The governing body is in the market for leading sponsors for the majority of its seven constituent sports, and hopes to announce a number of new partners in coming months.

"We are governing seven sports, not one," said Ralph Straus, the FEI's commercial director, at the SPORTELMonaco convention here.

"We need to recognise the uniqueness of each sport."

The federation wants to establish the sort of connection that timekeeper Longines has long enjoyed with jumping between different sponsors and its six other disciplines - dressage, eventing, vaulting, driving, reining and endurance.

It believes the characteristics of each are distinctive enough to warrant this new approach, although Longines will continue to provide timekeeping services across all activities as needed.

The body, whose President, Ingmar De Vos, recently became an International Olympic Committee member, plans to launch new branding for the seven disciplines next month.

According to Straus, the sponsorship programme for next year's World Equestrian Games in Tryon, North Carolina, will be structured by discipline, in the same way.

The FEI has assessed that 37 million people around the world take part in one equestrian discipline or another at least once a week.

It puts the economic impact of the equestrian industry worldwide at around $300 billion (£228 billion/€255.5 billion).