This article primarily refers to the 2026 KWPN regulations for dressage and jumping riding horses. Requirements for Gelder horses and Harness Horses can differ.
Ster. Keur. Elite. Preferent. Prestatie. PROK. D-OC. Sport.
Anyone who studies a Dutch Warmblood pedigree will eventually encounter these words. Sometimes only one appears behind a horse’s name. In other pedigrees, several are written one after another until they almost seem to form a language of their own.
It is tempting to read them as a ranking system.
A mare with more predicates must be better than a mare with fewer. Elite must simply be better than keur. Preferent must somehow rank above sport.
But that is not how the KWPN predicate system works.
Different predicates answer different questions. Some tell us about the horse’s own conformation or aptitude. Others record sport performance, radiographic information or genetic health information. Preferent and prestatie go even further: they tell us something about what a mare has produced.
That is why the letters behind a horse’s name become useful only when we understand what kind of evidence each one represents.
At Maverick Stables, we therefore do not count predicates when we study a pedigree.
We read them.
Because a predicate is not the conclusion of a pedigree. It is one piece of evidence within it.
Before looking at ster, keur or elite, it is useful to separate predicates from another group of abbreviations that regularly appear in KWPN pedigrees.
Terms such as VB, STB, Register A and Register B are not predicates. They describe the horse’s registration within the studbook system.
That distinction may sound administrative, but it matters when interpreting a pedigree.
A mare can, for example, be described as stb ster. In that combination, stb tells us that she is registered in the studbook, while ster tells us something about the quality she demonstrated during selection.
For riding-horse mares, studbook entry generally takes place from three years of age and requires, among other things, sufficient height and acceptance during inspection. A higher selection predicate such as ster requires additional quality.
The route into the KWPN system can also differ. A horse born from particular combinations of approved, recognised or foreign breeding stock may enter through a different register, and that route can influence which additional requirements later apply for certain predicates.
Registration therefore provides context.
The predicates tell us what was subsequently demonstrated.
For many mares, ster is the first major predicate in their breeding career.
It tells us that the horse itself has distinguished itself sufficiently during KWPN selection.
For a dressage mare under the current riding-horse regulations, that involves minimum standards for both conformation and movement. In 2026, this includes at least 70 points for conformation and an average of at least 75 points for movement, together with the required minimum height.
For a jumping mare, the assessment is structured differently because the breeding goal is different. Conformation remains important, but the jumping evaluation — including qualities such as canter, reflexes, technique and scope — becomes part of the selection picture.
This is where the first important principle appears.
Ster tells us something about the individual horse.
It does not tell us that the mare has already proven herself in sport. It does not tell us that she has produced exceptional offspring. And it does not automatically tell us anything about her radiographic health.
Those questions belong to other predicates.
Ster is therefore best viewed as the first substantial piece of evidence that the individual horse met a defined KWPN breeding standard.
There can also be more than one route to that conclusion. A mare that already has sufficient conformation scores and later proves herself through an accepted performance or aptitude route can, under the applicable conditions, still reach ster.
The final predicate may therefore look the same, while the path towards it was not necessarily identical.
That becomes important when we read pedigrees in detail.
The term voorlopig keur is often read as if it were simply another predicate positioned between ster and keur. Formally, however, it is a status rather than a finished predicate. It describes a mare that has already passed the relevant selection stage towards keur, but has not yet completed all the functional requirements needed for the final keur predicate.
That distinction explains why a mare can be described as voorlopig keur while officially still remaining ster. Her exterior and selection quality have been considered sufficient for the next level, but the KWPN still requires evidence that she can translate those qualities into function.
Once the necessary aptitude or sport requirement has been fulfilled, the mare can become keur. For dressage mares this can be achieved, depending on the route, through an accepted IBOP or EPTM result, an equivalent young-horse assessment or a qualifying competition result such as Z1 + 1. Jumping mares follow the same underlying logic but with requirements designed around jumping and, where applicable, eventing performance.
Keur therefore adds something important to the information already contained in ster. The mare has not simply been judged as a more attractive horse. Her selection quality has been supported by functional evidence. In practical pedigree analysis, that makes keur interesting because it links what was seen during inspection with something the horse subsequently demonstrated under saddle or in a standardised aptitude test.
