I agree calling it “premium” makes it sound much nicer than it actually is
But I guess calling anything “‘mediocre poorly conformed Viking ship garbage “ isn’t much of a selling point
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It was nice to see the scores coming out of the CO keuring. I’ll leave my comment at that.
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Where are you seeing the CO scores? That report isn’t up yet on the KWPN-NA site.
It was posted on social media. Unless it has since been taken down? Anyway, scores in the upper 70s.
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Oh, like the scores in the on the road report for the inspection in Texas.
Sounds like the judges were not impressed at what they saw in Florida compared to other places.
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Thank you for sharing the scores. A friend of ours took their 2 DHH to the Quebec Keuring and they do Combined Driving as well as breed DHH. Their yearling and stallion both scored quite well for harness, which is what their goal is for breeding.
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Sophie and Sebastian’s breeding program is so awesome! I love how they can take a fine harness type horse and be quite successful in the CD as well.
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Regarding Kate’s scores, You can go to the KWPN website and look up “report from the road” for reports from all over the various inspections period.
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And… someone is advertising one of their young prospects again on Facebook and making unsubstantiated/nonsensical claims about how they are a certain type of “prospect.”
In this case… it’s the Imothep filly. And the claim is that the filly is an eventing prospect. Per Kate’s post:
2022 KWPN Dutch Warmblood filly Solemnly Swear KG, aka Sasha, by Olympic stallion Imothep out of Dutch mare Ivanka. She is bay based but due to roaning looks grey! To mature 16.1. I bred and have kept this filly with the intention to have her stay in my broodmare herd. I love everything about her from her movement and jump to most importantly her personality. That being said….she would really shine as an amateur friendly EVENT horse. I have no problem keeping her to be bred next year so I will not move on her price nor will I provide all sorts of extra videos/pics that I have been asked for lately on top of what I already have. You either know what you’re looking at with a young prospect and are ready for a young horse that will be able to get backed here next year or not.
https://www.facebook.com/share/V3v9T8oHvPV4XvMu/?mibextid=WC7FNe
So I am going to push back on why I think this is a pile of steaming BS.
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This is a 2 year old filly, and not yet started under saddle. So why is she being advertised as an “ammy friendly event horse” ? That’s ridiculous.
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Per Horsetelex, Imothep is about 40% blood. The “Dutch” dam of this filly is Ivanka… a full Dutch Harness Horse mare (Kate left the harness part out of her ad). Soooo… that means the filly in question is well under 40% blood. And the dam doesn’t have much of anything to contribute in the way of galloping genetics. This is not what people looking for an eventing prospect are looking for.
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The dam has no record of doing anything under saddle. I’m not even sure she’s broke to ride. There is no record of that mare’s other offspring doing anything under saddle. So there is no way to know if she produces riding horses with ammy friendly temperaments. The mare’s pedigree further back are harness horses - not eventers. Which is fine. But would seem to indicate performance propensity related to driving.
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The sire (Imothep) does reportedly pass on nice temperaments. But he was a top notch jumper, and to date, it seems he primarily produces jumpers. Imothep has 33 offspring in Horsetelex, and only one has any results related to eventing - a gelding who competed at 0.90m. He went on to do 1.30m as a jumper. Imothep has not made the WBFSH top 100 eventing sires list yet. Imothep’s sire was Indoctro. Indoctro was an excellent and prolific stallion for sport, and did produce some good event horses. Per horsetelex, out of the 5035 Indoctro offspring in their database, 128 have eventing related results. 2512 have jumping related results. 590 have dressage related results. So he clearly produces/produced multipurpose athletes, but it’s fair to say he’s more of a jumper producing stallion than an eventing producer.
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Onto the video of the filly herself, that Kate shared. The filly clearly has a trailing hind leg. It almost certainly came from the filly’s harness bred dam. This is not something people seek out in an eventing prospect.
Anyway… it is what it is. Kate has been advertising this filly all over FB as eventing prospect for almost a year. It doesn’t seem to be working. Perhaps because, in her own words, “ You either know what you’re looking at with a young prospect… or not.
I hope for this filly’s sake that she is not bred as a 3 year old, and instead does go to a suitable home where she can get started under saddle and lead a long happy and healthy life. Maybe she will be a nice horse for a lower level person to do a variety of stuff with. She is a cool color. She does have a nice sire. But to market her as an eventing prospect? That’s just nonsensical.
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I mean… everything is a “prospect” until it succeeds or fails at the task in question right? We have a fat-as-a-tick driving mini that’s never been jumped (as far as we know), so she’s obviously an eventing prospect!
