A BIG CONGRATS TO ALTAMONT SPORT HORSES!!!

[mitma]

Karri Henning of Altamont Sport Horses in Birmingham, AL has just acquired the KNN (Knabstrupperforeningen for Danmark) and fully licensed Knabstrupper stallion, AMBROSIUS AF ASGARD, aka “Atlantis”, from Bec Stud in Ware Neck, VA! :winkgrin:

Altamont Sport Horses is an established breeding program that has focused on producing Trakehners, Appaloosas, and Appaloosa crosses for the sporthorse disciplines and has recently added the unique, rare, and spotted Danish warmblood breed, Knabstruppers, to their program (http://altamontsporthorses.com/). In addition to the Knabstrupper stallion, Karri has also added three KNN registered and approved Knabstrupper mares, Sheela von Nordstern, Regnbue DCSH, and Firefly de Bec and is already expecting four Knabstrupper foals for 2013. How exciting!

Ambrosius Af Asgard (http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/ambrosius+af+asgard) is a 2001, classic style, Knabstrupper stallion, who was imported to the USA from Germany (http://www.afasgard.de/) in 2003. He received his lifetime breeding license from the KNN in 2009 and is one of five other KNN licensed Knabstrupper stallions located in the USA. The others include Halifax Middelsom, Colorado Skrodstrup, Pegasus Vom Niehaus-Hof, and Sheik Af Hallundbaek.

Of note, during his KNN stallion grading, Ambrosius Af Asgard received a 10 for his temperment! Earlier this year, I acquired two mares that were in foal to Ambrosius Af Asgard… Within two and three weeks, respectively, of both mares arriving at my farm, they foaled… Naturally, since the mares were in a new enviroment and being handled by new people, they were rather aloof… But, from the moment the first filly was born, she showed incredible curiosity towards her environment and her handlers… Trully, she is just the biggest “puppydog” of a foal that we have ever had born on our farm… LOL! The second filly born was a bit more “standoffish”, but I will also point out that her dam pretty much hates everyone! LOL! Fortunately, now this filly really loves being handled by us and playing with the other filly, which is just driving her dam crazy! I do really LOVE the personalities of these babies sired by Ambrosius Af Asgard!

Congrats, again, to Altamont Sport Horses for this wonderful addition to their breeding program!

[aquafarms]

Huge Congrat’s Karri, Sound like you have added a really nice addition to your breeding program. There just may have to be a spotted Trakehner at Aqua Farms in the future.

[TwinGates]

Congratulations Karri! Exciting news!!

[anglotrak]

I may have to jump on the bandwagon! I can’t wait to get down to see him!

[Melyni]

Congratulations Karri

He is a really really nice horse. He did his mandatory ridden test here at Cedar Creek and was an absolute gentleman the whole time.
A really nice stallion with exemplary manners.

Good to have you with us!

MW

[Nootka]

I met him at his RPSI inspection in 2006. He is super sweet and I took a pic of him when I was there. He had a long trailer ride VA to FL and acted like a good boy.

I think he would cross great with a TK :yes:

Congrats Altamont and Ashby!!! Sounds like he has a great future

http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2499392870056914887KFAdIw

http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2970519670056914887zcdJBz

http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2793746270056914887KqIHzV

[genevieveg17]

Congratulations! He is so handsome.

[acottongim]

Congrats Karri!

[Equine_Reproduction]

Congrats!

[Shawnda_N]

Huge Congrats Karri !!!

[Sonesta]

Congratulations and welcome, Altamont, to the wonderful world of Knabstruppers.

[Altamont_Sport_Horse]

Very exciting for ASH!

Thank you everyone! I can’t tell you how excited we are about adding Atlantis to our program. I’m not even embarrassed to admit that I was doing a little happy dance waiting for him arrive this weekend.

Atlantis is a kind gentleman and we are already enjoying him in the short time he has been here. It’s true, his offspring are equally good natured. We have one of his very elegant daughters here, Firefly de Bec, to help kick off our Knabstrupper breeding program. Firefly has been bred to Melyni Worth’s Knabstrupper stallion, Halifax Middelsom, for a 2013 foal. As mentioned by Mitma, there are not many approved Knabstrupper stallions available by fresh semen in North America…yet. We look forward to collaborating with all the North American Knabstrupper breeders as we strive to grow the Knabstrupper gene pool and gain recognition for this rare breed performing in the sport horse disciplines.

The KNN (and the RPSI) allows outcrossing with some breeds including approved warmblood mares, Thoroughbreds and Arabians. The Trakehner, however, is considered by many to be the most preferred cross for the sport type of Knabstrupper. Being that we are already Trakehner breeders we have a nice herd of mares we can breed to Atlantis as we grow our new Knabstrupper program.

Atlantis is going back to work in the dressage arena but will still be available to the public. We’re giving him some time to adjust to the heat and humidity. It might be hot but after only two days in Alabama he already has a mare to service so he can’t be too disappointed with his new digs.

