There are about seventy horse breed registries in the U.S.  The two largest are the Jockey Club [thoroughbreds] and the American Quarter horse Association.  Other countries have their own organizations. 
   A registry is a listing of horses that includes the names of the horse's father [sire] and mother [dam].  The listing will also include grand and great-grand parents plus any other important information about the horse's ancestry.  Since horse breeders do selective breeding, registering horses is important to the horse owner.  Click here for a list of the top 100 racehorses in the 20th Century.
    There are different breeds of horses that are raised for different kinds of jobs.  Some of these jobs might be:

    Draft horses are the largest kind of horses since they are about six feet tall and weigh about 2000 pounds.  Regular horses are about five feet tall.  Horses can be lots of different colors that depend on its sire and dam's colors.
    Male horses are called stallions and females are mares.  Baby horses are foals.  Young males are colts and young females are fillies. 
    When it is warm, horses go out in the pasture or the paddock.  They stay in a stall when they are in the barn.  They are fed grain and hay.  The horse farmer has to know a lot about horses because he has to feed the horses just the right food to keep them healthy and strong.  The farmer will add other things to the food that give the horse its vitamins.  The farmer cleans and brushes the horses and makes sure that its body is healthy.  The farmer will call a veterinarian if there is a problem with the horse.
     Horse breeding farms are like dairy farms because the farmer breeds an animal based on qualities the farmer wants in the foal.  Sometimes the farmer is breeding a horse that belongs to another owner who helps decide these things.  Either way, a good racing stallion might be bred with a mare that has shown that she is strong and can run a long time.  The farmer tries, with selective breeding, to take the good qualities of both horses and create a foal that has all of these qualities.  With the example we gave, the farmer could expect to get a foal who can race well for long distances without tiring easily.  It doesn't always work that way, but it does often.
    Horses mate in spring and are pregnant about a year.  Horses become a year older on January 1st no matter what month of the year before that they were born.  Race horse farmers like to have the foals born in January because it will give them a 'jump' on the race horses born later in the year.  The foal will be a yearling the next year and can race when it becomes two years old.  The foals born in January have months more training than those born in spring and summer.
    After it is born, the foal stays with its mother for about six months and is then put into the pasture with other foals.  Purebred foals are registered.
    Some horse farms do horse training.  The horse trainers watch the horse carefully so they can decide what job the horse will do best.  There are different kinds of racing and the farmer and owner decide which type of racing the foal will do by watching how it runs and what kind of personality it has.  Horses are taught in slow stages.  As foals, they get used to being handled by humans.  They get used to having a halter.  When they are one year old, the horse is ridden a little.  If it is a horse that will be pulling something, they get trained with a harness.  A trainer will walk behind them and train them to listen and follow commands.  Each horse is trained for a certain job or sport.  Racing thoroughbreds are taught to run when the starting gate is opened.
    Some horse farms are boarding farms.  This means that owners bring their horses there to live.  The horse might not have a place to stay where the owner lives or they might be away from home a lot and not be able to take care of the horse.  The horse farmer feeds, cleans, and takes care of the horse and is paid to do this. 

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