Uppsala, Sweden 2011-05-09 

Dear NPS,

I got a letter from Bridget Kindler a few weeks ago and unfortunately I didn’t read it until the day after she retired. She told me that the British Riding Pony Breed Committee was concerned about our situation. I am sorry I haven’t informed you of our situation earlier but it has been a very busy winter in many aspects both at work, at home with a very cold winter and regarding the breed society, Ridponny- och sportponnyföreningen, RSF. In English the correct translation of our Swedish name would be “The Riding Pony and Sport Pony Society of Sweden”. As many riding ponies in Sweden belong to the sports category of the British riding pony breed we have chosen to include Sport pony in our name.

The situation in Sweden for all breed associations has been very turbulent during the winter but now most of them, but not RSF, have been recognized by the Swedish agricultural authority, SJV, as breeding organizations according to EU law.

Some of the small breeding societies who are members of the Swedish Horse board, SH, are not breeding organizations themselves but as SH has been transformed and acknowledged as a breeding organization accepted of SJV they can act under SH’s supervision.

RSF has applied to be a member of SH but have not been accepted by them. The SH believe RSF interferes with the Swedish riding pony societies’, ASRP, breed program and as ASRP is a member of SH they will not accept RSF as a member society. It really doesn’t bother us so much as the breeding societies have been forced to hand over too much responsibility to SH, in my opinion, and the staff at SH can’t cope with all matters in an appropriate way.

After being rejected as members by SH we have asked them if they could just sell us the possibility to use their data base, “Blå basen”. We need a data base in order to fulfill the requirements to be accepted as a breeding organization and practically all our ponies are already in their data base. They rejected this application too, saying SH could not make such an agreement for the moment. We got their answer about two weeks ago.

Now, some of our members, with computer skilled sons, are constructing our own data base. So I think RSF will soon be able to fulfill the administrative demands so we can be accepted as a breeding organization according to EU law by SJV.

I think it could help a lot if you could send us a new document stating our status as a Daughter Stud Book to NPS. Please note that I have changed the English translation to make it more correct;

Yours sincerely,

Maria Aarflot Lundgren                              maria.aarflot@telia.com        

 

Chairman             
Ridponny- och Sportponnyföreningen, RSF

The Riding Pony and Sport Pony Society of Sweden, RSF

RSF c/o Maria Aarflot Lundgren

Ramsta-Svista Solbackens gård

S-755 91 Uppsala

SWEDEN