Most successful warmblood breeds in eventing

[ReReRider]

Curious what you all think. Which warmblood breeds have been the most successful competing at the upper levels of modern day eventing?

• Irish Sport Horse
• Trekehner
• Holsteriner
• Hannovarian
• Oldenburg
• Dutch Warmblood
• Selle Francais

[Willesdon]

These things tend to go in waves and fashions. One thing that is consistent is that “more blood” is needed as the horse moves up the levels. Scratch an Eventing WB and find TB close up. The ISH is very big in the sport, possibly because so many Brits (the UK is the epicentre of Eventing) buy Irish horses and it it a breed that has travelled sucessfully around the world. The Traditional ISH (now indicated with a (T) in the pedigree) was TB on ID and that is still the root of much Irish success and Irish breeders are now getting back to TB stallions again after using a lot of European WBs. The “Croker Cup” for TB Stallions has returned to Dublin Show in the past couple of years. The SF is currently popular in the UK and there are several ridden by top riders. A very athletic breed first based on TB and Trotter, both “hot blood”. The French team actively chooses to use SF and does very well on them. The German breeds go up and down because a few individuals may have a disproportionate effect on breeding world ranking. The Trakehner is a closed book and is not a numerous breed but is often close to the top of the sport. M Jung’s horse Sam was registered Hanoverian - presumably because that was his birth state - but was nearly full TB. Heraldik, a Czech TB, stood in Germanay and proved a very successful stallion, not just in Eventing, so is found in many pedigrees of horses in various state stud books. Andrew Nicholson (Aus) used to ride a series of Spanish bred eventers at the highest level, all from the same breeder as I recall, which put the Spanish sport horse registry near the top of the world ranking even though Spain is not a big Eventing nation and isn’t breeding the horses. I’m old enough to remember when the must-have Eventer was an NZ TB because of their robust structure and they were imported in fair numbers into the UK.

[DownYonder]

@Willesdon

M Jung’s horse Sam was registered Hanoverian - presumably because that was his birth state - but was nearly full TB.

Good post!

And yes, Jung’s mount Sam was mostly TB - over 75% according to his pedigree. He was registered Hanoverian because his dam was a Baden-Württemberg mare that had been approved for Hanoverian breeding. Her own dam had solid Hanoverian lines going back many decades.
https://www.horsetelex.com/horses/pedigree/597343/la-biosthetique-sam-fbw

[Carried_Away]

Irish Sport Horse can consist of many different types of WB (plus of course TB) since it’s a registry, so you can’t really list that as a “breed”. My personal ISH is mostly Westphalian and Holsteiner, and is 38% TB blood from those lines.

[EventerAJ]

Modern WB breeding can’t be adequately labeled as “breeds.” Judging success based on registry is not really useful from a buyer or breeder’s perspective; you can’t say “3 of the top 10 eventers are Hanoverians, so I should buy/breed Hanoverian!” Because if you look at those horses’ pedigrees, they are a mix of anything else…TK, OLD, KWPN, etc. Grafenstolz is a Trakenher stallion, but has sired top eventers in other registries (including Lordships Graffalo, SHGB).

Particularly in the US, registry choice is a matter of convenience as much as “quality.” If a breeder has mares/foals eligible for Hanoverian, but the nearest inspection is 6hrs away…but there is a Westfalen inspection next door, well, the foals will be registered Westfalen just on convenience alone. Mares and stallions can be accepted into multiple registries (though technically only “registered” with one as a foal) so their offspring could fall into one of a number of possibilities.

[trakehners]

My trainer had a very successful “Trakehner cross” eventing prospect who always had a top placing after dressage even at the upper levels… with 7/8 Thoroughbred blood. A fellow boarder has a GRP yearling dressage prospect who is by a GRP stallion out of an auction rescue mare who is described as an Andalusian but no one has any way of proving that other than what she looks like. We have a running joke in the barn about how warmbloods are just extremely expensive mutts because, as others have said, registration tells you almost nothing about the horse other than whose books they’re on.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the pendulum swings with “breed”/gait preferences as things change with both eventing and pure dressage under FEI.

[SusanO]

Absolutely! You would do better to look at the bloodlines and not at the registry because the bloodlines are getting so mingled these days. No matter the registry there seems to be a lot of Holsteiner blood at the top especially combined with SF. And that makes sense because a lot of the SF blood goes back to throughbred mare lines and half thoroughbred blood. Maybe not as powerful jumpers as Holstein but quicker reflexes and just faster overall. Combined it seems to work for the French team and others. And the further up the ladder you go - the ability to gallop and stamina really plays a big role in success so you need TB blood.

[RAyers]

Personally, skip the concepts of breeds mostly because those are based on physical observation and inexact breeding records.

Go with GWAS or other large scale genetic associations that associate with success in eventing (genes vs. environment). This way you can look back hundreds of years and be more accurate as to what is having an effect.

If I’m not riding as much, I’m stuck listening to the geneticists in the lab so deal with it.

[Blackeventer]

Andrew Nicholson is a kiwi (NZ)!

[Willesdon]

Oops! I know that! Silly, silly me.

[pony_grandma]

Most of those aren’t ‘breeds’ they are books. A closed book that doesn’t allow outside bloodlines - is this what you’re asking?

Here’s the sire rankings by sport in the European stud books

https://wbfsh.com/sire-rankings