The Sports Pony Studbook Society

Head Office, Bernwode Stud, Sock Farm, Chilthorne Domer,

Yeovil, Somerset BA22 8QZ

Tel: 01935 840029; Mobile: 07721 766210 

A Private Limited Company - Companies House (Cardiff) Registration No. 4106148

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Sports Pony Studbook Society (SPSS)

The only studbook in Great Britain specializing in the identification, grading and registration of all types of pony with sporting potential

Click here to find out WHAT'S NEW on the site

The SPSS exists to identify those ponies, irrespective of type or breeding, who offer true sporting talent and will provide the UK with top class Dressage, Event and Showjumping stock capable of competing successfully with our ‘ever improving’ competitors from other countries. We are doing this using the ‘tried and tested’ method of grading both mares and stallions as potential breeding stock specifically for sport rather than any other criteria.

Because of the demands of modern sport, there are a growing number of imported ‘Sports Ponies’, in this country, including a considerable number of licensed and performance tested stallions and highly graded mares.  Many UK breeders are also successfully using the smaller Warmblood horse in their pony breeding programmes resulting in a Warmblood Pony within the 148cm competition height limit.  There is now a high demand for these ponies to be recognized and documented and for their progeny to participate in the sport pony grading process, which is mandatory in their own studbooks and countries of origin and which plays a vital role in ensuring that they are able to perform with success in an increasingly competitive field. It should also be borne in mind that the minimum height for grading with the majority of the Warmblood/Sport Horse societies in UK is 15hh. In Europe, animals below this height but with a good potential talent both for sport and for passing it on to their offspring would be eligible for grading into the specific sports pony studbooks of the countries concerned.  However, until the SPSS formed, there was no organisation in UK able to grade and register these smaller warmbloods as ponies and the benefits they could provide to the British pony breeding industry had therefore been neglected.

As a nation we stand alone in the production of ‘top quality’ ponies of most types and sizes and we should now consolidate our worldwide reputation by not allowing ourselves to fall further behind in the production of the ‘Sport Pony’.

Click here for more information (including how to change the ownership details in a SPSS passport) and the answers to 'Frequently Asked Questions'!