It is also worth remembering that the precise selection route is not always identical. Central Inspection remains familiar to many breeders, but current regulations also allow selection to be integrated into other inspection routes. The essential principle, however, remains the same: the mare has to combine sufficient selection quality with sufficient demonstrated ability.
The word elite naturally sounds as if it must simply mean “better than keur”. That interpretation is understandable, but it misses the reason the predicate exists.
Keur already represents the mare’s selection and functional evidence. Elite adds a further category of information: health. Under the current riding-horse system, a keur mare can become elite when she also fulfils the required PROK or D-OC condition.
The difference is therefore not that the elite mare necessarily competed at a higher level or received an even higher exterior score. Instead, another type of evidence has been added to what was already known about her. We have selection, we have functional proof, and we now also have an accepted health qualification.
This is a useful example of why the predicate system should not be imagined as one straight ladder. Moving from keur to elite does not simply mean “more of the same”. It means the information package has become broader.
The way predicates are displayed reinforces this. Once a mare becomes keur, ster is no longer normally shown as a separate lower predicate. If she later becomes elite, ster and keur are not written separately either. They have not disappeared from her history; they are embedded in the route that made elite possible.
So when we encounter an elite mare in a pedigree, we know that earlier selection stages sit behind that word even though they are no longer all written out behind her name.
PROK and D-OC are often grouped together because both can contribute to the health component required for elite. From a breeding perspective, however, they are valuable precisely because they answer different questions.
PROK looks at the individual horse. A prescribed series of radiographs is evaluated against the KWPN’s radiographic criteria. If the horse meets those standards, the PROK predicate can be awarded. That tells us something concrete about what was visible in that particular horse at the time of examination.
It is important not to translate PROK into “completely clean X-rays”. The KWPN works with defined limits and classifications, and certain findings can fall within the accepted standard. Nor should PROK be read as a guarantee that the horse will remain orthopaedically healthy throughout life. It is a structured assessment of a number of radiographically relevant features at a particular moment.
D-OC approaches the subject from the other direction. Rather than asking what developed in the individual horse, it uses genomic information to estimate the genetic predisposition for osteochondrosis. This makes it especially interesting for breeding, because an individual horse’s own radiographs and the genetic expectation it carries for the next generation are not necessarily the same thing.
Since March 2026, the practical D-OC threshold has become stricter, with a genomic breeding value of at least 99 and the required reliability needed for the predicate. That change is also a useful reminder that predicates belong to a regulatory context. A predicate earned years ago remains meaningful, but the precise threshold under which it was awarded may differ from the one used today.
When we read PROK and D-OC in a pedigree, we therefore do not see two versions of the same information. We see one piece of evidence about the individual horse and another about genetic expectation.
Young mares often enter breeding before they have had the chance to build an extensive competition record. The KWPN aptitude tests help bridge that gap by assessing what the horse demonstrates at a relatively early stage of its development.
The IBOP is essentially a concentrated one-day performance assessment. The horse is prepared beforehand and presented under standardised conditions, allowing the judges to assess the qualities relevant to its breeding direction. The EPTM, by contrast, follows a mare over a considerably longer period. Depending on the programme, the mare is trained and assessed for several weeks, giving the assessors more opportunity to observe how she develops, how she responds to work and how consistently she demonstrates her qualities.
Both routes ultimately ask whether the mare shows sufficient aptitude, but they collect the evidence differently. That is why it is somewhat misleading to describe both as a simple snapshot. The IBOP comes much closer to that description, whereas the strength of an EPTM lies precisely in the longer observation period.
For dressage horses, the assessment includes the basic gaits alongside qualities such as suppleness, posture, balance, rideability and overall aptitude. Jumping horses are assessed on traits such as canter, reflexes, technique, scope, attitude and rideability. Under the current system a maximum of 100 points can be achieved and 75 points are required to pass.
Neither test tells us what the horse will ultimately accomplish after years of training. What they provide is a structured assessment of the natural and functional qualities available at that point in the horse’s development. For a young broodmare, that information can be highly valuable precisely because a long sport career does not yet exist.
The sport predicate is conceptually different from an aptitude test because it is based on results obtained in competition. Instead of asking what potential the horse demonstrates under controlled assessment, sport records what the horse actually achieved in the competitive environment.
