Joint Meeting
Date:
Place:
Start:
Present:
23 March, 2007
Hôtel le Plaza
11 am
Jan Pedersen, Johan Knaap from item 2, Siem Korver, Thomas Nissen
from item 5, Jim Flanagan, Rik van Miert, Paul Hubert, Xavier Guibert,
Karina Christiansen, Klaus Miesner, Nicholas Finnerty, Deirdre Feely, and
Christina Lund (ref.)
Agenda:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Approval of the minutes from the Joint Meeting on 22 October 2006 in
Verden
Report on meeting with FEI
Strategic plan 2012 (enclosure 1)
Seminar 2007 (enclosure 2)
Membership applications (enclosure 3)
Cloning
Status report about World Breeding Championships for Young Horses in all
three disciplines (enclosure 4)
Young Breeders Competition
International mare show
Location of General Assembly 2008
WHIRDEC
AOB
The items were dealt with in the following order: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
1.
Approval of the minutes from the Joint Meeting on 22 October
2006 in Verden
The minutes were adopted.
2.
Report on meeting with FEI
Klaus Miesner, Johan Knaap, and Jan Pedersen had a good and very fruitful meeting
with the FEI on January 2nd, 2007.
The FEI World Breeding Eventing Championships for Young Horses were discussed,
please see item 7 for further details.
Regarding The World Championships for Young Dressage Horses in Verden, judges
had been pointed out before the meeting in good cooperation with WBFSH, only one
person needs to be arranged for, as they committee has an international rider and
young horse educator in mind for judging and maybe commenting.
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It was agreed that no new passports should be issued by the FEI or the NF’s, i.e.
when a horse already has a passport from a breeding society, it only needs a
registration with the FEI for entering international competitions and no new FEI
passport. Michael Stone will bring up the issue
It would be difficult for the FEI to produce accurate stallion rankings as the data are
oft ambiguous and not always completely reliable. Instead it was decided to ask Hank
van Campen to produce these rankings.
The Breeding Guide made by BCM seems to be needed by a lot of people, now that it
is not produced anymore. FEI was asked whether they would consider to produce the
guide. We await their answer.
On the issue of cloning, the FEI takes a clear position; they will not allow clones or
their offspring in competitions. Presumably, this will be accepted on their coming
general assembly, but since horses with no pedigree are allowed to compete both
nationally as well as internationally, it can be difficult to execute this rule.
3.
Strategic plan 2012
Chairman of the Strategic Group Jim Flanagan presented an outline of the Strategic
Plan for the years 2008-2012 for the Board and the Executive Committee. The plan is
a provisional work plan, and for a start, the Strategic Group wanted an initial reaction
and then at the later Board Meeting a decision could be made on the further
development of the plan.
It was proposed that item 5,9 could be good as a workshop item at the general
assembly later this year. To the question why the Strategic Plan contained more open
items rather than solutions, Jim Flanagan pointed out that a strategic plan sets a
direction and brings up items for the next 5-year-period. Then priorities have to be
made and finally, during the years, the individual topics are worked through and
presented for the Board and the General Assembly respectively.
The welcoming of new members with close relations to mother societies that are
already members of the WBFSH makes it all the more important to bring up items like
how about the international rankings – do the competition scores from for instance
purebred Trakheners, Holsteiners, or Hanoverians from an other country count for
the mother societies or for the daughter societies; There are many different examples
of close and not so close liaisons between the different old, original studbooks and
studbooks abroad, some have a licence and a contract and some have not. Also, the
protection of studbook names is an item for a further discussion.
The draft of the Strategic Plan was well received by the attendants.
4.
Seminar 2007
Johan Knaap handed out enclosure 2, a new draft for the General Assembly and
seminar days in the Netherlands. It had been very difficult to find feasible dates for
the General Assembly and seminars, so the draft from the KWPN includes two days of
meetings spiced up with a few hours of practical hours, with the possibility of
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studfarm and touristic tours on the day before and after. The city of Apeldoorn is to
set the physical frames of the meetings and the practical parts can be reached by bus
in an hour, which the host will prepare and hold the costs of.
A Ph.D. study has recently been published by Catalina Fischer on the horse’s
personality and selection by character as a foal. The hosts proposed this as one of the
topics for the seminars along with some related topics. Lea Lansade from the EAAP
could evaluate on temperament. The idea of combining theory and practice was well
received and it was emphasized that the speakers should be selected carefully and
prepared for lecturing in an indoor arena.
The overall topic of Vision 2020 as planned in December 2006 was therefore not this
year’s topic anymore, but since “Vision 2020” with its core of future aspects of
welfare, demographic issues etc. is so important to the sport horse breeding industry,
it is not cancelled, but moved to 2008. Michael Stone from FEI is a good candidate to
speak on the future of horses and riding at this year’s seminar, that in deed does
carry a good part of future aspects.
It was the general opinion that the two days should end with a workshop, and that
some of the items from the Strategic Plan draft could be very interesting for
discussions at workshop level. It was decided to cut a little in the presented schedule
for Wednesday and have a workshop from 4-6 pm.
5.
Membership applications
The Trakhener Avlsforbundet I Danmark (TAF), The Grænseegnens Holstener
Hesteavlsforening (GHH) and the American Holsteiner Horse Association have all been
given the status of Member in the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses. They
have been informed by letter on March 26th, 2007. Please see enclosure 3 for further
details.
6.
Cloning
On the workshop on cloning on October 25, 2006 it was decided that cloning should
be on the annual plan of 2007 for the Board and the Executive Committee.
With the clear purpose of ending up with a common statement from the Board of the
WBFSH, the item was discussed at this joint meeting.
