Terrible financial results, the death of mares belonging to Shirley Watts, the wife of the Rolling Stones drummer, a carousel of presidents – this is what the Janów Podlaski Stud Farm has been associated with in recent years. After years of success of Arabians bred in Janów at world auctions and shows, the stud made headlines for scandals and neglect.
– What is happening now is unfortunately not going in the right direction – says PiS MP Kazimierz Choma, head of the Parliamentary Team for the Protection and Development of Arabian Horse Breeding in Poland. He was at the stud farm in Janów for a parliamentary intervention. – The financial result is deteriorating – he adds. Hanna Sztuka, who in the past was involved in breeding Arabians in Michałów and managed a stud farm in Białka, also mentions the huge loss. — The estimate of Janów's financial result at the end of 2025 is between PLN 6 and 8 million negative. This is no longer an alarm. Unfortunately, the ship is sinking – says Sztuka. In 2023, she was the president of Janów. She was dismissed after five days in office, following sharp protests by stud workers.
However, the current president of the Janów Podlaski Stud, Weronika Sosnowska, provides data that are completely different from the forecasts presented by Choma and Sztuka. — The data will improve, Sosnowska firmly assures.
Weronika Sosnowska, president of the Janów Podlaski Stud
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Natalia Dobryszycka / Onet
Weronika Sosnowska is the ninth president in several years. The list of problems is long
Sosnowska took over the management of the stud farm in April this year. She is just over 30 years old and was previously the main breeder. – It was not an easy decision for me to agree, knowing Janów, being here and seeing the difficulties the company is struggling with – he explains in an interview with Business Insider. He is the ninth person to manage the institution since 2016, when Marek Trela lost his position when PiS took power. “The personnel carousel has damaged the brand, image and functioning of Janów Podlaski,” he says.
The list of problems she says she encountered when taking up the position of president covers virtually all aspects of the stud farm's operation. It starts with breeding horses and cows, through the production of animal feed, the condition of the facility's historic infrastructure, and ends with the atmosphere among employees.
Janów Podlaski Stud Farm
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Natalia Dobryszycka / Onet
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A report from 2024 described the stud farm in Janów as “devastated”
“The horse breeding farm in Janów Podlaski has been devastated over the last 7 years and has lost its reputation on the world market” – was the conclusion of the 2024 report on the condition of stud farms, presented by the deputy head of the National Support Center for Agriculture (KOWR), Lucjan Zwolak. The document was created by a commission whose task was to evaluate the institution after years of PiS rule. Its members included the former presidents of Janów and Michałów, Marek Trela and Jerzy Białobok, and the international judge of Arabian horses, Anna Stojanowska.
Stojanowska was the Chief Horse Breeding Specialist at the Agricultural Property Agency for 21 years. In 2016, she was dismissed overnight on disciplinary grounds.
— I went to court with it. And I won the case, she says. She was also associated with the Janów stud farm as an advisor in 2020, when Marek Gawlik was president for half a year. – What I saw in Janów, what condition the horses were in, what the condition of the fodder on which the horses were fed, how hopeless the crew was in terms of work energy, was such a sad sight that when I was returning, I cried those 186 km to Warsaw in the car – she says. She left the stud farm with Gawlik. Currently, he serves as Advisor to the General Director of KOWR for Arabian Horses.
Anna Stojanowska, Advisor to the General Director of KOWR for Arabian Horses
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Natalia Dobryszycka / Onet
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Valuable mares were sold from Janów
Janowa Stojanowska's biggest current problem is the lack of valuable mares in the herd that could give birth to valuable foals and thus ensure an appropriate level of breeding. — It is known that the easiest way to sell horses is for which there is a market that quickly recognizes which horses are worth getting from the stud. For the last eight years, horses that simply had customers were sold thoughtlessly and it was the customers who dictated which horses were sold, and not the stud farm which decided which ones it could sell at that moment – explains Stojanowska.
Hanna Sztuka also talks about hasty getting rid of mares. – Horse studs, including Janów, do not exist to sell horses – he explains. – Their mission is to secure the genetic material – he adds, but claims that the process of selling the most valuable Arabians has been going on for 20 years. He refers to an article by PiS-related prof. Krystyna Chmiel. However, the text published on the website of the Polish Arabian Horse Breeding Society (of which Sztuka is the secretary) covers only the years 2001-2015, i.e. the period when the stud was managed by Marek Trela.
