Bloodlines in regards to dressage and dressage breeding

[doublesstable]

Thanks for confirming this is a 13 year old post… I haven’t visited COTH for years and it’s a new format so I was confused. Enjoyed reading everyone’s thoughts on dressage breeding. It was cool to see some of my horses bloodlines mentioned… but this is a 13 year old post. HA HA.

I do LOVE my Florestan bred horse… and the fact his grandsire is an Anglo Arabian I feel has added to his amazing temperament and willingness. But I do like them forward thinking. The WB’s I have purchased I always look for a bit of blood from the TB or Arabian lines. I have a Sandro Hit/Prince Thatch bred horse that not only is a top hunter mover here in the US but incredible mover in general. I have been jumping my Florestan/Arabian horse for years and now we are adventuring in Dressage. He sure is cut out for it thanks to his breeding… Keep up the conversations so we can continue to learn.

[the_sandiest_shoes]

My Danone I mare is the best purchase I ever made (Deniro / Weltmeyer). Danone is the sire of Dante Weltino as well.

She’s on the “cooler” side but still reactive if ridden correctly. She’s the safest warmblood I ever met and training her is so easy - same horse at home and at shows. The second show I ever took her too I got my personal best score ever - just love this horse to death and would definitely look for similar breeding in future. We ride at a primarily Iberian horse facility and several trainers say she’s one of the only warmbloods they actually like .

[SillyHorse]

@Kmisschuck

Next young one I bought was out of Papparazo (successful Oldenburg) . . . Then I bought a three year old KWPN out of Odin, and on dams side Pilot, Iroko.

Horses are by stallions, out of mares. I think in a breeding thread it is important to get this straight.

[sigrid.sijtsma]

the important thing is, that a foal get 70% of his dam, so as well exteriour, so if the dam isnt in harmonie, not in balance, then you breed a foal who is the same way. and dont forget the foal walks beside her mother for 5 months, so the natural behaviour/ caracter of the dam will pass on to the foal.

all the quality of a foal, depends on the damline,

a proven uniform breeding mareline, who is in harmony, moves in balance, is an easy horse to ride, cause you do less, and the horse offer his natural born souplesse, balance and harmonie in the dressagework. they always have a big heart, good caracter.

i notice a lot of stallions requiring this,’
but also stallion who dont., for example…

Jazz, flemmingh, krack c, cocktail, gribaldi, horses are not in harmonie, dont move in balance, dont have the power from behind, jazz also a stallion whos giving bad caracter… to sensitive for stupid things. flemmingh trows good caracter. and they are all ridden offspring on highest level as weel with tricks… have you seen Parzival, sired by jazz adelinde cornellissen on GP dressage, he dos his piaffe wrong, his hind is higher then his withers!! thats not sitting on the hindleg… thats trick riding, with a whip keep his legs in motion… but not as how the FEI wants…

i can name up a lot of dressage stallion bred by KWPN who have this bad exteriours, they make tactfaults all the time… front hoof is landing earlier then diagonal hind hoof in trot!!

Weltmeyer, wolkentanz I( not his full brother nr II) donnerhall, brentano, florestan, ferro, Don daimond, escolar, dante weltino, farrington, oscar, darlington, contango fidermark are proven stallions in my opinion.

the best dressage stallion, come from german damlines, Hannoverian, Oldenburg Holstein , so aproved KWPN stallion from import german damline is good.

But aproved KWPN stallions who come from the netherlands, are not good, as they dont have the quality a german horse has.

The use of riding a horse, or working/pulling with a horse, was way earlier in germany then in the Netherlands, and thats what you see…

also the shagya lines, linebreeding, as they give more harmony and balanced type as well.

in the older dressage stalions, you see the influence of the shagya as well, some of the dams of aproved stallions come from eastern germany /prussian they bred a lot with shagya stallion, but after wwII a lot of registry papers were lost, and you dont see the pedigree behind such mares.

I always say:

if you breed a champion stallion to a donkey, you get half a donkey…

breed a proven uniform dam out of top quality mareline with a stallion who is a donkey, you still have a horse like its dam!!

The quality of breeding comes from the dam… not the stallion!

i choose on my uniform breeding mare a pref kwpn stallion, who had a few points not good, as he trows that always on his offspring , but i knew when i breed him to my mare that negative points he breeds, dont show up on my foal, as my mare breeds her type/exteriour.

