Mark Todd's Aberjack

[deltawave]

I think some of Denny’s stallions are gorgeous, in particular Reputed Testamony. I also admire Loyal Pal’s race record, but don’t think he has an ideal hind end for a jumper. That said, if Rox Dene’s owners chose him, who am I to say ANYTHING!

The questions I’ve always had about these stallions is, what are their progeny DOING? Loyal Pal has been at stud for how long (I don’t know, not a rhetorical question!) and what are his offspring doing? Aberjack is advertised as an Advanced horse…what is his competition record? (ANOTHER non-rhetorical question–I really would like to know)

Of course, I bred my mare to a stallion that, after his stallion testing, was put to stud full time, so I’m not criticizing anyone’s choice of these stallions AT ALL. Just raising the point that a humongous advertising program, while it raises visibility, is not the same as a string of proven babies on the ground.

I think the Catherston Dazzle filly has one gorgeous topline! Congratulations…wish she could spare my filly an inch or two of that beautiful neck!

“If you think your hairstyle is more important than your brain, you’re probably right.” Wear a helmet!
www.deltawave.homestead.com
www.seeliecourt.homestead.com

[NeverTime]

I don’t have a mare, so this is totally irrelevant, but having spent seven months with Denny as a working student, I would LOVE to own a replica of Rep. Of the stallions there, he was my favorite both in terms of looks and temperament–and from the one foal I saw live, plus pictures of several others, I know he really stamps his get with lots of chrome and those big beautiful eyes (not that eyes or chrome make an event horse, but still…)

[Robby_Johnson]

Where there were some really lovely horses. Two of my favorites? Michael Dan Mendell’s Dark Harbour, a lovely Irish TB that came over when he was three, and Stephen Bradley’s Joshua, who came from the Charlestown racetrack. Joshua, FWIW, was the better mover.

As Poe sang on her recent “Haunted” album (which everyone, IMO, should own and listen to weekly), “hey everybody when you walk the walk you gotta pack it all up can you talk the talk.” Years ago I read a wonderful article written by Denny Emerson that said mare owners should work closely with the stallion owner to select the best match for the mare.

The article went on to say that a good stud would take the individual mare seriously, be responsive, blah blah blah.

So, when considering a stallion for Willow I wrote a lengthy letter and sent several photographs, along with a SASE to Tamarack Hill. Months went by, no response. One day my envelope came back to me, and I hastily opened it, hoping to find feedback, etc. In it were my photographs. Nothing else.

This tarnished the breeding program greatly, in my eyes. Denny and I did share an email exchange about it a year or so later, in which he apologized profusely and chalked it up to someone in the barn who may’ve mismanaged it during the transition from NC to VT. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

As JER says, the stud fees are high. If you are positioning yourself to be a leader, you must train everyone you employ to perform as a leader.

I will never regret my decision to send Willow to A Fine Romance. And this came after I was smitten with Aberjack, got advised by JER (my pal) about CD - who I love - and then ultimately had to make the decision about who would be best for Willow. Fred was. Big time. Ti Amo is perfect and I can only feel that if my mare had to die to deliver him, that I am eternally grateful he is such a high quality boy.

And a pure TB! LOL!

At Radnor this weekend, I was able to speak with someone who has evented a CD offspring to a high level, and who occassionally breeds mares. A few years ago she mentioned to me that she was considering Aberjack. This weekend I asked her if she had ever had the babies and she said that they didn’t wind up breeding to him.

Robby

You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

[Evalee_Hunter]

I thought Ali & I would have a “Darkie” baby on the way by now, the stud fee & semen shipping have been paid since May . . . BUT the mare had colic surgery. OUCH. Maybe next spring.

I am really high on Dazzler (“Darkie”) because he is proven, as you pointed out so well. There are tons of lovely stallions, some of them with performance records & some not . . . but there aren’t very many stallions with outstanding performance records AND a proven record as a sire!

As for matching mare to stallion . . . it’s one theory, as is . . . breed “the best to the best”. I personally don’t think there is much to trying to find a stallion that will offset/compensate/overcome your mare’s faults. I like “the best to the best”. (I interpret that to mean, “the best mare we can afford” or “the best that we have”, to the “stallion we believe is best”, as, obviously, there is only one “best” mare & one “best” stallion in the world & I don’t think we could all agree on who they are.)

www.rougelandfarm.com Home of TB stallion Alae Rouge, sire of our filly Rose, ribbon-winner on the line at Dressage at Devon.