It’s the temperament thing that is really outrageous. And the incorrect blood % math 
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Interesting how someone who is so arrogantly certain about the “desirable” genetic qualities of her mare is the same person who conveniently leaves out any mention of said mare’s genetic background while trying to market the mare’s offspring as sport horse prospects. Guess her prospective buyers are wising up and not buying it that a harness-bred mare is a suitable candidate for producing offspring for hunters, jumpers, dressage, or eventing. No matter who the sire is or how successful he was in sport, or how prepotent he is for sport horse qualities, it is a very tall order to expect him to be able to 100% override the negative riding horse qualities of the dam. That upright neck and flat croup and trailing hindleg have been perpetuated in harness lines for generations, and it is pretty darned hard to breed that out - especially in F1 crosses and when the mare herself exhibits those qualities.
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Having had the experience of breeding and starting numerous warmbloods, I learned that you really have to let the horse tell you where its talents lie, and that only happens once it’s under saddle and has been in basic training for a while.
KS herself has said she’s breeding the type of horse she’d like to ride. Fine. Breed a couple and enjoy them. The problem comes when she’s breeding gobs of them and most current, active competitive riders don’t share her enthusiasm for that specific type of horse. Add to that the fact that she has not been an actual Big Eq or eventing rider. If she ever was, it was many years ago. Competition has evolved, and the horse that was fun to ride and a reliable winner a couple decades ago is not the plum people search for today.
Bottom line, I can sense her frustration. But she embarked on this odd horse breeding journey on her own volition. And now I worry about all these horses she’s created.
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Excellent point about her not espousing the breeding and performance of the mares.
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Why are those desirable traits for driving horses?
Not you VHM! A seller who won’t work with a prospective purchaser really doesn’t want to sell. OK then why advertise? I am betting this filly will be the next one to be raffled.
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OMG. Even her sales ads are becoming aggressive. holy moly! I was looking at Warmbloods for sale under 20k. Most of the ads have more about the dam than the sire. Hell, you have to practically beg KS for dam info only to get a one word name answer. If she was smart she would start to get the ones old enough under saddle. Maybe that might help sell them, or maybe it will become a dead giveaway of what they truly are.
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I would bet it would make a lower level eventer. I don’t know what kind of dressage scores you would get because you don’t have the ideal gaits for dressage and you don’t know how hot the horse will be. Tension can really lower your scores unless you are a skillful and tactful rider. And at the lower levels of eventing - having a poor score in the dressage phase probably won’t be affected that much after cross country scores. Those horses with good scores usually can jump around the cross country OK. Not a real galloper but at the lower levels you do not need that. Maybe a safe and careful jumper? Cannot tell that. Not a top prospect but with careful training it might be a fun horse. But there are lots of horses like that out there and they are not usually terribly expensive unless they have tons of training and successful show miles. So the market niche you are breeding for is not filled with expensive horses, unless there is a really good show record. And training costs money.
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So the dam of this filly is Kate’s mare “Ivanka” - a big bay DHH paint mare.
As mentioned earlier on the thread, Ivanka’s sire was a KWPN registered and imported harness type stallion named “Dondersteen.” There is a marketing video of him on YouTube. Anyone can go look at the full thing. Just Google “Dondersteen” and check out the video results.
The full marketing video is a little long, so I went back and did a screen recording of a portion in the middle. They are showing what Dondersteen does at liberty, when he’s all proud and puffed up and showing off in his paddock.
Here it is.
RPReplay_Final1726935539
Full disclosure… I know next to nothing about harness horses, and what makes a good one. But this horse looks very stylish to me, with a ton of knee and hock action. He also looks like he is predisposed to trotting… and even when at liberty and excited, he tends to maintain his trot, and is pretty rhythmic. He rarely canters or gallops. Those don’t seem to be his preferred gaits.
He also seems to have a very level back when moving. It looks very different than a horse who moves over their back, and uses their whole body. I assume that Dondersteen’s biomechanics are desirable for harness horses.
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They are really flashy driving horses. Teams of them can be quite impressive. But what you want to drive is not necessarily what you want to ride. Many do not look “light footed”. I have ridden “pile drivers” - ouch! Not to say their gaits are rough but an elastic horse is a lot more comfortable to ride.
A lot of the warmblood registries started with driving horses, not necessarily plow horses. Then riding horse traits were bred in and carriage horse traits bred out. How many of the early warmbloods had great canters? Many had flashy trots and that was it. But now look at what is being bred and how warmbloods have evolved from 30 years ago. No reason to go backwards with breeding.
I just don’t see what breeding back to a carriage horse brings to the table. Maybe a more stable temperament but many of them seem to be hot horses. Maybe more bone?
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What is she asking for this 2 year old with no training and questionable lineage?
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