Registration and ownership problems

Yes you need to get a signature on the bill of sale, And if you want to show how you want, you need the orignal owner to give you the registration papers.

Yep, the registered owner has to provide those for you first.

"Registration" is to add your horse to the record books of a club, essentially - it does not prove ownership.

Registration has nothing to do with ownership, quite a few horse sales, many people don't care and wont spend the money to register.
But on the other hand, how on earth are you going to buy something as major an investment as a horse and not even get a bill of sale ? Also if the papers are important to you why did you give money without them ? Like buying a care with no title on the assumption that billy bob three owners ago will dig it up one of these days and send it to you.
No papers no money. Once you have paid the money and taken the horse the former owners have no reason or incentive to ever do anything else. Chalk that up to experience. Whatever you have on the day of transfer you better be happy with because at that point its a done deal and you can't count on anything else.

According to the registry and the Livestock Act, a horse sold as purebred, registered or eligible to be registered has 6 mos to come up with the paper. I've posted this elsewhere on HF today. Can you find John and see if he still has the reg. Paper. We will hope he is agreeable. Ask him for them. If he has it and the horse is still in his name, you will have to get a downloadable transfer certificate. He would fill his part out. If there is no registry record of your friend buying the horse then she doesn't exist. Submit the papers as John transferring ownership to you and you get to pay the transfer

Can you please show me that act and where it is listed for review :)

Thanks!