[system]

i also have a baby (filly) by Catherston Dazzler. i purchased a mare in great britian from diana scott who stood the great Ben Faerie. she is by diana’s personal hunt horse the stallion Hot Rumour. my filly was born in late may. jennie loriston-clarke comes to my farm for clinics several times a year. she told me last year that they have frozen semem for Dazzler here in the US at a equine clinic here in florida. some other famous progeny by Dazzler are Dazzling Effects (best mare at Badminton 2000), Midnight Dazzler recently taken over by William Fox-Pitt, and Faerie Dazzler, **** mare ridden by David Green. another interesting fact about Dazzler is that he is out of a mare named Welton Gazelle. bred by Sam Barr, Welton Gazelle is a full sister to Welton Louis. in 1995-96 Welton Louis was the #1 stallion in the world ranking for all FEI competing horses, largely on the success of his daughter Welton Romance, ridden by Lucy Thompson. i also own a half brother to this horse also by Welton Louis. Welton Louis is also the father of Ginny Elliot (Leng)'s Welton Chit Chat. he was also at that time the only stallion to achieve advanced status in eventing, grand prix status in dressage and grade b status in show jumping. Back to Dazzler, his father was the famous english dressage horse, Dutch Courage. this wonderful horse was the bronze medalist at the 1978 World Championships at Goodwood. hope some of you found this interesting.

[JER]

Greenbean, I disagree.

1. When you are standing a stud and offering breedings to paying customers, you are selling a SERVICE. The entire experience is important to the customer, from the first inquiry to the semen shipping to the final billing. And with shipped semen, timing can be very critical and you do need to have a cooperative relationship between stallion owner and mare owner. The mare owner/reproductive vet will also need to verify information for vet purposes or for USDA permits, again in a timely manner, and this also requires the responsivenes and participation of the stud or semen bank.

2. When I related my experience with Tamarack, I was stating a first-hand experience. Ditto for Robby. There was no hearsay involved. My experience is just that, an experience, and not an opinion.

[system]

JER wrote “I just don’t get what Mark Todd thinks is so great about him (Aberjack.)”
Mark Todd wrote me “One of the features that first attracted me to Aberjack was his fantastic form over a fence. He uses his shoulder very well, is very neat and even with his knees, supple through his back and opens out very well behind. He had such tremendous scope in his jump that it would have been easy to imagine him excelling in the jumping arena. With his amazingly laid back temperament, and good looks that he is passing on to his offspring, he will be the perfect sire for the hunter jumper market, as well as for eventing.”
Archie

[JER]

If Mark Todd were to ask me in person what I thought of the photo of his stallion, I’d tell him the same thing. I might have a totally different opinion if I saw the horse himself because pictures are not as accurate as we would like them to be. I would ask about the pasterns (any problems, does he pass them on) and the neck/shoulder (how well does he extend, perhaps there’s a photo that gives a better view of it), as well as balance, movement, etc. And Mark Todd, being the consummate horseman he is, would undoubtedly not feel as if I were picking apart the horse he loves. He’d think my questions were entirely reasonable. He chose this stallion for educated reasons, not emotional reasons, and we can expect that he’s more than happy to talk about it.

And if anyone forwards this thread to him, I do hope he reads it and joins the BB. Imagine that! Maybe he’ll even post some Aberjack baby photos for us (finally)!

Maggymay, you’re right, Dazzler babies tend to be large. My mare is compact and refined – 16.1hh at the withers, 15.2hh at her back. But my filly is VERY tall and muscular – all the string tests put her at 17+hh but I remain in denial. She will be no bigger than 16.2hh. Ok, maybe 16.3hh.

This topic – event horse breeding – is very interesting to me. But how are we supposed to rationally discuss breeding if we don’t critique stallions and/or mares? I posted a pic of my mare some time ago on the breeding forum and am happy to discuss her in any way. If she’s not your type, fine with me, I don’t expect her to be everyone’s taste and I do find it informative for someone to point out what they don’t like about her.

[JER]

Here’s a link to Catherston Dazzler’s page. If you click on ‘Stud Book’ you can see their entire stallion roster. BTW, Dazzler is brown without any white and has produced very few greys, no chesnuts, and mostly bays and browns. This would make him an EE (double dominant for brown, with no greying gene); I don’t know enough about genetics to say what he has as far as the ‘A’ (bay) gene is concerned.

