From army horse to social networks
Let’s take a look in the history books at the creation of The Society for Encouraging the Breeding of Army Horses”. The aim of this society was clear: to encourage the breeding of horses mainly destined for the mounting forces of the Belgian Army. The breeding of leisure horses will get started later.
As from 1930 our army and transports in general were motorised and our society changes name to become “The Belgian Half-Blood”, which promoted the breeding of a lighter and more elegant saddle horse, using stallions closer to thoroughbreds.
The second World War slows down and reduces the activities of our Society, although it continued to register foals. First to respond to the requirements of the invader and to the needs of the Belgian customers. So, the breeders just had to start breeding carriage horses. The requisitions of the German army impoverishes the number and the quality of the Belgian half-blood horses. At the end of WW II, only a few mares and some trotter stallions are left. It became necessary to rebuild our breeding scene and to improve those who remained. Our target here was to stimulate the breeding of half-blood horses.
The growing of equestrian sports, as well in Belgium as abroad, pushes the breeders to improve their breeding (or to create new breeding farms) by the import of quality mares and stallions, often of prominent origin (mainly French, but also from German, Irish and English origin). These horses will finally be the beating heart of the breeding of the modern sports horses, as we knew them today.
As a reward for the accomplished efforts and the marvelous results after half a century of hard work and strong believe in quality, our Association becomes a “Royal Society” in 1967.
Known since 1991 as Stud-Book sBs, our Society launches an ambitious program both on zootechnical as well as on communication level. The notion “performance” becomes an absolute priority and the choices of sires is very strict, even draconian.
For more than 25 years now, Stud-Book sBs provides a fully agreed passport by the Belgian Ministry of Agriculture, the National and International Federations of Equestrian Sports, the World Breeding Federation for Sporthorses (WBFSH) and all foreign breeding authorities. We are talking here about the famous SBS Blue Book and more than 25.000 copies are circulating today!
At the start of this third millenium, sBs goes fast forward again, by offering to all internet visitors in the world its complete database, completely free of charge. This important tool allows them to follow step-by-step the breeding file of each SBS horse, to view the pedigrees of more or less 100.000 sport horses, to analyse their performances and production.
Recently SBS started a collaboration with specialized operators to optimalize his services even more. SBS is present on the social networks and follows the actuality very closely to communicate it very quickly to his internet visitors.
And good news keeps coming in! For the second year SBS closes the sports season with a significant 3th place on the worldranking for studbooks, prepared by WBFSH . We continue to grow internationally with lots of activities and specific stallion approvals in the United States and in Italy.
All this and many other things (such as programs and results of competition, breeding news, practical information to joint he SBS family, etc ….) is at your disposal on the different pages of this website. So that the communication links between you and us become even stronger!
