By Nadine Brandtner (transcribed by Jean Llewellyn)
Photography: © WBFSH
As part of their 30th anniversary celebrations, WBFSH general manager Nadine Brandtner recently interviewed honorary member Rik van Miert, whose history dates back to the creation of the Federation and his role as chairman of the financial committee and as vice president.
Q What was your first involvement with the World Breeding Federation?
Well, I think it’s now more than 40 years ago that my friend Eric Wauters† invited me to go to a meeting to discuss with people from other studbooks and the sport because there was no [breeding] information on starting lists and results lists, and sometimes horses changed papers. I was concerned about this, so we went to meet each other in Germany and France, and in Brussels. That’s how it all started
Q So you were there at the very beginning when the Federation started in 1994; so when did you become vice president?
In Berlin in 1994 when they asked me to take the financials, but the first financial department was in Holland at the office of BCM, but afterwards we moved this to BWP.
Q Having been part of the World Breeding Federation for such a long time, you retired from the board in 2017, what from our history do you particularly recall, what stayed with you, what made a big impression on you?
For me, it wan’t only one thing but a lot of things, like the general assemblies where we could meet up with people from other countries, other studbooks, new ideas. I know some people like Horst Enza Hanfried Haring, Ingvar Fredricsson... a lot of people had a lot of influence in breeding and sport, and they had so many good ideas, so we brought the ideas with us and that’s how we could create some foundation for building the Federation.
I want to add the influence of Peter Grund – a man with so many ideas and spoke four languages fluently. He had so many good ideas and his role was underestimated in the begining, during the start of the World Breeding Federation,which was very important... To read the complete article you need to be a subscriber
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