EU commission urges France to comply with EU rules on Identification of Horses

Thanks for that Ciss. It truly is a crazy system but the French do love their paperwork and, being a cynic, their insistence is, I am sure, more to do with generating fees than anything else. Every horse in France has already to be microchipped, so why they also must have a SIRE number and be registered with a french stud book (if they're eligible) beats me! Fingers crossed it happens very soon!
 
Very interesting! The French flout EU law as much as they can when it comes to accommodating other nationals! Registering a horse in France is a nightmare of bureaucracy: I had to get mine mocrochipped, French vet out to verify their papers, sent everything in with a fee...and had to wait 9 months!
 
Having been through the registration process in order to compete, thanks heavens my horse had a SHBGB passport when she came to live in France.
Like Alex, I smile at the word * URGES.......*
Pigs and fly come to mind also!
 
the french do what they can to make anything 100 times more difficult than it has to be , i managed to get my horses passports sorted and the real nightmare started when i had to french register my ifor williams horse trailer. now im told i have to fill in some form saying what horses r kept at my property too (surly they know that coz of the passports) i wouldnt mind but the horses i have in france are all sick lame or lazy !!!
 
it says they have 2 month to comply!

this is already the law, france is flouting the existing law, they also issue illegal passports to horses who they consider as origine non constatee, or origine incconue, either unstated or unknown origines when in fact the origines or breeding is KNOWN in thereby are well capable of depriving a horse of its known origines.

a lot of this is to do with future plans to make only horses with full breeding papers eligable to compete, and extracting 240 euros a go out of people.

all this has been going on for long time lets hope the good folk who have battled to end all this stupidity will soon see a good result
 
i think a horse has the right to be registered in the stud book of its parents wherever it may be born, with if desired, to country of birth stated, but optional.

a lot of races and types are 'non gerer', or not recognised and managed in france, this does not mean they do not exist!
 
tristar said:
i think a horse has the right to be registered in the stud book of its parents wherever it may be born, with if desired, to country of birth stated, but optional.

a lot of races and types are 'non gerer', or not recognised and managed in france, this does not mean they do not exist!
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If they're not French, then yes! Nothing exists outside of France:p
The French are justifiably proud of their heritage and their ability to cook parts of animals that any other person (non-French) would think twice about feeding to their dogs:p
 
Ciss said:
About time too. UK mother studbooks have a real problem with the current situation when horses / ponies regsitered with them are exported to France or if born in France are eligible for registration with them.
http://www.iewy.com/37047-commissio...ith-eu-rules-on-identification-of-horses.html
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DEFRA have in recent months suggested that UK PIO's would probably be better off going along with the French system and allow France to issue passports for UK societies. Where do they stand now ?

DEFRA needs to get off the fence and issue a firm policy statement to all UK PIO's on which law they are expected to work to European or French ?
 
tristar said:
a lot of this is to do with future plans to make only horses with full breeding papers eligable to compete, and extracting 240 euros a go out of people.
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I am not too sure what future plans you are referring to but currently and since forever horses cannot compete in France unless they have full breeding papers (e.g. three generation pedigree from a stud recognised by the French - list of recognised studs on their website). There are three levels of competition in France, club, amateur and pro. Club is vaguely like unaffiliated and you can do this with any horse, but it stops at a relatively low level (low elem for DR, don't know SJ heights, sorry!). For amateur and pro the horse has to have breeding papers...French insanity!
 
Aredis said:
Hi Ciss

Just wondered if you have you heard any more about this ?
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Not a word. Will chase up Donna at DEFRA to see if she has had any feeback from the Commission on this, but I rather think not bearing in mind that we only spoke a couple of days ago and she did not mention it then :-(
 
Booboos said:
I am not too sure what future plans you are referring to but currently and since forever horses cannot compete in France unless they have full breeding papers (e.g. three generation pedigree from a stud recognised by the French - list of recognised studs on their website). There are three levels of competition in France, club, amateur and pro. Club is vaguely like unaffiliated and you can do this with any horse, but it stops at a relatively low level (low elem for DR, don't know SJ heights, sorry!). For amateur and pro the horse has to have breeding papers...French insanity!
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Sorry, but going to disagree. :D

Whilst it is a nightmare for people who import horses without recognised bloodlines, for the French bloodstock industry it is absolute sense.
By only allowing proven registered pedigree horses to compete at a level where the horse has a reasonable value, it forces the equestrian public to register every horse. The progeny of every registered mare or stallion can be tracked, as can the performance of said progeny. It's a system very similar to Wetherbys, but with the added bonus of an owner's card as well as a passport, so that the horse cannot be sold on after being stolen/had a rider or owner dispute, and reregistered under a new name to compete.

