Portal:Horses/Selected article/8

The Jersey Act was a British regulation passed in 1913 by the Jockey Club to prevent the registration of most American-bred Thoroughbred horses in the British General Stud Book. It began with the desire of the British to prevent an influx of American-bred racehorses of possibly impure bloodlines in the early 1900s. Many American-bred horses were being imported to Europe because a number of the states in the United States (US) had banned gambling, which depressed Thoroughbred racing as well as breeding. American breeders were sending their surplus horses to Europe to race and retire to a breeding career. Because of the American Civil War and the late beginning of the registration of American Thoroughbreds, many British felt that American-bred horses were not purebred Thoroughbreds.

In 1913, the Jockey Club and the owners of the General Stud Book passed a regulation, named after the proposer of the Act, Lord Jersey, that prohibited the registration of horses in the General Stud Book unless all their ancestors had also been registered in that book. Although American breeders protested the Act, it was not until 1949 that it was repealed. The main factors behind the repeal were the racing success of ineligible horses in Europe, the damage that the Act was doing to British and Irish breeders, and the fact that by 1949, the impure ancestors had receded far back in most horses' ancestry.