Janów Podlaski Stud Farm
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Natalia Dobryszycka / Onet
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Valuable horse families were almost lost
— We only have one elite mare in the 3-7 year old age groupand the stock is clearly outdated. What was born promising and prepared for shows quickly found its way onto the sales list, confirms Weronika Sosnowska. He mentions the famous Janów breeding families, such as Scherife and Szamrajówka, from which the biggest show stars come, including: Pianissima, Pinga and Pogrom, which have been significantly weakened. There are also several other valuable female families on the verge of extinction.
The quality of bred Arabians translates into their results at shows and the prices achieved at auctions. “We don't have a single horse from these families that could go to a foreign show and win something,” says Sosnowska. He mentions the high-profile sale of the Alsa mare from the Scherife line at the end of 2019 as scandalous.
The Janów champion was not put up for auction or tender, and experts pointed out that her price was much lower than her potential value. The green light to sell it was given by prof. Krystyna Chmiel. “The goal was desperate rescue of the company's finances and improvement of the balance sheet for the past year. It's a pity that it was a loss for the domestic breeding industry,” said KO MP Dorota Niedziela, who observed this transaction, in an interview for “Rzeczpospolita”.
Weronika Sosnowska
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Natalia Dobryszycka / Onet
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It will take years to rebuild the stud's prestige. Currently, there is no chance of good results at auctions
— Arabian horse breeding in Poland is like a phoenix rising from the ashes. She went through so many difficult moments: war, uprisings, communism, and martial law, and always at the end she was able to pull herself together and stand up, says Anna Stojanowska with hope in her voice. – Now these ashes are up to your neck, really. Sometimes I wonder how strong people's determination must be to push this phoenix out of the ashes – he adds after a moment of silence and explains that it will take years to rebuild the stud's prestige.
— The biggest challenge is certainly to improve the quality of female families. Rebuild it, says President Sosnowska. — Of course, there are also dreams associated with it, because we want to breed horses that will be competitive at large world shows. We don't have a chance now, he adds.
Janów Podlaski Stud Farm
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Natalia Dobryszycka / Onet
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Janów earns money from milk production. The financial stability of the stud farm depends on it
Although the stud farm in Janów is associated primarily with elite horses, the basis of the company's budget is milk production. – We are working to increase efficiency – explains the president, adding that this is significant monthly income. He plans to further improve the level of cattle breeding. Next year he plans to start building a calf and heifer shed.
Another issue he mentions is the improvement of feed production. All activities are aimed at rebuilding the stud's brand and ensuring its financial stability. – We have very good contacts with our clients, so I think we are on the right track here – he assures.
He also managed to improve employee morale, he says. — When I came here, the crew was very demotivated from work. What they want and how much passion and enthusiasm they have now is the greatest satisfaction for me, he says. He employs 75 people to operate the stud farm. The last vacancy notice appeared in October.
Cotillions won by horses from the Janów Podlaski Stud at shows in 2025.
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Natalia Dobryszycka / Onet
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In 2024, the stud farm in Janów had a loss of approximately PLN 4 million. The forecasts for last year are much better
The results of the Janów Podlaski Stud have been negative for years, with two exceptions. For 2024, the net financial loss amounted to PLN 4 million. Since 2017, it ranged between PLN 1.2 million and 3.5 million. The balance was positive only in 2021-2022, after the stud farm was co-financed by KOWR with PLN 7.4 million.
— Mrs. Weronika Sosnowska, I think that a good horse breeder is not very good at business management when it comes to business management, says Kazimierz Choma. As he says, he asked the stud farm for current financial results, but they were not presented to him. He bases his estimates on last year's balance on the information heard at the meeting of his Parliamentary Group. – It may be at the level of losses from the previous year – he estimates and adds that PLN 4 million was the worst result in the history of Janów.
Other data is provided by people currently associated with the stud farm. — Of the four million last year [2024] year, incl [2025] there will be less than two – predicts Anna Stojanowska.
More detailed information is provided by the current president of the stud, Weronika Sosnowska. — As of November 21, 2025, the Company assumed a projected net financial result at the end of the 2025 financial year of less than one million, he says with a smile. If these data are confirmed in the final report, it will mean that the stud farm has made up for PLN 3 million of losses in just one year.
| year | financial result of the stud farm | comments |
|---|---|---|
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2017 |
-1,640,587 PLN |
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2018 |
-PLN 3,273,244 |
|
|
2019 |
-1,252,405 PLN |
|
|
2020 |
-PLN 3,531,265 |
|
|
2021 |
PLN 202,181 |
recapitalization of PLN 7.4 million |
|
2022 |
PLN 165,187 |
|
|
2023 |
-1,633,536 PLN |
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2024 |
approx. – PLN 4,000,000 |
