The Horses (Zootechnical Standards) (England) Regulations 2006

Regulation 3

SCHEDULE Criteria for Recognition

Operation of recognised organisations

1.—(1) An organisation or association which maintains or establishes a stud book of the origin of a breed, must have established—

(a) a system for recording pedigrees and the ability to carry out the checks necessary for recording pedigrees;

(b) a system for identifying horses;

(c) a definition of the characteristics of the breed covered by the stud book;

(d) a definition of its basic objectives of selection; and

(e) lineages entered in one or more other stud books, where necessary.

(2) An organisation or association which maintains or establishes a stud book, but does not maintain the stud book of the origin of the breed, must comply with the principles established under sub–paragraph (1) by the organisation or association which maintains the stud book of the origin of the breed.

(3) Any organisation or association which maintains or establishes a stud book must satisfy the Secretary of State that it operates efficiently.

Improvement and selection programmes

2.  An organisation or association which maintains or establishes a stud book must—

(a) have registered a sufficient number of horses to carry out an improvement or selection programme or to preserve the breed where this is considered necessary;

(b) be able to provide the data necessary to carry out an improvement, selection or preservation programme; and

(c) have established a system for providing data whereby horses can be evaluated for the purpose of improvement, selection and breed preservation.

Non-discriminatory treatment of breeders

3.—(1) Subject to sub–paragraph (2), an organisation or association which maintains or establishes a stud book must have rules of procedure which provide for non-discriminatory treatment of breeders.

(2) Where several organisations or associations already exist within the territory of the Community in respect of a particular breed, the rules of procedure of an organisation or association may provide that horses must be born in a given territory in order to qualify for entry in its stud book for birth declaration purposes.

(3) The qualification in sub–paragraph (2) does not apply where entry in the stud book is for reproduction purposes.