Quality of breeding stock

[Badgemash]

Although I appreciate the idea of having a grading standard, there are major problems with it. Since I come from a horse background like Sorraia, that's what I can compare to. The way quality is maintained in horses is by having a studbook. Animals are inspected at certain ages by trained judges who all agree on the standard for that breed, if the animal meets the standard, they are approved for breeding and registered in the studbook. If they are not approved, they can still be bred but their offspring will not be registrable as a member of that breed and therefore not command the premium pricing that approved offspring would command. With warmbloods this can be a price difference of over $20,000, so there is an incentive to breed good quality animals.

However in horses the breed standards exist because different horses exist to do different jobs. Draft horses are bred to pull heavy loads, they cannot perform on a racetrack like a Thoroughbred because they were not selectively bred for speed, you will never see a Clydesdale win the Kentucky Derby. Unlike a horse, the visible pattern on a BP has no effect on it's ability to sit in a tub and be a snake, which is all they've been bred to do. A normal does this just as well as a banana does. There is no performance requirement that requires standardization aside from avoiding kinks and other deformities that may affect the animals quality of life.

There is also no accounting for taste. There are a few general trends that people can agree on (such as preferring axanthics that don't brown out), but as we can see even in this thread, there isn't even a consensus for what makes a good pastel. I actually prefer reduced clowns, and lower white pieds. Just because a snake may not meet the standards of what some people think a morph should look like, doesn't mean that there isn't a market for that snake.