The qualifying level depends on the discipline. For dressage riding horses, the current threshold begins at Z2 with the required result, while jumping horses qualify through the relevant Z/1.30 m level with the necessary points. Eventing, endurance and driving have their own criteria, and the requirements for Gelder and Harness Horses differ from those used for dressage and jumping riding horses.
A sport predicate can therefore add an important layer to the story of a mare. Some mares follow the inspection and aptitude route at a young age and enter breeding before building a substantial competition record. Others may have relatively modest inspection status yet go on to prove themselves convincingly in sport.
That is why an elite mare is not automatically more proven as a sport horse than a ster mare with a substantial competition career. The elite predicate and the sport predicate are documenting different achievements.
When we study an older broodmare, this distinction becomes especially useful. Her inspection record tells us what was recognised early in life; her sport record tells us what she later managed to sustain under training and competition.
Up to this point, most of the predicates have told us primarily about the mare herself. Preferent changes the perspective because it is based on her offspring.
A riding-horse mare can become preferent when at least three of her offspring satisfy the relevant selection criteria. Those offspring may have become ster themselves, progressed far enough within the KWPN stallion-selection system or qualified through the approved or recognised stallion routes defined by the regulations.
The value of preferent lies in repetition. One attractive or talented offspring is important, but it may still be the result of a particularly successful individual combination. When several offspring distinguish themselves within selection, the mare begins to demonstrate that she can reproduce certain qualities more consistently.
That does not mean that a preferent mare has automatically produced high-level sport horses. Preferent is mainly evidence of repeated selection quality. Her offspring have repeatedly fitted the characteristics that the studbook was looking for strongly enough to distinguish themselves.
For us, that makes preferent particularly interesting when it appears repeatedly in a maternal family. It suggests that the ability to produce horses that meet the breeding goal has survived beyond a single generation.
Where preferent looks at repeated selection quality, prestatie focuses on the performance achieved by the offspring. For breeding analysis, this can make it one of the most revealing predicates in a maternal line.
Under the 2026 riding-horse rules, a mare must collect at least five performance points, obtained through at least two and no more than three offspring. The exact number of points depends on the level and type of performance achieved by those offspring.
The current 2026 point system for riding-horse mares includes:
| Offspring achievement | Points |
|---|---|
| Completed KWPN stallion performance test and approved | 2 |
| Qualifying KWPN mare aptitude test | 1 |
| 5-year-old World Breeding Dressage Championship result ≥75% | 1 |
| Dressage Z1 + 1 or higher, ≥60% | 1 |
| Dressage ZZ-Licht + 1 or higher, ≥60% | 2 |
| Grand Prix U25 / Grand Prix dressage, ≥60% | 3 |
| Jumping 1.30 m + 1 or higher, maximum 4 faults | 1 |
| Jumping 1.40 m + 1, maximum 4 faults | 2 |
| Jumping 1.45 m, maximum 12 faults | 2 |
| Jumping 1.50 m or higher, maximum 12 faults | 3 |
| Eventing M + 5 | 1 |
| Eventing Z + 1 | 2 |
| International eventing 4*/5*, one MER | 3 |
| Driving M + 5 | 1 |
| International combined driving, all phases completed | 2 |
| Endurance class III + 3 | 1 |
| Endurance class IV completed | 2 |
The requirement for at least two offspring is crucial. Suppose a mare produces one Grand Prix dressage horse. That is an exceptional breeding achievement, but under the current system that single offspring contributes three points. The mare therefore still needs qualifying performance from at least one additional offspring before she can reach prestatie.
That does not diminish the value of producing one Grand Prix horse. It simply shows what the predicate is designed to measure. Prestatie is not only about producing one outstanding individual; it is also intended to recognise a degree of repeatability in performance.
This becomes especially interesting when comparing broodmares. One mare may produce one spectacular international horse and relatively little else. Another may never produce the same single outlier, but consistently produce horses that reach meaningful sport levels across several different matings. Both records can be extremely valuable, but they tell us different things about the mare.
The current rules also allow one offspring to contribute qualifying achievements from more than one discipline. Within the same discipline, only the highest qualifying performance counts, but recognised achievements in different disciplines may both contribute to the mare’s total.
That is particularly interesting when studying older all-round dam lines. A horse that performed in both dressage and jumping, for example, can reveal versatility in the maternal family that would be missed if the pedigree were analysed only through the lens of one modern specialisation.
