British Breeding to leave BEF

British Breeding, an ‘arm’ of the British Equestrian Federation (BEF) is to become an independent organisation akin to British Eventing and British Dressage. After consultation with the British sport horse and pony sector it has been established British Breeding is the preferred lead body.

The move towards independence is inline with the British Horse Industry Confederation’s Strategy for the Horse, launched last month. Over the past months the BEF has been ascertaining which lead bodies best represent the various sections of the horse industry. While British Breeding will be representing stud books and breeders, leisure horses and ponies and native and indigenous horses and ponies will be represented by the British Horse Society and racing thoroughbreds by the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association.

“British Breeding will slowly cease to become the ‘breeding arm’ of the BEF and become a membership organisation for sport horse and pony studbooks, in turn seeking membership of the BEF in its own right,” explained a spokesperson for British Breeding.

“We can no longer be seen to be a part of the BEF but should represent the individual needs of our members, whilst coming under the umbrella of the BEF, like British Eventing and British Dressage,” the spokesperson continued.

Last year was an excellent year for British Breeding. Mares led the way in the Baileys Horse Feeds/British Breeding Futurity 2006. All the top scorers, in five and six-year-old show jumping and eventing classes were owner-bred mares, suggesting a bright future for breeding in Britain. British Breeding’s Futurity Scheme assesses potential competitive and breeding success in order to provide stock data about stallions and mares and expose the talent of young British horses to the market.

In Futurity’s eventing section Tregew Lace by King’s Composer out of Mala Springbok by Shaab, owned and bred by Bren Sweet, took the six-year-old prize, and Millie on Air by Mill Law out of Triple Echo by Primitive Rising won the five-year-old section. Millie on Air, who is ridden by Nicola Baguley and Becky Smith took six top 10 places at British Eventing events in just 12 outings.

Grade C show jumper Wisp by Ohio and out of Second Honeymoon took the five-year-old show jumping prize, having scored an impressive array of double clears and six wins in her first competitive season.

The dates for the 2007 Baileys Horse Feeds/British Breeding Futurity will be published on www.bef.co.uk on 1 March.

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