All about the rankings
We have talked to Mr Jan Pedersen, president of the WBFSH, about the rankings and the methods on which they are based.
On which basis do you produce the WBFSH rankings?
The WBFSH rankings are based on the point-awarding system of the FEI rider rankings. FEI rider rankings are produced every month and are an ongoing ranking. The WBFSH/FEI horse ranking will only take into account the number of points gained by a horse during a time limit of one year, from October 1st until September 30th. This makes it possible to have a best horse every year. For the three disciplines jumping, dressage and eventing the point system works slightly differently.
Jumping:
Competitions are divided into groups depending on their level. Horses obtain points related to their placing in the competitions. The scale of points differs from one group to another. At high level competitions horses can earn more points. Besides this horses can gain bonus points at special competitions like the Olympics, Pan-American Games, European Championships for seniors and FEI World Cup Finals. It is also possible to gain points at Nations Cup competitions. Other specials competitions like puissance, six-bars, knock-out, relay jumping and team competitions other than Nations Cup are excluded. All competitions of one horse during the ranking year from October 1st until September 30th are taken into account.
Dressage:
At all CDI 3/4/5*, CDIO and CDI-W events, judged by five judges of whom at least three are foreign, the results may count in the horse ranking. The same principles are applied for the points’ calculation as in the FEI World Dressage Riders Ranking’s formula. All grand prix disciplines (GP, GP Special, GP Freestyle) will give points to the horses according to the achieved percentage-score in the test. There is no difference in level of competitions, but there are differences in points for scores gained in Grand Prix, Grand Prix Special or Freestyle. During one competition all three GP-levels may count for one horse. Also at Olympic Games, world championships and so on, although no bonus points can be received at these competitions. During a ranking year only up to the best eight scores of a horse are taken into account.
Eventing:
The same principles are applied for the points’ calculation as in the FEI World Eventing Riders Ranking, without the special lists for zones. Points are awarded to count for a World/Global classification. Points are awarded on a basis related to the star rating of the individual event and a set of points has been devised that rewards the horse according to the status of the qualifying event and his/her finishing position.
A horse must complete the event in order to receive points. All horses completing an International Eventing competition will receive points. A horse’s best six scores over the season count towards his/her final position on the table.
How are the individual horse and studbook rankings then calculated?
The FEI/WBFSH horse rankings and studbook rankings are produced by the FEI secretariat and published at the WBFSH and FEI websites. The WBFSH/FEI studbook and individual rankings are published monthly starting in March of each ranking season and in October the final rankings of that season are published. For all disciplines, all achieved points of one horse are summed together according to the rules described above. These points produce the individual horse ranking.
In addition to the Individual ranking, a studbook classification will be established. The scores of the 6 best horses of each studbook will be added to calculate the studbook classification. Studbooks must be officially recognised by the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) to be part of the studbook classification.
Have you looked into alternative methods of producing the rankings?
Yes, recently the board of the WBFSH has considered different methods of producing the studbook rankings because studbook rankings are discussed in various media. The most important subject in these discussions is the correction for size of the studbook. There are of course differences in sizes of studbooks, but also in different breeding strategies which give studbooks an own identity. There are studbooks which are more breeding for dressage, others in jumping and eventing or all of the disciplines. This makes it very difficult to compare studbooks. Before starting with looking into alternative methods of producing the studbook ranking you need some conditions first. First of all it is important to base the rankings on real and reliable data. The FEI needs for a proper calculation of the ranking, in respect to the size of the studbooks, the real numbers of registered foals per year and by discipline. There are hardly any studbooks that can produce these numbers in respect to the three disciplines. Besides real numbers all studbooks of the WBFSH should be taken into account, also very small studbooks which have only one or two horses in the rankings. The third condition of creating a good ranking is the respect for the own identity of the studbook and her breeding goal. And last but not least, the quality of the horse which count for the studbook in the ranking should be taken into account as well. Horses placed very high at the ranking deserve it to have more points, so the studbook where the horse is registered deserves it too.
One of the ideas considered is to count the number of horses by studbook in the top 300 of the ranking. Then a percentage of top horses is calculated in respect to the registered births of horses within the studbooks in the responsible birth years. The advantage of this method is that it takes into account the size of the studbook, but it has also a lot of disadvantages. Currently we have to work with estimated numbers of births, because we do not have reliable birth numbers by studbook and per discipline. In the analysis birth numbers were taken from an article in a breeding magazine which was published recently. Actually this method fails already under the first condition, because it was all based on estimations. Secondly, not all studbooks can be taken into account, because not all studbooks are represented in the top 300. This is not desirable either. Further research pointed out that this method is very sensitive. Rankings are fluctuating a lot when taken into account different sizes of top horses (i.e. the best 100 or the best 600 horses) because of the small numbers of top horses within a studbook in relation to the birth numbers. It is very hard to decide about the optimum of horses that should be taken into account. The last disadvantage of this method is that quality of horses is not taken into account. When going deeper into this method it was clear that the top ranked studbook has only 18% of the top 300 horses in the top 100 of the ranking, while other studbooks have a much higher percentage. In this method an Olympic champion does not count more in the ranking than a horse that just earned some points at regular competitions. Also the horses of this top ranked studbook have jumped a lot of more competitions. In other words, they were not placed that high in competitions, but just jumped a lot. For jumping all competitions are taken into account and because of this they have a high total.
A second idea was to publish 3 different rankings, one for large studbooks (>3000 registrations a year), one for middle-sized studbooks (1000-3000 registrations per year) and one for small studbooks (less than 1000 registrations a year). We still need reliable birth numbers which are hard to obtain by discipline. For the large studbooks maybe 10 horses should be taken into account, for middle-sized and small studbook maybe 6 and 3 respectively.
What was the conclusion on these studies?
The conclusion in all the studies is that there is no perfect method that takes into account everything you want to correct for and if you want to correct for e.g. studbook size you need the real numbers first and not take any assumptions of estimations. Studbooks are very different in history, breeding strategies and identities. The WBFSH should and wants to respect this aspect very much. Therefore the current method of calculating the rankings is not that bad after all, it is just a matter of how you interpret the rankings. It should not be considered as a type of an independent quality certification, as available data is insufficient and studbooks differ too much. They should be considered more like a concept comparable with the Olympic medal rankings for countries.
Why is it that some of the horses in the rankings are registered without a studbook?
The FEI secretariat is producing the rankings and therefore they are dependent on the WBFSH studbooks that have a task to provide the FEI with correct pedigree and studbook information of the horses. If horses are in the rankings for the first time, it might happen that its studbook is unknown, because the owner of the horse does not know the studbook when applying for an FEI passport. The studbook itself has the responsibility to update the horse.
What is your advice to the studbooks to avoid this situation?
Studbooks can update their own horses in two ways. One is by making use of the excel-sheets which are provided with an explanation at the WBFSH website. This method can be used when a horse, which is currently at one of the rankings, is not published correctly. This update can be done at every moment during the ranking season.
Besides, the promotion department of the WBFSH will send out an email in December-January with one large pedigree update file. This file contains horses which are registered within the FEI during the last 3 years and which have missing information in respect to their pedigree, studbook, breed or breeder information. This file has to be updated by the studbook for their specific horses and the FEI will make the updates in their system as well when all studbook updates are collected by the WBFSH promotion department.