Arabo-Friesian Breeding Program

Translations below provided from EAFS website

There are three ways of breeding Arabo-Friesians.

1. Breeding Arabo-Friesian mares to approved pure Friesian “Stamboek” Stallions.
2. Breeding approved Arabo-Friesian stallions to pure Friesian mares.
3. Breeding approved Arabo-Friesian stallions to Arabo-Friesian mares.

The breeders should take care that the Arab blood will be diluted to a percentage between 6 and 20%. For breeding top-sport horses, which will be handled by capable professionals, the percentage should be at the high side.

Both sire and dam, both must contribute performance genes to a top-sport-horse. If breeding an above average Friesian with great character, which can be used for pleasure riding or regional driving/riding competitions, it is recommended to use 10 % of Arab blood, not more. The use of new Arab blood is very restricted, because many unknown genetic elements can be introduced. Only three very well tested bloodlines are used in our program.

Any new bloodlines are going to be registered in “B-Book II”, which means in fact that these products are only going to be re-integrated to our main breeding studbooks after back-crossing with approved Arabo-Friesian stallions (see our Studbook Rules).

APPROVED STALLIONS

The stallions that are used for our breeding program are selected out of families that have been competing at the highest level of sport. A period of 20 years studying the bloodlines of pure Friesians and of pure Arabians was the theoretical base for the breeding program. Another 15 years of experience in one of the toughest endurance sports, International Combined Driving, has given us the chance to select the best bloodlines. All young stallions have to confirm their high sportive standards by achieving the highest admissible level of official FEI competition in a discipline to the choice of his owner (dressage, driving, endurance, etc.). When an approved stallion can’t meet those high standards, his breeding quota will be reduced year by year and he can loose his breeding permission completely. Nevertheless, if a stallion can keep up with the high sport-standards, but would produce low quality offspring, of course compared to the quality of the mother, than he also will be taken out of service.

TEMPORARY USE OF LICENSED “Foalbook” STALLIONS

In order to give a fair chance to pioneer areas to develop the breeding of quality Arabo-Friesians, we make use of the possibility to breed locally, for a certain time, with so called “Vb-Stallions” (Foalbook compared to Studbook). This means a stallion with good (sportive) genes, nice conformity, but not approved or licensed, will have the right to breed with 3 to a maximum of 10 mares per year in a particular area.

Although deep frozen sperm is the best alternative to breed top-quality
Arabo-Friesians in far-away isolated breeding areas, the availability of experienced veterinarians and/or clinics at reasonable cost can be a problem in certain areas.

In the following cases of hardship we may admit the temporary use of a “registered” Vb-stallion for restricted local use under certain conditions:
IF:

• Frozen semen is not an alternative, because there is not a Veterinarian or animal hospital with enough knowledge of frozen semen technique.
• There is no option to use fresh sperm of approved stallions in that area.
• No other licensed stallion is located in that area (for densely populated areas we use a radius of 300 km, otherwise up to 1000 km)
• Enough mares are around that it is necessary to use such stallion. (at least 3 foals per year over 3 successive years)

IN CASE:

• A Nation’s Association exists in this country they should give a favourable advice that such stallion is needed in that area.- another Vb-stallion is present in the same area, (within applied distance limits) a new candidate will be only accepted in consideration as a replacement if the existing Vb-stallion does not breed top quality foals.
• The “new” one is really considerably more promising.

The decision to accept such young stallion will be taken by the board upon advice of the “Breeding Technical Committee” and is based mainly on the genetic qualities of the stallion. However a judge and/or veterinarian expert has to give his ideas in a report to the board before a license can be granted for the first year.

In order to maintain our high standards for breeding, the offspring of a “Vb-stallion” will be registered in B-Book I, which means that their next generation offspring can only get registered back in the head-section of the studbook if they are bred to a real approved stallion.

Once a “Vb-Stallion” is licensed, this license has to be renewed every year.

USE OF HIS OWN OR OTHER’S STALLIONS OR PURE ARAB STALLIONS

Offspring out of a Friesian and any other breed or Arab horse will only receive a B Book II Foal Paper + Passport. They never can enter the main Studbook !!! These horses are not “Arabo-Friesian’s” ! A whole 35 years of careful research is bypassed.Only after breeding back to approved or licensed stallions during the next 3 generations can they be entered in the Main Stud Books.

STUDBOOKS AND STICKERS

If purchasing an Arabo-Friesian, we advise: ALWAYS CHECK THE PEDIGREE CAREFULLY for proof if it is a pure Arabo-Friesian. At present we have 3 Studbooks which have registered pure Arabo – Friesian in the past years: the Dutch NRPS | the English AES | the Belgian EAFS

All these registered Arabo-Friesian horses have interchangeable papers with the same categories of registration.

Look at the stickers: They explain in which book the horse is registered:

Main Studbook + Sport certificate | B-Book I + Sport certificate | Main Studbook | B-Book I Studbook | B-Book II (only Foal book).