I think France has it right for ID and traceability, and the rest of the EU has it wrong.
 
Ciss said:
Not a word. Will chase up Donna at DEFRA to see if she has had any feeback from the Commission on this, but I rather think not bearing in mind that we only spoke a couple of days ago and she did not mention it then :-(
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Appreciate your reply, thanks.
 
As well as a few unneccessary bigoted remarks there does seem to some misunderstanding of the French system. As breeders in France and as occassional importers and exporters to/from the uk I can't say we have ever had a problem with the Haras Nationaux and SIRE.

I would even argue, that whilst the French paperwork can be slow the system works rather well, whether for registering a covering/AI, newborn and re-registering an foreign equine.

A foreign horse can compete in france, its papers just need to be cross stamped by the SIRE - this is exactly what BSJA do when a SIRE papered horse competes in the UK. However the big difference is that a horse with a SIRE number is subsequently able to compete in ANY competition in France, requiring no additional costs for registration in any discipline. The UK system requires registration (and a yearly subscription) for each discipline. In addition there is no additional and hefty subscription for stallions, which provides a lot more breeding flexibility and opportunity

Yes there are rules in respect of competing and breeding lines, but the historical reasons for this are changing and I suspect these rules will disappear in the next few years.

Traditionally France has had a very centralised and government controlled approach to horse breeding. This provides a system that is very coherent and consistent in terms of management, and it allows provision of significant web enabled data systems that allow the easy management of more trivial tasks for owners, and provides significant data and tracking of performance of breeds. The approach is very proffessional and quite scientific - something that the UK could learn from - also BTW for competitions !

This approach is changing, as the government seeks economies, but I am not sure when I look to the Uk system with its plethora of stud books each with different rules, and often non-existing IT support that this is really where we want to go.

In addition I might add that some of the UK pony stud books are some of the worst in terms of recognition of foreign stud books / breed lines.

So in conclusion, yes I think the EU is right to see improved harmonisation, but most of this thread is widely off the mark if it believes that the UK system is somehow superior to that of France. You only have to look at the success of French horses and the relatively poor showing of UK bred horses to see the result.
 
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i don't think france is 'scientific' in its approach to breeding.

i don't call covering every mare available with a popular stallion a good idea, i call it breeding by numbers, put thousands of mares in foal and you will get some good ones, its just like the lottery!

one reason they can 'cope' with their overbreeding is by eating them, or sending them to italy for horsemeat.

the horses of the british isles are the best, for me, and the british and irish breeders are horse people not just horse farmers, which i sincerely hate.
 
tristar said:
i don't think france is 'scientific' in its approach to breeding.

i don't call covering every mare available with a popular stallion a good idea, i call it breeding by numbers, put thousands of mares in foal and you will get some good ones, its just like the lottery!

one reason they can 'cope' with their overbreeding is by eating them, or sending them to italy for horsemeat.

the horses of the british isles are the best, for me, and the british and irish breeders are horse people not just horse farmers, which i sincerely hate.
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As I said previously there are people on this thread that appear to have a very limited understanding of France and its equestrian activities. We live in France, we breed horses in France - but we don't eat horse meat, or read the Daily Mail ;-)
 
i am very surprised that anyone living in france is unaware of what actually happens there, i am in fact talking from my own personal experience, having never read the 'daily mail' but you must have to assume this was my source of information.


fact 5,000 2 year old trotters are slaughtered every year, source - veterinaire francaise.

the french system encourages overbreeding.
 
3000 race horses slaughtered in Ireland - we can all swap statistics.

I've lived here in France with horses for 25 years. I don't need to justify what I do and do not know about what happens here.
 
I also live in France, recently registered my horses and about to compete in France. I am 100% certain that a horse of unknown breeding cannot be registered to compete Amateur or Pro. If you are a breeder you presumably breed from known lines and therefore do not have this problem, but it is the case for horses with no known breeding.

This Haras page tells you that if the horse's breeding is unknown it will be registered as OI (Origine inconnue) or ONC (origine non constatee) and although it can compete at Club level it cannot compete at official (affilliated) competitions or be registered for breeding. Only horses with a three generation pedigree from a recognised stud (somewhere on the Haras there is a list of the studs they are willing to recognise but I can't find it at the moment) are accepted on the sports horse list. Otherwise they are registered as pleasure horses.

If you want to do a couple of competitions in France as a guest then perhaps things are different, but if you want to register a foreign bred horse you need a French vet to fill in a from (in triplicate!) while checking the passport and microchip, all paperwork is sent in and then the horse is registered in the appropriate category (in the case of my four this took from one to nine months to happen!!!).
 
