Brian Hennessy

THE issue of the protection of breeder prefixes, when naming horses with the FEI, was raised by Horse Sport Ireland at the FEI General Assembly in Puerto Rico this week.

HSI CEO Damian McDonald suggested that the FEI should consider introducing their own prefix register to give protection to breeders prefixes.

He suggested that the FEI could do this in conjunction with the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses and the rules of such a register would then only remove breeder prefixes from FEI names with the permission of the breeder themselves.

McDonald also raised the fact that producers were currently being charged almost €1000 for applying their producers prefixes to horse names.

He pointed put that the original purpose of charges for commercial names was for large commercial companies and he believed they were not intended to apply to producers who could be adding their prefix to a number of horses each year.

“Our position is that prefixed names should not be changed without the breeders permission but if permission is given, or the horses name has no breeding prefix, 1,000 Swiss Franc is too expensive,” commented McDonald.

In response, FEI President Ingmar Devos said that the FEI were very supportive of protecting the original names of horses. However, no clear guidelines were available from the WBFSH but the FEI would welcome such a proposal.