I’m a big fan of Hideaway’s Erin Go Bragh. I did get all the info on him but the problem for me was with my mare – she’s very compact and catty, so much so that it’s tough to stay with her, and I was afraid of getting a scaled-down version of her, which would be lovely to look at and undoubtedly athletic, but a very difficult ride. But Erin Go Bragh is an excellent stallion and I’ve seen several of his offspring (more than one was grey!) and would happily take any one of them.

Another excellent US-based event sire was the late ‘Hanoverian’ (a 7/8ths TB, actually) stallion Lanthan. Passed on his athleticism and his great mind.

Hilltop’s Riverman, a Holsteiner, also struck me as a stallion who produces good potential eventers.

[SuperSpike]

<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Anne:
It would be lovely if Denny’s stallions had gotten the start that JER described as part of Catherston’s “program”. However, with the exception of Aberjack and Wintry Oak, Denny’s stallions were racehorses, and began their careers at stud standing to that market. Their oldest foals are racehorses. It is hardly fair to judge their first few crops, bred to race out of racehorse mares, for not producing the eventing world’s latest phenom! Loyal Pal’s first foals are 9. His first crop with Denny is 5. Rep’s first foals are 7; his first Denny crop is also 5. Prussian Blue’s first foals are only 2 year olds.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good point!

*You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. -Bob Marley

[Gry2Yng]

Funny someone should mention the quality of videos. A girlfriend bred to Aberjack last year and we looked at video of Noble Champion, Salute the Truth and one other wb stallion in order to decide who the mare would be bred to this year. The Noble Champion video was by far the slickest and made quite an impression. The Salute the Truth video was so poorly done it was a turn off. The presentation can really affect your attitude toward which stallion to pursue further.

[Evalee_Hunter]

& I have said so before, but my opinion has not been popular.

Loyal Pal had some offspring (JC registered) born in 1993 so they will soon be 10.

I made a quick check of Loyal Pal’s JC registered offspring–he has had 60 JC registered foals in 9 crops. Of the 60, 4 are 2 year olds & 3 are yearlings & none are weanlings. (Some of the weanlings may get registered before their 1 year birthday.) Of course, he has other foals that are not registered with the JC because they were conceived by AI or their dams were not JC registered or the foal belongs to someone who doesn’t care to bother with registering, etc.

www.rougelandfarm.com Home of TB stallion Alae Rouge, sire of our filly Rose, ribbon-winner on the line at Dressage at Devon.

[This message was edited by Evalee Hunter on Oct. 14, 2002 at 10:18 PM.]

[Erin]

Well, now, IMHO, the PHR is too broad. I was psyched to register my OTTB with them… until I found out it was no longer restricted to TBs.

I think the USAEq horse ID number is going to be the all-inclusive source of sport horse breeding info. (At least, that was my impression… but maybe that’s in concert with the PHR, since USAEq now owns that.)

At any rate, I do wish there was a sport horse org geared toward TBs.

[Greenbean]

Please don’t throw flames, but I don’t think that there’s a need to post opinions on any farm’s customer service. If you have qualms with the farm, please keep them to yourself, no matter how innocent they may seem. Thanks

[Just_Lookin]

There is a very classy son of Aberjack currently eventing in NZ if anyone is interested. He just won a prelim here. I think he was the only horse produced here before Aberjack was exported…I could be wrong…I remember reading about him recently. I think he is 5 or 6yrs old…

We have 4 or 5 Aberlou stallions standing at stud down here. Aberlou as a rule produced very fancy movers, with exceptional jump in them (OK, so Delta was not a great mover…!!) BUT…his temperament was not guaranteed. A very high percentage of the Aberlous are really nervous/fizzy/unpredictable. You get a good one you’ve got a great one… Messiah was a bit of a nervous horse…as are many of the other Ab’s still competing here in NZ.

If anyone is interested, we had a huge article recently in our local magazine about the Aberlou line and his offspring stallions - including Aberjack. I can scan in a picture of the son of Aberjack if anyone is interested??