@ booboos. Correct in repsect of competitions and OI (no breed papers), although this has changed with ponies so we expect this to change with horses over the next few years. BTW endurance does now allow OI.

registration of foreign horses is no so different to that required by the UK. E.g BSJA requires original papers and all previous results to overstamp and register. They charge £150 and upwards per year, whilst the SIRE is a one off charge for life. OK the SIRE require a vet recheck of papers against the actual horse, but you could argue that this is good thing, considering how much easier it is to import and export from a continental country.

I do agree that the speed of registration IS an issue. It can take months for the papers even for French bred foal. However the amount of data available to owners and breeders is pretty impressive. The system is different, but I certainly don't think it is inferior to that in the UK, and moreover there are things the UK could learn to improve its approach to breeding.

Previously we lived in Germany. The system is incredible in terms of data - breed records back to the 16th century, but my view is that they have a much more ruthless approach to breeding than in France.
 
Sorry to harp on, but there are two separate issues. I have no problem with horses having ID papers and ownership papers - that is a very good idea, promotes horse welfare, makes owners more accountable, discourages theft and generally makes oversight of all aspects of equestrianism easier. However, that is entirely different to restricting competition to breed registered horses. As far as I know a horse of any breeding, including unknown, can compete BS in the UK and I am certain that a horse of any breeding, including unknown, can compete BD in the UK.

A quick look at starters lists at the World Equestrian Games reveals a small number of horses with no known breeding so presumably you can compete GP at FEI on any horse you want.

The problem with France is that they arbitrarily restrict competition to horses with recognised stud book papers. Dressage, SJ, etc. are tests of skill not tests of purity of breeding and while well bred horses are more likely to do better in competition it is entirely counter productive to exclude talented horses of unknown origin.
 
Booboos said:
The problem with France is that they arbitrarily restrict competition to horses with recognised stud book papers. Dressage, SJ, etc. are tests of skill not tests of purity of breeding and while well bred horses are more likely to do better in competition it is entirely counter productive to exclude talented horses of unknown origin.
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You will note in my previous positing that I do not defend the French on this, and indeed the situation is starting to change.
 
I live in France and have bred here aswell and have never had a problem with the HN & S.I.R.E
I bred a filly in 2010 that i reg with the AES in the uk and re'registered her in france which S.I.R.E did and reg her as AES and gave her reproduction of Selle Française even though she is trotter x part bred welch cob.
You just have to know how to deal with the HN and stick to your guns on things and not just let them do what they want to do as by french regs she should of been reg as ONC in france ;)
I think the way the French do it is much better as it gets people with stallions out there getting them approved so their foals can have correct paperwork.
I have also imported horses in to France and again never had a problem with doing this as i have made sure all of them have had full english passports with recorded breeding.
All horses have been registered here as what their breeds were and with all of their breeding.

Regarding trotters have you ever seen the stud fees for trotter stallions in france :eek: lets just put it this way most are far more than most top competition stallions :)
 
tristar said:
i am very surprised that anyone living in france is unaware of what actually happens there, i am in fact talking from my own personal experience, having never read the 'daily mail' but you must have to assume this was my source of information.


fact 5,000 2 year old trotters are slaughtered every year, source - veterinaire francaise.

the french system encourages overbreeding.
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ReggieP said:
3000 race horses slaughtered in Ireland - we can all swap statistics.

I've lived here in France with horses for 25 years. I don't need to justify what I do and do not know about what happens here.
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I am French and live in the UK. I haven't read the whole thread, but will when I have a moment.

I just want to pick up on the 2 points above... Both good points, BUT, it is THE RACING INDUSTRY, the world over, that produces cannon meat. The price to pay, apparently, for getting 1 great horse that will make lots of money, is to produce 5,000 who will end up on a plate in France and in a can of dog food in Britain.
 
wynter said:
Regarding trotters have you ever seen the stud fees for trotter stallions in france :eek: lets just put it this way most are far more than most top competition stallions :)
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Trotters are racing horses... The racing industry is not about horses, it's about money.

I have a little TB mare that was given to me as no one would buy her. Someone paid £20,000 stud fee to get her on the ground. She didn't make the grade. In France, she would have been steak. It's not a problem to me. I think slaughter is more humane than passing mentally unstable animals from pillar to post because most leisure rider can't handle them.

But the amount of "wastage" produced by the racing industry the world over will never stop... not as long as there is so much money at stake.
 
GinnieRedwings said:
I am French and live in the UK. I haven't read the whole thread, but will when I have a moment.

I just want to pick up on the 2 points above... Both good points, BUT, it is THE RACING INDUSTRY, the world over, that produces cannon meat. The price to pay, apparently, for getting 1 great horse that will make lots of money, is to produce 5,000 who will end up on a plate in France and in a can of dog food in Britain.
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well said !
 
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