For that reason, when we see prestatie behind a mare’s name, we do not stop at the predicate itself. We want to know exactly which offspring earned the points, in which disciplines, at what level and through which sires.
The word tells us that performance was reproduced.
The point distribution tells us how.
Because both preferent and prestatie are based on offspring, the two predicates are often mentioned together. Yet they describe two different forms of breeding evidence.
Preferent tells us that a mare has repeatedly produced offspring that distinguished themselves within selection. Prestatie looks beyond selection and asks whether recognised performance has also been reproduced through the offspring. A mare can therefore become preferent without ever becoming prestatie, and the reverse is possible as well.
A mare may, for example, repeatedly produce high-quality ster daughters that are retained for breeding. Those daughters strengthen her preferent record, but if they never build sufficient sport results they may contribute little towards prestatie. Another mare may produce several successful competition horses that were rarely presented at studbook inspections and can therefore build a strong prestatie record without becoming preferent.
When both predicates appear behind the same mare, the combination becomes particularly interesting. It means that her breeding record has been recognised through two independent routes: her offspring have repeatedly distinguished themselves in selection and they have also accumulated sufficient recognised performance.
Even then, we still want to look beyond the predicates themselves. A mare that reaches prestatie through two offspring just meeting the necessary thresholds tells a different story from a mare with several international performers, even though the same word may ultimately appear behind both names.
Preferent shows us that selection quality repeated. Prestatie shows us that performance repeated. The offspring tell us how strong that repetition really was.
A predicate is an official result, but it does not exist outside time. Regulations change, testing methods evolve and the route into the KWPN system can differ between horses.
Registration status is one example. A Register A mare can enter the inspection system and earn predicates, but additional conditions may apply later depending on the health status or approval background of her sire. Foreign-bred mares can also follow routes that differ from mares born directly into the main KWPN books.
The year in which a predicate was earned can matter as well. The 2026 change to the D-OC threshold illustrates this perfectly. A mare carrying D-OC from an earlier period may have fulfilled a different numerical threshold from a mare obtaining the same predicate under the current rules.
None of this makes older predicates less legitimate. It simply means that serious pedigree analysis sometimes requires more than reading the abbreviation. When a mare becomes particularly important to a breeding decision, it can be worth finding out when and through which route she earned the status recorded behind her name.
The same principle applies to older sport classifications, historical inspection systems and horses that competed abroad. The predicate is valuable, but the context can make the information richer.
Another important complication is that the same word can have a different meaning depending on whether it appears behind a mare or an approved stallion.
A keur mare earned that status through her own selection and the required functional evidence. A keur stallion, by contrast, earns the predicate because sufficient evidence has accumulated about his offspring.
That process necessarily takes time. For a stallion to be considered for keur, his first crop must already be old enough for the KWPN to evaluate how his offspring are developing and performing. The assessment therefore concerns his breeding results rather than simply the qualities he demonstrated as a young horse.
Preferent for an approved stallion represents an even more established level of breeding evidence. The stallion must already be keur, his progeny must have had enough time to prove themselves broadly and his overall contribution to the population must be considered exceptional. Such recognition can also be awarded posthumously.
This distinction is essential when reading older pedigrees. A fashionable three-year-old stallion can be extremely promising, but a preferent stallion carries a type of evidence that a young stallion simply cannot yet possess: many years of information about what happened when his genes were combined with a wide range of mares.
In breeding, time is data.
It is easy to be impressed by a long line of abbreviations. Yet the number of predicates alone tells us surprisingly little unless we understand what they represent.
Imagine one mare is listed as elite PROK, while another is ster sport-dres preferent prestatie. The first gives us evidence of selection, demonstrated ability and the required health route. The second gives us evidence of individual selection, competition performance and repeated quality and performance among her offspring.
Which mare is better?
There is no meaningful answer based on those words alone.
Their records are valuable in different ways. If our breeding goal demands proven durability and sport, the second mare’s record may be particularly interesting. If we are investigating consistent selection quality and health information in a young family, the first may offer exactly the evidence we need.
This is why pedigree analysis is not a competition in accumulating abbreviations. Every predicate should be translated back into the question it answers.
Only then can we begin to decide how relevant that information is to the breeding decision in front of us.
A predicate becomes more informative when it is placed within a family.
