News & Events

Some Personal Thoughts About Testing Stallions for Approval in North America and Offspring Judging	06/10/2008
As we are all excited about the recent approval of Michiel 442 passing the first ever "seventy-day" central proving test in North America, it might be interesting to revisit how it was done previously. Because Michiel essentially was allowed to be evaluated in a test equivalent to that in Holland, he has no restrictions on his breeding rights as a newly approved stallion. He can be shipped anywhere in the world to serve Friesian mares and can freeze semen here and ship it anywhere in the world as well. On the other hand, Wander was tested with the abbreviated or "short" test in 1996 and started shipping semen in No America in 1997. The rules back then didn't include frozen because there were so few stallions who could freeze and the technology was nowhere where it is now. The rule was that IF I sold Wander to Holland or So Africa or Australia, he would have to go to Drachten and repeat the whole seventy day test BEFORE he could be used as a breeding stallion anywhere outside of North America UNTIL he had been approved on offspring and THEN he could be used anywhere in the world without having to repeat the test. When I was approached to have his semen frozen and ship the semen to Holland in Jan 1997 there was no rule about semen, they just said the stallion couldn't leave No America. I went to the then president of the FPS and I told him I had been approached by a breeder in Holland who was willing to sponsor Wander in Holland with Frozen. He laughed and said, fine, go ahead. He told me there was no rule against it, (after all, the stallion never left No America, just the semen lol) - but he said no one would buy it so in essence, who would care. After all why go the the expense of frozen and the less sure results when we have ALL these stallions right here at our finger tips. Well, we did it and folks bought it. Unfortunately, the first year our technology wasn't the best and it was late getting out of the country so the thirty or more mares booked to him gave up and went to other stallions so he only bred four and two were born. One of those two ultimately made star so at that time, Wander was 50 percent star rating on his offspring in the Netherlands lol -- and the very next year after we first sent doses to Holland, Jelke, Pyt's son was approved and breeding in Holland so that he provided similar bloodlines. Thus, the Wander semen wasn't the hot new thing anymore and became less exclusive. BUT, the fact that we did this did upset the Dutch stallion owners who threw a fit with the FPS. Fortunately, our partner in the Netherlands was wealthy and powerful and he fought hard for Wander so they agreed he could cover up to fifty mares in Europe (realistically, they bred about ten a year, no huge impact on the Friesian bloodlines). AND, because of the fussing of the Dutch stallion owners who were, for whatever reason, so threatened by Wander's frozen presence in Holland, the FPS closed the door on the loophole and refused to let any other stallion who was approved with the short test ship frozen to Holland. Unfortunately, the only stallion ever affected by that ruling was Feike. I was in Utah for his final test. I know Annette met with the two judges and absolutely believes that they committed to her that Feike would be allowed to ship frozen to Holland and Australia, ETC and that later the FPS either changed their mind, forgot or outright misrepresented and said they NEVER meant to imply that it would be ok. NOW, the glitch for Wander and Feike came when the FPS arbitrarily changed all the rules regarding offspring approval. Instead of the tests being done in hand like a halter presentation with the equivalent of the conformation and movement score sheet-- in No America at keurings and in Holland at a special test site -- they came up with a three or five week (can't remember which) riding and driving school and putting 20 adult three year olds through this test at enormous expense to the owners. IF it hadn't been for having a few offspring born in Holland each year, we wouldn't have had any way to ever do that new way of testing offspring. I can tell you that if I had not had offspring in Holland I would have seriously considered a lawsuit as Wander was approved for breeding with one set of rules and asked to be approved on offspring with a totally different set of criteria - and a set physically impossible to comply with at that late date without either setting up offspring tests in No America which would have been logistically a nightmare or shipping adult Wander offspring to Holland. SO, I made an agreement with the FPS that they would still judge Wander on offspring in hand at the keurings in No America and we would find eight three or four year old Wander's to go through the test. Given the fact that the FPS board changed twice during this two year process, it was a miracle we got our offspring into the test - all the stallion owners in Holland had booked all the available slots. So I did get the help of Jan Engelsma and his brother Klaas and they were able to arrange pretraining for offspring, book the slots and make sure that the FPS board made a decision in a timely manner. Thank you Doaitzen - yes, his stallion approval scores got to count!!! yea. And we were permanently approved on offspring in No America at the end of 2003 after two years of exams of the Wander kids in hand at the keurings in North America and then in April of 2004, after we got the remainder of our eight offspring through in Holland we asked for an immediate decision, not waiting for yet another breeding season to be over and Wander was permanently, internationally approved in 2004. Pyt was internationally approved after passing offspring the old way. Warn was internationally approved only by having his offspring seen in hand in No America as he had no offspring in Holland (but he had done the long test before being imported to CA) Pilgrim and Berend were disapproved on offspring judged in hand. Jorrit and Rintse were disapproved on offspring judged through the performance test in Holland. This issue keeps popping up and always I am questioned as to how come Wander got to send frozen to Holland. I hope this explains it. No one thought we could do it. AND we were the FIRST No American stallion to EVER export semen to the Netherlands and have it used so I think that is quite an honor. And remember folks, this was eleven years ago.
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