The Belgian Corporation Registration Certificate
Registration for the breed in North America runs through the Belgian Draft Horse Corporation of America, and its certificate is the horse's identity document: registered name and number, sire and dam, colour and markings, and the breeder's name. Belgians are most often sorrel with a light mane and tail, but colour on the certificate still needs to match the horse in front of you, along with face and leg markings. Check that the seller is the owner the corporation last recorded. Draft horses frequently pass through sales rings and dealer yards, and a certificate whose ownership trail has gaps can take months of letters to straighten out after the horse is already home.
Transfer Documents and the Chain of Ownership
The transfer itself is a signed form from the recorded owner, sent to the corporation with the certificate for reissue in your name, supported by a bill of sale naming the horse by its registered name and number. Where the horse has been through an auction, ask for the sale paperwork from that transaction as well — each link in the chain protects you if a previous owner later questions the sale. If the seller is not the person named on the certificate and cannot produce the intervening transfer, treat the papers as incomplete and price the horse accordingly, because an unregistered-in-practice Belgian is worth less than its breeding suggests.
Genetic Health Documentation Worth Asking For
This breed carries one genetic condition every buyer should ask about by name: junctional epidermolysis bullosa, known as JEB, a recessive skin condition in which affected foals are born with fragile skin that blisters and sloughs. Carriers are healthy themselves, so the paperwork that matters is the laboratory test result — breeding stallions and mares should come with a recorded JEB status, and a verbal assurance is not a substitute for the certificate. Belgians are also among the breeds managed for polysaccharide storage myopathy, so ask for the horse's feeding and exercise history in writing: what forage and feed it has been on, how it is worked, and whether tying-up episodes have ever been recorded by a vet.
Health, Travel and Everyday Records
The standard travelling file applies: a current negative Coggins, a vaccination record, and a health certificate from a vet if the horse is crossing state lines to reach you. For a heavy breed, recent farrier records carry extra weight — feet are a Belgian's foundation, and notes about shoeing size, trimming interval and any history of hoof problems are genuinely useful. If the horse suffers from the thickened, scaly lower-leg condition draft owners know well, its management record — clipping, washing and treatment notes — should travel too, so your routine continues the one that was working.
A draft horse's file is heavier than most, in every sense, and KinsLe's Transferrable Profiles move the Belgian's registration, test results and daily management notes to the new owner together, so the horse's care never has to be reconstructed from memory.