Hey there! My barn is looking for an amateur friendly prospect to bring along and came across a young gelding whose sire and grandsire are “elite” pinto oldenburgs. The breeder said they are super flashy and amateur friendly, but truthfully I’m not finding much online. I found the fiveoclocksomewhere website along with Blazing Colours Farm having a blurb about Rainbow, but that’s about it. Would love to hear about any experience anyone has with them.
A good friend owned a solid black supposedly daughter of Rainbow. Think the mare she was out of an appendix AQHA? No papers came with her.
Delightful temperament. Easygoing. Cute head. Cute smooth mover. About 16 hands and smooth very wide body. She did the low Adult hunters.
The only quirk, I remember is she snored really loud at nap time. Kind of a groaning snore. People always thought she was in distress. Lol.
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Ummm…
I have met a few of these colorful pinto warmbloods, and even if I were offered one for free, I’d walk away. Even if the PPE was passed with flying colors.
That is just my opinion, so take it as you will.
I am not sure what an “elite” Oldenburg is in this context. I used to do a lot of work with/for the Oldenburg Verband and I do not believe they would have ever considered Rainbow an Elite representative.
For that matter, Rainbow wasn’t even Oldenburg. He was a 1989 pinto warmblood stallion registered with RPSI in Germany, so was therefore “Zweibrucken” - not Oldenburg. His sire was a KWPN pinto stallion named Rinaldo who had a TB sire line and a pinto-colored dam from Trakehner/Groningen (old Dutch farm horses) bloodlines. The pinto coloring came from Rinaldo’s dam’s bottom line - there is a 1946 Gelderlander (also old Dutch farm horses) pinto mare in her pedigree but my research source doesn’t show a damline further back than that, so I’m not sure how far back the pinto coloring went. It could be folks don’t really know because so many records were lost during WWII.
At any rate, in the mid to late '90’s/early 2000s, there was a big pinto warmblood craze in the US and several pinto stallions were imported from Europe - mainly the Netherlands because pintos weren’t generally highly regarded in Germany, esp. by the big well-known Verbands.
Rainbow was among the ones imported and attracted breedings from folks wanting their own pinto warmblood. To my knowledge, the offspring have not had stellar performance careers (at least at the highest levels of sport) but the same can be said of many solid-colored sires. He did sire at least one pinto son, Spectrum, who passed the North American 100-day stallion test and was fully approved for breeding by the Oldenburg Verband in North America as well as several other registries. Some of those registries do use the “Elite” designation, so that may be where the title is coming from in your description.
My personal experience with the Rainbow offspring is that although they can have a lot of eye appeal due to the pinto coloring, they aren’t particularly exceptional movers (at least not fancy upper level dressage type movers), nor are they particularly exceptional jumpers. Many of them do an adequate enough job at lower levels to make nice mounts for amateurs and his descendants are sometimes seen in local low level hunters and eventing. Temperaments/trainability can at times be a bit of an issue, but a lot of that also depends on the damline and how the foal was raised and started (I know one grandson that was highly popular in IEA barns in this area - colorful, cute as a button, had a great mind and character, and was a pretty good packer on course).
Edited to add that the 1946 pinto mare in Rinaldo’s dam line was out of a 1940 pinto mare whose registration/bloodlines are not known or not recorded. (And, FWIW, pinto can result from a sabino parent - one with high white on legs, belly spots, very large wide blaze - and there are some lines of old European farm horses that exhibited sabino traits.)
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This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
I am not very familiar with how all of the warmblood registries work (I come from showing hunters with stock horses and TBs, which is pretty cut and dry). I found the fiveoclocksomewhere (which someone posted below) and the blurb on Blazing Colours Farm’s website. From what the breeder and those two websites have said, both Rainbow and this guy’s sire were “elite” (which I, admittedly, am not educated on what that means). I’m a little more familiar with the Art Deco lines than Rainbow.
