Our Projects

The Annual Plan of the WBFSH Board and Executive Committee sets out our priorities and activities for the year, supported by our Strategic Plan, setting out the goals and wishes for the development of the WBFSH.

Our Projects Find out more

  • About WBFSH Projects

    The WBFSH was born from the passion of a few visionary people in the industry, who wanted to bring more visibility to the root of the sport. In the early days, there was little awareness of pedigrees and studbooks, and this information was not displayed on starting lists and results.

    With the commencement of the World Breeding Championships, and the need for better identification of horses, an Identification Committee was formed, that would meet every year during the Jumping World Breeding Championships in Lanaken to exchange pedigree information. The important groundwork of this committee led to the realisation that an international identification number was needed, to improve the tracing of horses and their pedigrees. This piloted the development of the UELN, which was a significant breakthrough for the WBFSH. The UELN has become an internationally accepted standard of identification.

    Today the WBFSH has grown into an organisation that is active in many ways to strengthen the connection between breeding and sport, to stimulate sport horse breeding worldwide, and to lead the breeding industry into the future.

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  • Download Annual Plan (PDF)
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Current WBFSH Projects

The WBFSH promotes the common interests of all sport horse breeders through its member studbooks and acts as a representative body for the sport horse breeding sector.

  • Universal Equine Life Number

    UELN

    The purpose of the Universal Equine Life Number (UELN) project was to develop a common system between all the organisations that register horses. This includes studbooks and equestrian federations, but also other national organisations that register horses for the purpose of identification, even if they are non-pedigree horses. Every organisation has its own database and independent system of identification, which makes the exchange of data very difficult.

    The UELN is based on the horse's original registration number issued by the studbook or the registering authority of origin. Every original registration number can be converted into the corresponding UELN, which is internationally meaningful.

    The UELN is a 15-digit alpha-numeric code:

    - The first 3 digits indicate the country of the original database that registered the horse or foal. This may be a studbook of origin or a national horse identification authority.

    - The next 3 digits indicate the database or organisation that registered the foal or horse.

    - The remaining 9 digits stem from the national identification number given by the studbook or registering authority.

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  • UELN Logo

    For more information please visit the UELN website

    Visit UELN.NET

WHIRDEC

After the development of the UELN, one of the first initiatives of the WBFSH was the establishment of the World Horse Identification Registration and Data Exchange Committee (WHIRDEC).

The committee deals with identification and registration requirements laid down by EU legislation, as well data exchange, which is a vital component of horse identification and tracing. WHIRDEC helps to keep the studbooks informed by keeping a close eye on developments of the legislation which influences the operation of the industry.

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WBFSH SAC - Scientific Advisory Committee

In 2017 the WBFSH formed a committee for Collaborative Implementation of Genomic Applications in Sport Horses - CIGA. Since then, the scope of the committee has grown and evolved, resulting in the decision to rename the committee to SAC - Scientific Advisory Committee. The committee is made up of representatives from various WBFSH studbooks, as well as scientific advisors. Its primary aim is to foster and support information-sharing and collaboration among member studbooks in the areas of linear profiling, breeding evaluations, and genomic selection.

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Equine Health & Welfare Platform

The WBFSH recognises the importance of welfare, its role to safeguard equine health and to promote breeding and production of happy equine athletes. Smaller projects in this area have been carried out in the past. But a new overarching project platform is being launched, with a view of educating breeders and to develop an enhanced awareness in the breeding industry.

Good Breeding Practice

The breeding industry is continuously evolving - with globalisation and advances in science leading to new reproduction techniques, breeding behaviours have changed significantly.

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International Young Breeders (IYB)

The International Young Breeders is an organisation that was founded in 2001, and formalised into a committee structure in 2009. It brings together young breeders from different studbooks across the world, in a championship that takes place once every two years. The young breeders compete in their studbook teams against each other in various categories, including the assessment of conformation. The WBFSH President Jan Pedersen is the patron of the IYB.

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FORA

In 2016, the initiative of the Project Fora Framework was introduced, to encourage collaboration of members on specific areas of common interest, and to provide support in the establishment of projects identified by the members. CIGA, which we know today as the WBFSH Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) was the first project brought to the members through this initiative. The fora are managed by the Department of Development.

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FEI Logo

FEI WBFSH Data Exchange

In October 2019, the FEI and the WBFSH signed an agreement that opened the door for the development of a Data Exchange platform, which is shared and co-owned by the WBFSH and the FEI, allowing the Studbooks to retrieve competition results for their horses and allowing the FEI to retrieve the breeding information for all WBFSH horses competing at FEI competitions. This project is run by the Department of External Cooperation.

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World Breeding News Logo

World Breeding News

The publication Breeding News (BN) and the WBFSH have a long history of collaboration. Towards the end of 2018 the WBFSH-BN Platform WORLD BREEDING NEWS was launched as a communication vehicle to increase the networking profile of the sport horse breeding industry, with studbooks having a unique opportunity to join the platform to increase their reach both within their existing network as well as throughout the entire WBFSH network.

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