Stallion performance test

For the successful, "licensed", stallions the selection process is not yet over. They are only licensed on condition that they pass by the age of four a 70-day-test, a stallion performance test at a specially created testing centre like Adelheidsdorf, just outside Celle. Since 2011 the German Equestrian Federation (FN) is responsible for the organization of the stallion performance tests in Germany.

Decisive measures were implemented to standardize the performance test across the country: the number of applicants at any one site has to be at least 25, the introduction of a unified application system via the FN, the allocation of judges and test riders through the FN, a joint training’s evaluation by training’s leaders and external training’s judges and the supervision of the testing program by FN-stewards.

Three fundamentally different ways are offered to stallion owners to get a stallion licensed for breeding:

• the stallion performance test (70-day test) with or without the preliminary 30-day test
• the combination of a 30-day test followed by successful competition participation at lower level classes
• performance successes in dressage and jumper classes at the S-level or in three-day events at the M-level