Lipizzan International Federation

The 2007 Lipizzan International Federation annual meeting was conducted this year on June 16, 17 and 18 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. Cacic submitted a draft studbook on behalf of the private breeders of Croatia and it has now been reviewed for correctness and approved. 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. 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 has 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 occurred yet 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. Yesterdays 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 families Munja and 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, that 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, confirmation and review of horses. Two more continuation session 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 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 their 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 advice them 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. to in the studbook have a clear separation of those horses that had, by LIF review pure back-grounds (section A), and those that had not been fully investigated yet (Section B). This has been done. The organization started with 5 members in January of 2003 and 23 horses. Today there are now 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 finished their studbook yet, in spite of a lot of work, they requested to remain as observers for another year. This was not a problem as i.e. South Africa has remainder on observer status for 12 years.
After this presentation we went to visit Ergela Kelebija, our hosts 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 and 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 data base 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 data base. 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 there 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 maintaining the ILR.through the ILR system, transfers from country to country should be simplified. In order for this registry to work, each horse must have a unique number, currently a 10-digit number is used, with an in-bedded country code, unique registration number and what year the horse was registered. This number cannot repeat. The LIF system now has two business rules for the control of the data, an automatic control that the computer will not allow the input of two horses with the same identification and will for instance automatically checked the age of the parents when the foal was born. Currently the data is very secure and the data base is hosted on an international server. There are already to similar data bases in place and they have been very successful, for the Shagya Arab and the Kladruber breeds.
Dr. Dobretsberger gave a presentation of the database currently in use at their stud farm in Piber. It not only contains registry information, but also contains health information, including vaccinations, diseases etc. as well as a gene data bank. Piber is now offering this program free to all the other traditional stud-farms of which Topolcianky, Szilvasvarad and Monterotondo have already shown their interest. The goal is to eventually develop a complete gene data base. Dr. Dobretsberger also indicated that there may be a possibility for public participation in the future in this program. The benefits of this program includes: Documentation of all Lipizzaners worldwide; Analysis of descent; coefficient of inbreeding; Genetic diversity and population structure; Mating program; Medical genetics; Color breeding; Genetics of performance traits. It is not the intent for the other stud-farms to copy the Piber breeding program; the data base structure is there for their use to help professionalize their breeding programs. This will also result in the establishment of a “registry” for the traditional stud farms. Mr. Dobretsberger (SRS) indicated that looking to the future they would work with Lipica to see how these two programs could be connected.
The next item on the agenda is of a more sensitive issue. LIF had received a letter from the Minister of Agriculture in Croatia to place this item on the agenda. To discuss this point, Mr. Cacic was asked to make a statement. These horses were stolen in August of 1991 and have been issue of discussion for repatriation since then without response from

the Government of Serbia. In 2004, the repatriation committee was finally able to see the horses and was very disappointed in their condition. In September of 1991 the horse were taken to Bosnia and in February 1992 they were moved to the military compound of Karaordjovo were they remained until February of 1995. The Serbian government made clear to Mr. Komasovic, who is alleged to have stolen the horses that he had to return the horses to Croatian territory. These directions were not obeyed and the horses were moved again to an agricultural society ranch were they remained until early 1998 when they again were moved to the custody of Mr. Bukinac in Novi Sad. During the following year the conditions of the horses were very poor and many horses died from disease and low resistance. .Mr. Komasovic made a request to Croatia for Euro 300,000 for keeping and caring for the horses. Several of the stolen horses are now the property of private Serbian breeders, and we have to thank them for saving and caring for these horses. Crotia is trying to confirm that in December of 1999, a total of 199 Lipik horses and their offspring were sold – where did that money go. It is estimated that there are 300 Lipizzaners from Lipik and their offspring left. Mr. Pust (director of Lipica) has proposed that they make arrangements with the holder of the horses and take DNA samples as well as set up a separate register within ILR for these horses, until the issue can be resolved. Croatia pointed out that veracity of these horses can only be verified by Croatia. The DNA is Croatia’s DNA.
These horses have been seen with horse dealers and in riding stables around Europe, and they are now horses without status. This situation is getting critical as the original horses from Lipik are now old and if we not act soon, there is no resolution to the problem. The breeding committee has recommended that, as soon as possible we go the where the horses are and collect DNA samples of the basic population there. If not, the Lipik horses around the world will be lost to the breed. LIF cannot make any decision, however it can offer it services to assist in the mediation between these two countries. This assistance has already been established through the letter received from the Ministry of Agriculture of Croatia prior to this meeting
The last item on the agenda was next year’s General meeting. Two years ago, Mr. Andor Dallas had requested that the meeting be held in Szilvasvarad in conjunction with an International Driving Championship for singles and pairs. The meeting will be held 2nd or 3rd weekend of July. The private breeders of Romania have proposed that the General Meeting in 2009 be held in their country.
In all it was a very productive meeting with a lot of very important issues on the agenda, as seen by the length of the meeting. I f anyone would like to have more detail, please contact me.