[rebecca]

The reason this thread has become so controversial is because some of you feel free to criticize other people’s horses in ways that you would be appalled if other people did about YOUR horses.
What if you read that Mark Todd had publicly stated that your horse looked like he was made of spare parts, or looked like three horses in one, and he couldn’t understand what you thought was so great about your horse? What if you knew that Mark had never seen your horse go in dressage, had never seen him jump so much as a cross rail, yet felt free to denigrate him in print?
Would you like that? You know, don’t you, that someone is almost certain to forward this email thread to Mark, and you can imagine how the world’s most renowned horseman is going to feel about your collective judgements about his horse, and how much he is going to resent your disparaging comments about a horse that he admires and loves, and that you have no real knowledge about?
What is it, other than anonymity, that makes people feel free to print negative comments for all to read about horses that other people really care about? Especially when those comments aren’t based on actual knowledge of the horse being slammed?
If you wouldn’t like it done to you, don’t do it to others.
Becca

[Ridge_Runner]

Thanks for the complement on my girl JER. Your filly is lovely too. How do you think Dazzler would cross with my little mare?

I think my priorities for a stallion for her are: 1. Outstanding temperment to offset her hotheadedness. 2. larger with more bone. 3. Correct legs especially pasterns…not too slopey. 4. Outstanding movement and jumping ability. Oh and I’m not partial to grays but for the right stallion I might gamble on color. The desired attributes are not in any order necessarily. Affordable stud fees are a nice thing too since I’m on a budget like most folks. Oh and I LOFF “sporthorses of color” and am very tempted by the flashy boys!

I don’t care too much about breed. He could be all TB or mostly like CD but I’d like to stay away from the heavy WB types since she’s only half TB. Maybe something that has some WB in there but not more than half. My goals are to breed a nice all around riding horse for myself (an amateur with a fair amount of mileage and experience). I’d like something that would event at least to Prelim and have strong dressage ability as well. I’d like it quiet enough to trail ride without taking your life in your hands.

If anyone knows of any stallions they think would complement her, I’m interested in hearing about them. Thanks!

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.” D.H. Lawrence

[system]

JER,
I absolutely agree that if you can afford the BIG expense io having your own broodmare band (read Iron Spring and Hilltop), this can give your young stallion a huge advantage. But what about the vast majority who are NOT trust fund recipients?
The other huge advantage a stallion can get (or, conversely, the greatest drawback he can suffer) is whether great riders or back-yarders get hold of his foals.
If even the greatest stallion of modern times, Northern Dancer, bred to the greatest mares anywhere on earth, could only produce 25% stakes winners (meaning that 75% of his foals were “failures”,based on what they were bred to do), then how many foals must a jumper sire produce before he gets recognized as a really good sire? And what if his best foals languish their life away with non-competitive riders, so his worth is never revealed?
Now Im not knocking Aberjacks sire Aberlou, because in addition to Aberjack he also sired world champion Messiah, and Badminton 2nd and 5th place winners Delta and Nufarm Alibi, but you cant tell me it hurt to have them ridden by two double gold medallists like Blyth Tait and Mark Todd. I have no doubt whatsoever that the greatest jumper sire in the world is out there somewhere, totally undiscovered, and never will be discovered,because noone will ever jump those babies to find out. Its probably a huge accident that Caro, Loyal pals sire, ever sired two USET grand prix jumpers, because he was so expensive as a racehorse sire, no jumper people would have ever bred to him. It was only after Ping Pong and Tashiling couldnt run, I would guess, that anybody tried them over fences.
Finding great jumper sires will never be easy, because MOST of the time, when their great star comes along, like Good Twist`s son Gem Twist, the sire is either infertile or deceased.
Bonfire

[system]

The REAL problem we have been circling around on this long thread, but never have truly pinned down, is that America does NOT have any way of tracking horses by pedigree.So many breeders will tell you the EXACT same thing, that once those foals go out into the wide world, maybe get sold a couple of times, maybe get their names changed, there is no earthly way the breeder or the stallion owner to know what they are doing, or if they are even still alive. THAT is what fuels these kinds of dicussion/arguments, that there is no proof of what stallions produce, usually until after the stallion is old or dead (and often, not even then), like Bonne Nuit, or Cormac or The Hammer, or Frank Chapots great little Good Twist. Maybe this new USAEq horse i.d. no. will help, because the way it is right now, some stallion might actually have a few really good horses out there, and I GUARANTEE you, no one will know it, not even the breeder. America is decades behind many of the European horse breeding countries in this pedigree/performance link, which causes all this speculation, because we may shout all we like, but we dont REALLY know.
Bonfire

[tle]

Which brings us back to Denny Emerson and his initial involvement/endorsement in the Performance Horse Registry. I know a performance database with pedigree information for TBs and half TBs was/is the goal of this registry.

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If Dressage is a Symphony… Eventing is Rock & Roll!!!

“All’s well that ends with cute E.R. doctors, I always say.” – Buffy