One ster mare tells us that one individual met the selection standard. A succession of ster, keur and elite mares through the direct maternal line begins to suggest that the family consistently produces horses that fit the breeding goal.
The same applies to sport. One successful competition horse can always be exceptional. When significant sport performance appears repeatedly through daughters, brothers, maternal sisters and different branches of the same dam line, the evidence becomes much more difficult to dismiss as coincidence.
Preferent and prestatie become especially powerful when they repeat across generations. A prestatie mare tells us that she produced performance more than once. A maternal family containing several prestatie mares begins to suggest something deeper: the capacity to produce performers may itself be travelling through the female line.
That is why we rarely stop at the four or five horses shown in a basic pedigree. We follow sisters, daughters and maternal siblings. We look at what happens when different stallions are introduced and whether the same qualities continue to appear.
One successful cross can be fortunate.
A family that continues to produce through very different crosses begins to look like a breeding line.
At Maverick Stables, predicates are useful because they organise information that would otherwise be difficult to compare across generations. They help us identify where selection quality, health information, sport performance and proven reproduction sit within a pedigree.
But we do not breed predicates. We breed horses.
When we encounter a preferent mare, we want to know which offspring made her preferent and what those horses were actually like. When we encounter prestatie, we want to understand where the points came from. A mare whose predicate rests on two horses just reaching the required levels presents a different breeding record from a mare with several international performers, even though both may officially carry the same predicate.
The same applies to elite. The word is valuable, but we also want to see the mare herself and the family around her. Did those qualities persist into her daughters? Did the horses remain durable? What happened when the family was crossed with different bloodlines?
Sport results require the same deeper look. A sport predicate tells us that a threshold was reached, but not whether the horse competed successfully for one season or remained sound and competitive for many years.
Predicates therefore help us decide which questions to ask next.
When we select a stallion for one of our mares, our aim is not to create the pedigree with the greatest possible number of prestigious abbreviations. We first try to understand which qualities are already deeply anchored in the maternal family and which qualities still need to be added.
That leads back to one of the questions we use repeatedly within our breeding programme:
Which stallion adds something this maternal line does not yet possess, without genetically closing off the qualities the family already carries?
KWPN predicates are one of the tools that help us answer that question.
Their value lies not in the letters themselves, but in the horses and generations behind them.
| Term | What it primarily tells us |
|---|---|
| STB | Registration in the studbook — not a predicate |
| Ster | Individual selection for conformation and aptitude |
| Voorlopig keur | Selected toward keur, but performance/aptitude requirement not yet completed |
| Keur | Selection plus demonstrated aptitude or qualifying performance |
| Elite | Keur plus PROK or D-OC health qualification |
| PROK | Individual radiographic status according to KWPN criteria |
| D-OC | Genomic breeding value for osteochondrosis |
| IBOP | Aptitude demonstrated in a one-day KWPN test |
| EPTM | Aptitude assessed during a multi-week mare test |
| Sport | The horse’s own competition performance |
| Preferent | Repeated selection quality among offspring |
| Prestatie | Qualifying performance demonstrated by multiple offspring |
| Keur stallion | Proven quality of an approved stallion’s progeny |
| Preferent stallion | Exceptional, established breeding influence through progeny |
This article is intended as an educational guide to understanding the KWPN predicate system. It does not replace the official KWPN regulations, inspection decisions or individual information recorded in the KWPN Database. Requirements may differ between dressage horses, jumping horses, Gelder horses and Harness Horses and may be amended by the KWPN over time.
KWPN — Predicates: general information
KWPN — Mare and foal inspections: studbook and ster criteria
KWPN — 2026 Dressage Mare Selection Regulations
KWPN — 2026 Dressage Mare Inspection Decision
KWPN — 2026 Jumping Mare Selection Regulations
KWPN — 2026 Jumping Mare Inspection Decision
KWPN — Books and Registers: Veulenboek, Stamboek, Register A and Register B
KWPN — D-OC questions and explanation
KWPN — 2026 change to the D-OC requirement
KWPN — IBOP and EPTM aptitude tests
KWPN — Predicates for approved stallions
Regulations can change from year to year. This article reflects the KWPN rules applicable in 2026. For an individual horse or future breeding season, the most recent KWPN selection and inspection regulations should always remain the final reference.