[Scribbler]

@sigrid.sijtsma

the important thing is, that a foal get 70% of his dam, so as well exteriour, so if the dam isnt in harmonie, not in balance, then you breed a foal who is the same way. and dont forget the foal walks beside her mother for 5 months, so the natural behaviour/ caracter of the dam will pass on to the foal.

all the quality of a foal, depends on the damline,

a proven uniform breeding mareline, who is in harmony, moves in balance, is an easy horse to ride, cause you do less, and the horse offer his natural born souplesse, balance and harmonie in the dressagework. they always have a big heart, good caracter.

i notice a lot of stallions requiring this,’
but also stallion who dont., for example…

Jazz, flemmingh, krack c, cocktail, gribaldi, horses are not in harmonie, dont move in balance, dont have the power from behind, jazz also a stallion whos giving bad caracter… to sensitive for stupid things. flemmingh trows good caracter. and they are all ridden offspring on highest level as weel with tricks… have you seen Parzival, sired by jazz adelinde cornellissen on GP dressage, he dos his piaffe wrong, his hind is higher then his withers!! thats not sitting on the hindleg… thats trick riding, with a whip keep his legs in motion… but not as how the FEI wants…

i can name up a lot of dressage stallion bred by KWPN who have this bad exteriours, they make tactfaults all the time… front hoof is landing earlier then diagonal hind hoof in trot!!

Weltmeyer, wolkentanz I( not his full brother nr II) donnerhall, brentano, florestan, ferro, Don daimond, escolar, dante weltino, farrington, oscar, darlington, contango fidermark are proven stallions in my opinion.

the best dressage stallion, come from german damlines, Hannoverian, Oldenburg Holstein , so aproved KWPN stallion from import german damline is good.

But aproved KWPN stallions who come from the netherlands, are not good, as they dont have the quality a german horse has.

The use of riding a horse, or working/pulling with a horse, was way earlier in germany then in the Netherlands, and thats what you see…

also the shagya lines, linebreeding, as they give more harmony and balanced type as well.

in the older dressage stalions, you see the influence of the shagya as well, some of the dams of aproved stallions come from eastern germany /prussian they bred a lot with shagya stallion, but after wwII a lot of registry papers were lost, and you dont see the pedigree behind such mares.

I always say:

if you breed a champion stallion to a donkey, you get half a donkey…

breed a proven uniform dam out of top quality mareline with a stallion who is a donkey, you still have a horse like its dam!!

The quality of breeding comes from the dam… not the stallion!

i choose on my uniform breeding mare a pref kwpn stallion, who had a few points not good, as he trows that always on his offspring , but i knew when i breed him to my mare that negative points he breeds, dont show up on my foal, as my mare breeds her type/exteriour.

Yes and no. I’ve certainly seen grade mares bred to Arabians, TB, Andalusian. The resulting foals were much fancier than the mares!!

[Calhoun]

Seconding Sigrid’s comments on Shagyas. I have one and she is the perfect amateur’s horse. Nothing rattles her cage, very sound, easy peasy as a youngster, and wants to work with you. She’s not going to the Olympics, just a great all-rounder in dressage and jumping. Her one negative, she can be tense at horse shows and new surroundings, nothing stupid, just tense in the back and lacks suppleness, and some of my scores have reflected this. I worked with a clinician for a year who came to my area every month. She gave me tools to help.

I wish there were more Shagyas out there competing so people would know about them.

[cardinale]

Sigrid, how do you recommend e.g. American horse shoppers educate themselves about the damlines? Stallions are heavily marketed and there is a lot of information about them in English that is easily accessible (albeit perhaps not reliable but more marketing hype). However, the information about mare lines is not so well known. What is a good source of information?

Thank you for your contributions to this discussion.