I also appreciate you mentioning where the color came from – I’m in all of the color genetic groups on Facebook and love learning about what came from where. 
Thank you for your time!
Specifically from Rainbow, or what lines?
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There are some pintos, I believe that are Belgian Warmbloods that have the jump to do the big GP jumper tracks.
What are you looking to do?
As was mentioned the pinto Warmbloods were kind of a thing around 20 years ago. Not so much anymore.
I also knew someone with a cute little pinto Simpatico gelding that wasn’t much of a jumper at all. I think he became a hubby trail horse.
Knew a beautiful pinto Oldenburg in the late 2000’s by Palladio who won as a very young green horse at Devon. As a 5 year old he became very lame. MRI showed soft tissue damage (tendon/ ligament?) in the hoof capsule. Broke the owners heart. Had to retire this very young very pretty flashy horse. It was such a hard time because he was so pretty that she was afraid that moving him on to a companion home would = them trying to ride him again. I do not think she ever rode again.
Who is Rainbow in all this? Sire? (wouldn’t expect that, given the age), or grandsire? Who exactly are the dam (or at least damsire) and sire? Those are probably more useful at this point, than Rainbow being a grandsire
In the mid-late 90’s and then again around 2005/2006, I ran into this stallion’s progeny as sale horses as well as horses/foals in the breeders week at DAD where I volunteered for a couple of years.
I have no doubt that many do love their Rainbow progeny, however I did not find them overly special in any way. A few had some pretty nasty temperaments (no, I will not share as I believe they are still being marketed for breeding/sales and I do not wish to engage in a pissing match). I was taught that you can work on a trot, but the canter and walk “are what you see”. I’ll leave it at that.
I am wondering why you feel this way. I would love to own one of the Camaro Trakehner lineage. Love this horse! Not sure if I could handle all of that power though and he doesn’t actually read hunter-jumper to me, but wow!
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who are “these” horses? There are quite a lot of pinto WB lines these days, many of them producing extremely ammy-friendly horses and/or with really nice gaits. More than a few are very successfully showing at upper levels, and producing horses for the average owner.
Is it the color you don’t like? Would you also avoid solid offspring out of/by the pintos?
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I was specifically referring to the Rainbow bloodlines. Apologies that it was not clear.
Thanks for that clarification 
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You are very welcome.
There was a GORGEOUS chestnut colt by Bugatti Hilltop named Berlioz (I think that was how it was spelled) and the dam sire was Art Deco - he was the sort of youngster you cannot look away from, and who stays in your mind for many years.
I always liked the Art Deco horses - I mean he himself lived quite a long life and as I understand he was pretty sound (if I am mistaken, please correct me). I rode a son of Art Deco many years ago and quite enjoyed him. He was a jumper (I cannot recall his name, and he was an amateur’s horse at the barn I kept my horse at the time) and his owner and I used to switch off sometimes for lessons to get a feel for a different ride. Really wish I could recall his name.
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Way back in the 90s I had a friend that was interested in breeding to Rainbow so she went to meet him in person. She found him to be a very kind and sensible guy and ended up buying a pinto mare by him to use as a broodmare. My impressions of him and his offspring were that they were pretty if you like pintos, generally sensible, and good movers and jumpers. Good meaning perfectly adequate, not hack winners or upper level dressage horses, nor having the scope to jump much beyond the 3’ divisions. However, that’s exactly what suits many (most?) amateur riders, so I feel there is value to it. My biggest problem with pinto warmbloods, as with many other specialty colours, is that a lot of people end up breeding whatever mare they have available in hopes of getting a foal with the same markings. Less emphasis seems to be placed on conformation, talent, suitability, etc of the mare because as long as the foal gets spots, the owner is happy. I’ve owned three pinto warmbloods over the years so I’m certainly not biased against them, but I would suggest evaluating the horse as an individual and considering the dam’s side of the pedigree too.
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