By now there is no legislation that prohibits cloning. Cloning is used broadly, in the
medical industry, in agriculture, as part of future welfare and health solutions, as a
method of breeding in the cattle and pig breeding, as well as in the hope of preserving
gene material for the future. The EU commission will deal with it sooner or later, but
the question is, if the WBFSH can wait for that to happen. The studbooks need a
definite position from the WBFSH, in order to be prepared with sensible and suitable
legislation on the registration of clones and their offspring.
By registering the clones, we have a possibility to follow them closely and see if they
actually could have a positive impact in the sport and/or in the breed. By refusing to
register the clones and their offspring the studbooks have no chance of controlling or
testing the clones and their offspring. History has shown that a high level of
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registering enables the studbooks to learn from experience. Another aspect is whether
sport horses in the legislation of the different countries relate to food or sport
industry, because in the food channel, no clone material is allowed.
If the studbooks are to register the clones, new subjects for discussion come up like
who is the breeder of the clone? The producer or the breeder of the donor? A new
passport and if yes – what colour?
When or if registering the clone, it is very important that the name of the clone
includes the word Clone, and that the passport of the clone should have very clear
indications of the origin (for instance breeder of clone and producer). Some were of
the opinion that studbooks should refuse to register the clones and their offspring,
some wished to forbid the use of clones and their eventual offspring in the breed
program. It was argued that if the clones are once registered, the EU legislation does
not allow the studbooks to exclude them for ethical reasons afterwards.
It was decided to make a statement to be published on the website, that the Board of
WBFSH would not prevent the studbooks to register the clones or their possible
offspring, and if the studbooks do register the clones and their offspring and allow
them to enter the breeding program, they should test them as individuals and not just
accept them as being equal to their donors in performance.
Jan Pedersen will draft a statement and circulate it to the members of the Board and
the Executive committee before publishing it on the website.
7.
Status report about World Breeding Championships for Young
Horses in all three disciplines
Verden:
Klaus Miesner informed about the World Championships for Young Dressage Horses;
The judges are now invited. On Thursday the first qualifier for 5-year-olds is
scheduled, and the finals of the 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds are scheduled to be on
Saturday and Sunday respectively. Another new initiative is to hold a big workshop for
the dressage judges on Wednesday – a kind of a “warm-up” day with the possibility of
an open discussion between the judges and commentators. For this occasion the
hosting committee planned to invite some top quality Dutch and Danish horses and
riders that were not qualified for the championships.
Le Lion D’Angers:
Regarding the FEI World Breeding Eventing Championships for Young Horses Catrin
Norinder had sent the minutes from a meeting within the FEI, stating their viewpoints,
please see enclosure 4.
It was remarked that there was a clear small-country-disadvantage in item B,6, and
that a minimum amount per country would be better.
It was also stressed that some of the conditions are still not acceptable.
However, it is satisfying that some issues have been settled, for instance that the NF’s
are responsible for the entry of the horses and riders, that it was agreed that there
would be no wildcards granted, and that we have a representative in the working
group mentioned in item B,8. Xavier Guibert was elected to be a member of the group
mentioned, and the general opinion was that there was a clear progress on this area.
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8.
Young Breeders Competition
Jan Pedersen informed of a letter from Monica Meyer, mentioning that the KWPN are
considering to host the Young Breeders Championships in 2008. In 2007 young
breeders teams from Denmark, Ireland and Holland will be invited to come and take
part in an international Young Breeders Competition in Hessen, Germany.
Jan Pedersen stressed that the Young Breeders need to get organised on an
international level and that we should help them.
9.
International Mare Show
Thomas Nissen had worked furtherly on the idea of an International Mare Show and
emphasized that it would need a background regarding place and event that could pull
a lot of other spectators, so that the best mares of each country could get the
attention that they deserved. The World Championships for Young Dressage Horses in
Verden could be a good choice.
The date must not be too early, as many breed societies have their mare selections
during the summer, and the matter of focus on gaits or jumping – separating the
mares in two classes, and age groups came up, too. It was decided to keep the main
focus on the 3-year-old mares, because of the long driving distances, the possibility of
4-year-olds having a foal or starting to compete.
In 2008 the German breeding societies are planning to have a national mare show
arranged by the German Hanoverian Society, and this could serve as a test to
evaluate on before arranging an even larger championship.
10.
Location of General Assembly 2008
France was decided to be next year’s host for the General Assembly.
11.
WHIRDEC
WHIRDEC is closely coordinated with XML and the other WBFSH activities on
identification. By now, only BWP and France are working on it, with the FEI as future
partner. XML is free of charge and ready for use, and the BWP are now changing the
system.
Xavier Guibert was asked to make a brief written report on the current situation of the
WHIRDEC.
12.
AOB
The KWPN wants very much that the patroness HRH Princess Benedikte attends the
GA in Apeldoorn this autumn. Jan Pedersen will make the invitation for her as soon as
possible.
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Suffixes and prefixes are registered in France and in WHIRDEC. The case is that when
a prefix or suffix is not registered, you cannot protect it. Some organisations try to
register the names, and in Germany for instance, it is not done for the sport breeds,
but for many other breed associations. Here it is done by the FN, and it is expensive.
Other breed organisations have the experience that it is possible to a certain extent,
and it is too expensive. The legal status is that you should not call your prefix or suffix
a “protected” name, but a “registered” name.
Regarding a meeting room, it came up, that there are some cheaper and maybe free
possibilities of meeting rooms with an easy access regarding travelling.
Xavier Guibert informed shortly of some news from William Martin-Rosset regarding
the new Interstallion contract that has been gone through juridically and that has very
safe constitutions involving the rights of the political steering group as well as the
scientific steering group. It will be circulated within a few days.
Klaus Miesner informed that the German breeding societies will not back up the
Interstallion with neither data nor financially.
Vilhelmsborg, 30th March, 2007.
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