[sigrid.sijtsma]

www.horsetelex.com is a good site, to look at pedigree of horses. it is worldwide with all of the horses of any registries, also you can put your horse there with pedigree. and so you can see more then 4 generation on your studbookpapers.

also kwpn.com has on there site, database but thats only for kwpn registered horses.

also on horsetelex.com you see the shagya bloodlines in the pedigrees, and if your own horse has shagya lines in the pedigree, you can look for stallion that has shagya lines aswell, then you do linebreeding.

and linebreeding also in 3th till 12th generation, same genes will click, and you see the result in a foal.

so for sporthorses breeding, use aproved stallion of the studbook you want to use and look for the bloodlines you want to have, so linebreeding.

my horse comes from holstein damline, but i know there are horses, from other damlines and bred too aproved stallion for sportregistries/studbook. but there damline isnt european from origin.

those mare can be bred back in linebreeding on the bloodlines the stallions have, so also with that linebreeding, you uniform breed in the sporthorse type, and not the thoroughbred XX types, cause i see a lot of horses in north america that are from origin from XX lines.

also good connection with a person in europe ( germany/ netherlands/ belgium/ sweden norway that breeds good quality horses) can give you lots of information,

The information how to find it, is normal here in europe, as we bred spothorses for so long, and must say that here as well are a lot of people who breed with the popular stallion and not look at the dam… as some dams arent good to breed with cause they arent right in the type they have.

Also is it good to know how the horse exteriour has to look like, to make it work in riding, that they are in balance, harmony and have to power from behind.

https://easpstamboek.nl/artikelen/

is in dutch, translates to english when you go there, but it says a lot about how a horse has to look like.

The owner of the studbook easp. karel de lange is also very known about his knowhow about how a horse has to look like, also the shagya bloodlines he is very interested in and knows a lot about that.

He also is on facebook, and post lots of info there about sporthorses who are very good and some that are bad.

photos of my mare Flooramie sired by Florestan I she is kwpn elite pref mare import holstein, with her foal of 2021, Ryana, she is sired by Wolkentanz.

You can see the shagya arab genes in the dam and also in the foal, as she was linebred on shagya with wolkentanz( frozen semen ) he is an old type dressage stallion, not the types there are now a lot anymore. . wolkentanz is Wolkentanz - Wikipedia

[J-Lu]

Wow! So interesting to see this thread!

The Proof son I mentioned oh so many years ago showed to fourth level, I believe, with Hilda Gurney. He was sent to her as a youngster. He’s now with a more local trainer (local to TX) and working FEI.

[anon6796898]

Jazz does not give a bad character . They are smart and sensitive. Two things you don’t like. Odd to completely disrespect the Dutch stallions but don’t mention your mare’s dam line.

[BigMama1]

I know next time nothing about bloodlines so this zombie thread is fascinating to me.

Two of my horses have had truly exceptional temperaments and I wonder how much is breeding.

My mare’s sire was by Contender and she was incredible. Sensitive and responsive while being safe and reliable. Her work ethic was amazing. Never got flustered, never said no, got more excited and enthusiastic about her job as the ride went on - even at age 23.

My current gelding is by Rotspon and he’s just the sweetest, most reliable dude. No quit in him ever and could snuggle all day. Not near as sensitive as my mare, but could be pumped up for a good rider or you could let your grandmother hack him around the hayfield on a long rein.

[netg]

@anon6796898

Jazz does not give a bad character . They are smart and sensitive. Two things you don’t like. Odd to completely disrespect the Dutch stallions but don’t mention your mare’s dam line.

I almost wish he were closer as I want a bit more sensitivity with my descendent! Jazz gives power and an excellent, and I’ve found the descendants I know are all very unhappy if that power is stifled, so we work to encourage it. Which is also FUN.

[sigrid.sijtsma]

smart en sensitive is something else then bad caracter, they are way too spooky…and for me that is bad caracter.

they react on anything spooky, also when the rider says it is ok, they dont trust the rider, they trust themself in that situation.

and thats bad caracter for me, they have to trust their handler/ rider in work. that needs time, but a lot of jazz offspring cant trust another, only themself, and thats the bloodline… of jazz… jazz bred to a mare who has not a bad caracter, give the offspring the caracter of the dam… but if you breed jazz to bad caracter mare, then you know you will have a very high possibility that the trust in handler/owner/rider is not there.

my horses are smart and very sensitive, very quick in reacting … Flooramie elite pref NMK mare , ( reserve champion 3 yr old dressage horse in provence friesland) sired by Florestan she is imported holstein mare. https://www.horsetelex.nl/horses/pedigree/222680/flooramie
https://www.kwpn.nl/database?paard=P-346067, and here you can see her offspring as well, and also the score they got from KWPN as they entered the studbook.

and i own her 2004 daughter Zoe florence sired by Farrington, prov keur, PROK, wffs negative, as a 3 yr old champion provence gelderland, and went to NMK in ermelo were she was 4th of the netherlands.

thats make them wonderfull, and as a rider you have to be quicker en sensitiver then the horse, so you feel whats coming and can react on that. cause if you are to slow, or dont have the quality of riding the correct quick way. then you will have accidents , not due to horse, but due to handler/rider, as they arent the right combination.

