which the foal was conceived." It's a shocking provision. Everything else in today's society has been converted to mass production. One would think that there is a more modern way to breed a horse, something involving hydraulic machinery, vacuum tubes, pumps, stainless-steel vats, perhaps even cross-country pipelines. Imagine that - to breed a thoroughbred, both parties have to be there - the noble deed has to be done in person. None of your remote control (AI) here! Why? For the purposes of control, integrity and exclusivity (among others). There's a parallel with contest QSOs. We can do them the thoroughbred way, person-to-person - with RF all the way, or we can compromise on standards, and devalue QSOs by replacing RF with the internet or remote control. We could even stoop so low as to take the personal touch out altogether, and think of QSOs as station-to-station events. As contesters, do we consider ourselves to be thoroughbreds, or just a bunch of ill-bred old nags? :-)
73,
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