The International Breeding Guide
by Chris Van Dam

Taken from - "The Leading Competition Sires of Great Britain and Ireland" by Hugh McMahon Published by Otterswick Marketing

Integration of Sport and Breeding

The World Breeding Federation was founded in November 1994. It is a cooperation between studbooks from all over the world. These studbooks have one common aim, which is breeding a sport horse for use in showjumping, dressage or eventing. Over thirty studbooks, the major ones, are already a member of the World Breeding Federation and a long list of candidate-members is being studied by the Breeding Committee of the World Breeding Federation.

The aims of the Federation are not only to preside over and manage the World Breeding Championships (WBCSH) in the three Olympic disciplines. Promoting co-operation among it's members is a priority, so that the WBFSH will speak with one voice on its relationship with other equestrian organisations. With the development of equestrian sport all around the world and more and more modern technology (artificial insemination, etc) influencing it, there is a growing need of co-operation between the studbooks.
Another aim is to provide people who are interested in the breeding of sport horses, with help and information. The Media Guide was a start, the International Breeding Guide is the second initiative.

In 1995 the WBF had the first World Championship for Young Horses at Zangersheide in Lanaken. This event illustrated the importance of the WBF, in what should be the first aim of every studbook, to integrate sport and breeding.

Another tool of the World Breeding Federation to reach this goal is the unique databank. All the results of the international horse shows everywhere in the world, are registered in this databank. For the WBCSH the databank counts all the results of the horses for all different studbooks. The studbook that after one year has six horses with the highest total, is World Breeding Champion. Because the WBFSH registers more information than just names of horse and rider, and the By Chris Van Dam Best Communications and Management, The Netherlands who is best studbook of the year.

The new WBFSH International Breeding Guide for example consists an enormous amount of information, in the specific field of breeding a sport horse. The basis for this information is the highest level of equestrian sports. In the three disciplines, showjumping, dressage and eventing, there are many horses competing at international level. Most of these horses are registered by a studbook which means there is breeding information available - What's the sire of the horse, what's the dam, who is the breeder and by which studbook is the horse registered. When you put all this information for thousands of horses together for a period of five years, you get a clear view which sires have many offspring in international sports and which don't. You also get an idea about dominant bloodlines in showjumping and dressage and about the best combinations of sire and dam's sire.

In the WBFSH International Breeding Guide, all this information is sorted by BCM ranking points. The sires, of which the offspring has the highest total of points, takes first place in the sire-ranking. Stallions like Ramiro, Landgraf 1 and Jalisco are in the top of the ranking, but there are also some surprising new stallions in a high position.

Because of the fact that sires who have offspring at international level are old ordered information to give a prediction about younger stallions. At three different levels this information is served. First of all there is ranking based on the results of last year. You see sires that are high in the five-year rankings, that are on a lower position in' the 1995 list. They are old or dead, so they didn't have much offspring in 199's sport. On the other hand, there are stallions that have a high score in 1995 and that are still on a low position in the five-year ranking, because of the fact that their oldest products are eight or nine years old.

Sires that have offspring that is younger than seven, have no horses competing at international level. When you do an analysis on the results of the National Championships for young horses, you get an idea of the most promising sires for the future. What you see is that horses like Calando 11 in Switzerland, Concorde in The Netherlands and Darco and Skippy 11 in Belgium, have many children that are highly placed at the championships.

The last level for prediction is when the sires themselves are eight, nine or ten. They normally don't have enough offspring to have a clear idea about their quality as a sire. What you can tell is their quality as a sport horse. If they do well in sports, there is a chance that they give that quality to their children too. For that reason there is also a ranking of the best stallions in 1995's season in the highest level of equestrian sports.

Besides the specific breeding information, there is also a part for the studbooks. All the studbooks that are members of the World Breeding Federation have their own page with address, telephone numbers, date of their main events and a presentation of their best horse in one of the three disciplines of the WBCSH.

Altogether, the WBFSH International Breeding Guide is a very interesting guide for people who are interested in breeding a sport horse. The information is not, as is usual, limited to stallions of their own studbook or their own breeding area. It's worldwide information, just based on the top of international sports, and that's the level every breeder is reaching for.