@anon6796898, dont put things in my mouth i havent said!! cause i like smart and sensitive, also trust, courage… but thats not what jazz is and gives!! and i have seen a lot of jazz offspring here in the netherlands.

also jazz gives a type you dont need in dressagehorse.

So katis you can see what horses i got…

So let me know what horses you got, and what do you think of Parzival sired by Jazz, ridden by adelinde cornelissen, in his performance, how he did the work at GP dressage? did he do a superb job, that he did all the things how it supposed to be ?

[sigrid.sijtsma]

Contender was a very good stallion, also very good in exterior and caracter/temprament.

and safe and reliable is what you need as well… if you have high sensitive and responsive.

what bloodlines your mare had more, contender was her sire, but what was pedigree of the dam?

[sigrid.sijtsma]

depends on what quality the mares have, and what kind of quality you want to breed. arabian horse, especially the russian, polish and shagya will put more quality, theTB dosnt give quality that I need in a sporthorse. andalusian, lippizaner can give you the quality in a dressage horse, but also in my opinion, you have to look at what mare gives and what stallion give to get a better quality horse then dam.

cause for my 2 dams, breeding to 100% arabian, shagya lippizer, andalusion horse is a no go.

and it also depends on what everybody says is high quality of a good jumper or dressage sporthorse.

cause what if high quality for me, is not high quality for you…

[Scribbler]

@sigrid.sijtsma

depends on what quality the mares have, and what kind of quality you want to breed. arabian horse, especially the russian, polish and shagya will put more quality, theTB dosnt give quality that I need in a sporthorse. andalusian, lippizaner can give you the quality in a dressage horse, but also in my opinion, you have to look at what mare gives and what stallion give to get a better quality horse then dam.

cause for my 2 dams, breeding to 100% arabian, shagya lippizer, andalusion horse is a no go.

and it also depends on what everybody says is high quality of a good jumper or dressage sporthorse.

cause what if high quality for me, is not high quality for you…

I wasn’t arguing for these crosses as ideal sport horse crosses.

I just meant that that stallion can be a huge part of the picture, it’s not 75 per cent mare genetically.

[atlatl]

I’ve had two Dutch geldings with Anriejetto either as sire or grandsire, a barnmate had another. All three of these boys had fantastic character and far better than average talent.

None of them can touch my Vivaldi mare though for unflappability, bravery, try and talent.

[Ghazzu]

@Scribbler

I just meant that that stallion can be a huge part of the picture, it’s not 75 per cent mare genetically.

While that is true genetically, in terms of temperament, the mare is the one raising the foal, and often has a greater influence on behavior patterns for that reason.

As for genetics, etc., I can’t recall who said it, but IIRC, it was an Arab breeder outside the US, tired of hearing people recite the entire sire line, bemoaned the fact that “in America, horses have no dams.”

[sigrid.sijtsma]

and thats where a lot of breeders make a big mistake,

as it is that 70% quality of the foal, comes from the dam.

if you have an uniform mare, with top quality exteriour and caracter temprament, she gives that for 70% too her foal. with that you, get a better foal as the dam, as you look for a stallion that is uniform breeding in the points were you want to improve on offspring of the dam.

If you have a dam, that dosnt come from uniform damline, and use a stallion, the foal can look better, then the dam. but if you breed with the offspring again, most of the time, the type of the dam comes back, or the good thing the stallion has given, is lost in the next generation.

So breeding with a dam from not a uniform quality breeding damline, it takes you 50 years to finally have a uniform dam, that has the type and caracter you want…

thats why it is way better to buy a uniform quality breeding horse and breed with that.

The quality that is given by mare, for 70% is known with a lot of breeders of quality sporthorses, in europe. why do you think the better sporthorses in jumping and dressage come from europe?
or bred in other coutries, but have their origin in europe. Look at the aproved stallions, do they comes from proven unifrom dam lines or from damline that haent proven any quality at all?

And i know there are breeders in the USA that know that as well.

[BigMama1]

Her dam sire was Monaco. I’m not familiar with any of the names in his pedigree