The big business of bloodlines has become a sore subject for two associations representing owners of Tennessee Walking Horses.

The Lewisburg-based Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders and Exhibitors Association, founded 70 years ago to represent those in the business of breeding and showing the high-stepping horses, has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against an upstart rival, created amid controversies in the multi-million-dollar Walking Horse industry in the late 1990s. The National Walking Horse Association, whose leadership is based in Whitesboro, Texas, stands accused of infringing on the Tennessee group's registry of equine ancestry.

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