WF in Canada
I took over the position as the national Registrar in 2015 I believe – about a month prior to the Vernon International Breeding show. The registrar had just resigned on truly short notice and the Breeding evaluation was in jeopardy.
Someone had to step up. Stubborn as I am, I volunteered. It was an incredible steep learning curve and the evaluation would have not worked out without the help of Hallveig! (still very thankful for that!)
Text: Lisi Ohm, Vindsdalur Icelandic Horses, Nova Scotia/Canada
WorldFengur – the early days
In Canada Worldfengur had a difficult start. The Canadian Icelandic Horse Federation (CIHF) is bound by their Constitution to have all their registration done by the Canadian Livestock record Cooperation (CLRC) – and there were already fees to pay. Not a lot of people in the CIHF saw the necessity for a second registration. The few people who did enjoy the services WorldFengur offered held a small membership (by time or entry) and I remember planning and timing my logging in time as best as possible to get the most of it! Thoroughly enjoying browsing pedigrees, assessment scores and searching offspring of mares and stallions.
Photo: Hannah Langhanki
One had no free access via a membership and needed to be a bit obsessed with bloodlines and such to find the fees worthwhile. This was also the time when more and more countries entered all their breeding stock and horses into the data bank and several farms and breeders in Canada were worried the Canadian federation would lose the chance to be part of it.
Photo: Hanna Dilts
Two breeding farms at that time stepped up and offered to pay the country fee for Worldfengur for two years! Those were Tolt Away farm, owned by Iris and Erhard Marenbach and Moondance Acres, owned by Ellen Hansen.
Iris Marenback also took it onto herself to enter all Canadian owned and bred horses into the database. That was a massive undertaking and required quite a bit of detective work and investigations – often big gabs needed to be filed from the CLRC records. Iris worked two years to complete this task and the Canadian federation owes her a huge thank! Iris was also the main force behind combining the two quite different number systems from CLRC and Worldfengur.
Nowadays its just considered “normal” to have a Worldfengur entry for each horse as well as the CLRC one. Its also normal to have endless access to the webpage paid through the membership of the Canadian Federation.
After surviving that first breeding evaluation and the Worldfengur work included I got better in working with the webpage and when asked to take it over as a registrar I agreed. Since then, we moved our farm from British Columbia to Nova Scotia – basically 5000km east – and with the help of Arnold’s daughter Trace we managed to get another breed evaluation entered – sort of long distance. And we will do that again when there will be another one!
Personally – as a breeder I could not imagine living without Worldfengur and the information available on my fingertips. And I find it easily addictive to get lost in pedigrees and everything else involved.
Congratulations to 20 years! And hopefully many more!
Photo: Lisi Ohm
Sida from Fitjamyri, Vernon 2014 (photo: Hanna Dilts)
Hemmingur from Fitjamyri, Vernon 2013 (photo: Toos Faber)
Maya from Fitjamyri, World Championships 2013, Berlin (photo: Mr. Roosjen’s)