Fall 2007 - United States Lipizzan Federation

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The first meeting of LFA as the new
single Lipizzan group in North America will
take place in Phoenix next November, 2008,
to coordinate with the November 14 - 16
performances of the Spanish Riding School.
LIF Meeting in Kelebija, Serbia
June 16 & 17, 2007
The 2007 Lipizzan International
Federation annual meeting was conducted
on June 16, 17 and 18, 2007, in Serbia at the
invitation of Milenko Aleksic, the Lipizzan
breeders of Serbia, and stud farm Kelebija.
Mr. Verbic, the outgoing President from
Slovenia, started with a short welcoming
speech as the day’s agenda was very long--
over 10 hours. The minutes from the 2006
meeting in Dakovo, Croatia, were approved.
Atjan Hop, the General Secretary of
LIF had experienced a very busy year as
he is also the secretary of the Breeding
Committee. He traveled to Vienna to assist
in the negotiations to list the Spanish Riding
School as a Cultural Heritage within UNESCO.
Mr. Hop also traveled to the Spanish
Riding School in Piber for the annual
selection and evaluation of the horses and is
now a member of this committee.
Mr. Cacic submitted a draft studbook on
behalf of the private breeders of Croatia and
it has now been reviewed for correctness
and is approved.
A training program is under development
in Europe for the training of Judges
and several meetings have been conducted
to set up the program.
More intense communications have
also been opened this year with some of
the international organizations, currently
not members of the LIF, i.e. South Africa and
New Zealand, who will probably join the
Australian Lipizzan organization.
The financial report, presented by Mr.
Wim Doove, The Netherlands, indicated
that there is money left in both the Vucijak
(€ 1,084) and Croatia (€ 7,598) funds. In the
2006 Dakovo meeting it was suggested that
some of the money be forwarded to Croatia
to conduct DNA-testing on their horses;
however, this has not yet occurred, as the
details are still being worked out. There is
also money left in the Copernicus Research
Project funds and the complete results are
to be published this fall.
The president of the breeding committee,
Hans Soelkner, is currently in Australia as a
guest professor and could not be present.
Yesterday’s agenda was quite full (12 issues)
and could not be completed. Some of
these, i.e. Copernicus and the International
Registry, will be discussed later today.
In the breeding committee, a lot of time
was spent on the Croatian issues, including
investigating the mare’s families, Munja and
14 - USLR News Fall, 2007
Olka, where there are some interesting findings.
The committee is also working on the
acceptance of the various performance testing
programs. The traditional performance testing,
as practiced at the traditional stud farms in
a traditional way, should have equal value to
the testing performed in other countries. This
needs to be made clear, by LIF, to all national
warmblood organizations--the traditional
tests are equal to the modern tests and should
be recognized by all countries. For countries
not currently having a testing program, LIF has
solicited evaluation information from other
organizations/countries, in order to develop a
more formal system.
The first day of three full day training
sessions of the judge’s program was held in
Austria on May 12, and consisted mainly of
the history of the breed, breeding purpose,
conformation, and review of horses. Two
more continuation sessions are scheduled
this year, the next on October 13 in Piber and
the third session in Szilvasvarad, Hungary, in
April, 2008.
This was followed by the election of the
Board. There were four candidates for the two
Vice President positions. One of the Slovenian
candidates, Dr. Ivan Urbas, withdrew his
nomination from the Board in preference
of working on the Breeding Committee.
The remaining candidates gave a short
presentation of their qualifications which
was followed by the voting. Mr. Karl Reiter
(Austria) was elected as President, Ing. Andos
Dallos, (Manager of Szilvasvarad, Hungary)
re-elected as Vice President, Ingun Littorin
(USA) elected as Vice President, Wim Doove
(The Netherlands) re-elected as Treasurer and
Atjan Hop re-elected as General Secretary.
Mrs. Darja Peharc (Slovenia), with extensive
knowledge of EU affairs, was appointed as
Legal Advisor to the Board.
There were several reports regarding
Vucijak. Reports indicated that the condition
of the infra-structure was worse, as
very little money had been put into it. Dr. Rus
visited Vucijak this week and reported that
the conditions for the horses have improved.
They have added a couple of mares and
now have all the mare-lines that have traditionally
been at Vujiak. The studbook is
now under the control of a professor from
the University of Sarajevo who has previous
knowledge of Lipizzaners. Twenty-one foals
have been born to the stallions sent there
by Lipica to assist in their breeding program.
There are currently 88 horses at the stud
farm. The conclusion of this issue is that LIF
will send a strong letter to the Government
in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to advise them to
increase their ownership and responsibility
for the stud farm and fulfill their promises
to the highest level of the Government. An
invitation to visit Vujiak was forwarded.
Croatia strongly supported the
assistance to Vujiak as the horse’s genetic
material is very important to the Lipizzan
breed. The stud-farm of Vujiak was elevated
from observer status and unanimously
voted in as a full member of LIF.
The Romanian Private breeders had
requested to be elevated from observers to
full members of the LIF. To be elevated they
had to fulfill certain requirements; i.e., they
were informed that the studbook had to
have a clear separation of those horses that
had, by LIF review, pure backgrounds (section
A), and those that had not yet been fully
investigated (Section B). This has been done.
The organization started with 5 members
in January of 2003 and 23 horses. Today there
are 66 members and 63 horses. They have
18 A mare families and 4 B families. Their
membership was approved.
The Dutch Lipizzan breeders requested
last year to be allowed re-join the LIF and
were placed on observer status. As they have
not yet finished their studbook, in spite of
a lot of work, they requested to remain as
observers for another year. This was not a
problem as, for instance, South Africa has
remainded on observer status for 12 years.
After this presentation, we went to visit
Ergela Kelebija, our host’s breeding farm,
where we were presented with several
beautiful stallions and mares. This is a
working farm and both mares and stallions
are used extensively for driving with tourists
and visitors to the Villa Majur. Representatives
of all the stallion lines can be found here.
When we returned, Mr. Aigner, the
Director of the Spanish Riding School and
Piber, had decided to support the effort
with Vujiak within the frame of LIF. They are
committed to sending ~25 tons of oats to the
stud farm in the next couple of weeks.
The meeting then continued with a
presentation by Dr. Marc of Lipica, of the
International Lipizzan Registry (ILR). In
2003, Slovenia was asked by LIF to develop
a database that could include all Lipizzan
horses and ultimately be accessible, by all
members of LIF, over the Internet via the
LIF site. Currently, Lipica has offered to
enter the initial data as they are the most
familiar with the database. To date, there
are approximately 2,400 horses in ILR, the
total Swedish registry as well as the Dakovo
(Croatia), the old German and Slovenia and
currently 12, 416 lipizzaners with known
heritage. At this time, Dr. Marc was inviting
all registries to submit their data to the
registry. The pedigrees would be reviewed
when entered and only one, the initial
correction, will be required. Subsequently,
each country will control their own data;
however, corrections in pedigrees can
only be made by the party responsible for
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