Stallion German Licensing Show THE YEAR 2009 MARKED A MAJOR CHANGE in the method of stallion registration in Germany; by no means the first, but the first for very many years. Ever since state licensing was abolished, there have been ongoing discussions about how to select and recommend the best stallions for breeding, and after a couple of false starts, the gold, silver, and white ribbon system established itself and the annual stallion registration show at Aachen became a must-attend event on the Arabian horse calendar. But not everyone was happy with this system. Some wanted to bring back licensing, while others wanted to go even further and dispense with any kind of evaluation system. Many stallion owners just wanted their horse registered so his foals would get papers, and didn’t care about ribbons one way or the other (or knew very well they’d never get one in any case). So finally, by membership vote, it was decided to decentralize the event. The decision was controversial, as it meant that for the first time in many years, breeders would not be able to see all newly registered stallions in one place. The importance of this was shown by the fact that this was always the one event in the year that everyone attended, small breeders as well as large ones; this show actually attracted more German breeders than a major ECAHO show, even the All Nations Cup. The stallion show was a must, from any serious breeder’s point of view, whether you were interested in showing or not, because this was where you see the development in breeding. However, there is no doubt that it also put a strain on many smaller breeders to have to haul their horses all the way to Aachen just to get them registered, even if they weren’t interested in having them graded and possibly getting a ribbon (the equivalent of what used to be licensing). It was also a fact that the huge number of stallions coming to the annual show was often too much to deal with properly in just two days, even if it wasn’t always
October 17-18, 2009 Aachen, Germany Story by Betty Finke Photos by Erwin Escher
Top: Four-Year-Old Gold Ribbon winner and Champion Stallion TAYMAR (Kyro KA x Tamara IV), bred and owned by Sax Arabians. Bottom: Two-Year-Old Gold Ribbon winner MURANAS JASSEHR (Major x Jana El Bri), bred and owned by Michaela Weidner.
as bad as that one infamous year when the judging on the first day continued until well after 11 p.m.! So in 2009, for the first time there were regional stallion registration shows throughout Germany during the course of the year. At these regional shows, anyone
2 6 ARABIAN HORSE WORLD 6 JANUARY 2010