News From IFAHR

The 7th IFAHR General Meeting, again held in Paris the 24th and 25th of January 2005 was a fully success.

The meeting days were opened Monday morning with a workshop regarding the causes, rules, and suites of doping and a detailed explanation of the “International Agreement on Breeding and Racing”. The workshop leader Dr. Devolz, made a perfect accomplishment and understood it to illustrate the serious matters with a lot of humour, so that all participants were surprised how fast time passed. He was followed by the IFAHR website consultant, Mister Edgar Stadler, who presented the new IFAHR website tool, were all IFAHR members get –from now on- the possibility to insert their own data by a personal access. This workshop was acutely important, as the participants had the possibility to communicate their wishes and ideas how to make a better use of the website. This exchange shows how important a come together of user and software engineer is. After that, the IFAHR Executive Board came together for a preliminary discussion to the AGM. During the meeting Mr. Basil Jadaan, Mr. Naji Chaoui and Mr. Amir Mardeni, official delegates of the new prospective IFAHR member country Syria, gave a first short overview and introduction about racing and breeding in their country. The evening was closed by a nice friendship dinner appreciated by 32 delegates, following the invitation of the IFAHR chairman Mister Faisal Al Mutawa. Once more all thanks to Mr. Al Mutawa for this kind invitation. Tuesday started in the early morning with a workshop held by Mrs. Susanna Santesson, general secretary of FEGENTRI (International Federation of Gentleman and Lady Riders). The feeble participation at the beginning of the meeting shows, that 9 a.m. is definitely to early for a workshop, although the hall started to fill up in the following hour. The discussion about the differences between professional and amateur riding was highly appreciated and 50 years of FEGENTRI showed, that the Federation is working in a absolutely professional way. So started the Preliminary Veterinary Committee Meeting, held by Mrs. Nelly Philippot, chairman of the Arabian Horse Racing Club of Belgium. The meeting was firstly intended to be attended by veterinaries, but the attendance showed, that all people are interested, whatever if they are veterinaries or not. Finally the General Meeting started at 1:30 p.m. by the welcome words of Mr.Louis Romanet, manager of France Galop and host of IFAHR AGM since many years. 18 countries were represented by their delegates and one of the main topic of the Agenda was the Election of the new Executive Board. All candidates were elected to the Executive Board and the re-election of the 3 IFAHR managing board members showed that the work of IFAHR was in the past 3 years appreciated by all the member countries. Here the details of the votes: Mr. Faisal Al Mutawa – chairman of IFAHR – elected by 17 votes Mr. Sami Al Boenain – vice chairman of IFAHR – elected by 15 votes Mr. Hubert Lorenz – secretary/treasurer of IFAHR – elected by 16 votes Mrs. Nelly Philippot; Mr. Richard Lancaster; Mr. Orhan Tanatar and Mr. Yves Plantin Executive board members of IFAHR – elected by 14 votes each. Mr. Amid Abdelhamid – Executive board member of IFAHR - elected by 11 votes It is a great pleasure to welcome the 2 new Board members Mister Richard Lancaster from Great Britain and Mister Orhan Tanatar from Turkey. The new Executive Board thank all the member countries for their confidence and will try to affirm this confidence in all conscience, by achieving the requests of all IFAHR member countries during this new legislative period.

- Hubert Lorenz , Posted on 24 January 2005