The public launch of the National Equine Database (NED) has been postponed — another blow to the project that has been beset by delays.
“The system is built, but when we put it through multi-user testing it didn’t deliver as expected. Contractors are working on it,” said British Equestrian Federation (BEF) head of equine development Jan Rogers, who is responsible for marketing NED.
The NED was first mooted publicly in 2004. It is a web-based system designed to allow global access to identification, breeding and competition data for British horses — a joint venture between DEFRA and the BEF.
NED was initially due to be ready in 2005, but, after a series of delays, project leaders announced last autumn that it would launch in May 2007. Now they admit the system will not be ready for public use for at least another three months.
Mrs Rogers was unable to confirm whether NED will launch in June.
Read this story in full in the current issue of Horse & Hound (15 March, ’07)