[Beentheredonethat]

OK, Altamont, potential breeder here. I want lots of videos as soon as possible of Atlantis and babies. I want stats, too. How tall is he?

[FatCatFarm]

Congrats! He’s a lovely boy. I’m curious too about his color production on solid mares. I know he’s heterozygous for leopard/color, but his grandsire, Apollon, seemed to reproduce the pattern pretty well on solid mares.

[Altamont_Sport_Horse]

[QUOTE=Beentheredonethat;6410320]
OK, Altamont, potential breeder here. I want lots of videos as soon as possible of Atlantis and babies. I want stats, too. How tall is he?[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry we don’t have any appropriate video of him just yet. He is currently at the clinic being bred and collected for frozen semen this week. We’ll be bringing him home next week and getting him back to work. He hasn’t been working for awhile so we’re planning to take it slow at first. We’ll get some good video of him once he’s going back under saddle as well as some at liberty footage.

I, unfortunately, do not have video of his foals. I’m not sure what we could find that would be of value since most people having Atlantis foals were not making sales videos of their babies. Those “baby” videos won’t show much of their movement and, it seems, once people produce or buy an Atlantis foal from a breeder they hold on to them tightly.

We can, however, get some video footage of one of his 4 year old daughters who is here (Firefly de Bec) one of these days when it’s not quite so hot. Firefly is out of a TB mare and she is very nice. She was rated a premium in her inspection and she has matured nicely. When our warmblood breeder friends transported Firefly here for us they watched her get off the trailer and run around the pasture. They said “Wow. I’ve never seen an Appaloosa move like that before!” I tried not to be offended since I am an Appaloosa breeder too :yes: but I did remind them that Firefly is not an Appaloosa, she’s a Knabstrupper. I’ve attached a photo of her from her inspection as a yearling (she is the chestnut leopard yearling).

I also met Lochness de Bec while I was in VA. She was rated premium and the site champion of her KNN inspection. Very lovely mare, well built, and sweet. She is the black leopard mare in the attached picture (pictured at 2 years of age).

Atlantis has a page on our website. www.altamontsporthorses.com/ambrosiusafasgard.html He is 15.2hh and from what I understand he does not limit the size of the foals much, if at all. The foal tends to be similar in size to the mare (maybe within an inch towards Atlantis). So he has been good for breeding to smaller mares where the owner wants to produce smaller. Maiden status could make a difference, I’m sure. I know my maiden mares have always had smaller foals than you would expect.

He’s had a few babies this year that I have been able to see newborn photos of on Facebook but haven’t seen any new photos since they’ve unfolded. We definitely want photos of his foals though so if anyone out there has offspring of Atlantis we’d love to see pictures of them at any and all ages.

[Melyni]

Sending you an email Karri

I had a couple of videos you might be able to use.
I will email you the URL for them on You Tube.
MW

[Miichelle]

Congratulations!

[Altamont_Sport_Horse]

Color production…and, Knabstruppers at Dressage at Devon

[QUOTE=FatCatFarm;6411172]
Congrats! He’s a lovely boy. I’m curious too about his color production on solid mares. I know he’s heterozygous for leopard/color, but his grandsire, Apollon, seemed to reproduce the pattern pretty well on solid mares.[/QUOTE]

Sorry for the delay responding to your question but I’ve been collecting information about his offspring. Atlantis has had about 30 foals. On solid mares he throws color 50% of the time as you would expect. From what we know he has never thrown a foal that had only characteristics (mottled skin, striped hooves, white sclera) but no pattern at birth. They are all leopard, near leopard or suppressed leopard (looks like large blanket). So he appears to be homozygous for PATN1 which causes the leopard pattern but, of course, he is only heterozygous for LP which allows color to be expressed if it there.

So the foals which are born to solid mares and which do not inherit LP have a solid appearance but are probably carrying a copy of PATN1 (hidden without LP to “turn it on”) which is of benefit if used for Knabstrupper breeding later.

Interestingly, a lot of the solid foals inherit his one copy of black and it is a nice true black.

While the color is nice, the best thing about his babies are the fantastic, willing temperaments. If ever there was a warmblood breed best suited to be amateur friendly, suitable for children/families, etc. it is the Knabstrupper. My Trakehners are wonderful and so are my Appaloosas but Knabstruppers take it to a whole new level.

By the way, Altamont Sport Horses is sponsoring the Individual Breed Class in Dressage Sport Horse Breeding at Dressage at Devon on Thursday. It’s quite a trailer ride for our horses so we won’t be bringing any of ours but there will be a good turnout of Knabstruppers for the first ever Knabstrupper class at DAD. Anyone around for the event who is interested in Knabstruppers should come check them out and meet the Knabstrupper owners and breeders.

[dressappy]

Kari congrats. Are you yourself going to make the trip to Devon? It’d be nice to meet you.

[Home_Again_Farm]

Very cool horses. Congrats!!