Please tell me about the stallion Negro and his offspring.
Oooh. I am excited to hear what people have to say. I always liked this stallion, but I have heard he tends to be hot and super sensitive. But hearing if anyone has had experience with offspring would be GREAT!
I doubt you are going to hear much. I asked about ayear or so ago and only got 2-6 replies.
Could only find 2 folks who had bred to him. One sold the foal as a weanling, the other kept theirs. Can’t remember who they were though…
Actually, HT might be the best place to ask, since they sell his frozen.
Negro is likely to become a whole lot better known and more popular than he currently is. One of his gelding sons, Valegro is out at Grand Prix this year and scoring almost 80%. He will be at the Olympics on the British team barring injury and stands a very good chance of getting a medal. He is special.
http://www.eurodressage.com/equestrian/2011/06/27/brits-magical-form-2011-cdi-fritzens
I read that. I really liked what little I saw of Negro, but never bred to him because I just couldn’t get enough info on his traits, what sort of mares he went best with, etc.
But he’s a lovely boy, isn’t he?
Carl Hester has several. He absolutely LOVES Negros. He has, or had, quite a write-up about them on his site. Will almost take them sight unseen.
He tends to put in a powerful hindquarter, uphill, forward-thinking foals, with superior ability to collect. He produces superior dressage ability, but not at the expense of very decent jumping ability too. I have a mare that would fit very nicely with him, but I’m hesitant to use frozen on this mare. Natalie also mentioned that he has rather good post thaw motility and they send plenty-o-plenty of semen your way to ensure a pregnancy anyway, since you are provided a LFG.
Really, do call Natalie or send her an email. She is very forthcoming about information like this and she is more than happy to help you out. Send her VERY good, clear conformation shots of your mare (side, front, back) so she has a chance to assess your mare’s type.
He has a number of very good offspring under saddle, performing very well in young horse, 5 and 6 year old FEI classes and both Carl Hester and Ann Van Olst have a number of his kids in training.
I have our first Negro colt this year, now 7 weeks of age. A friend and neighbor has her first Negro colt that is now 2 months of age. My friend has been breeding warmbloods for 30 years and is an FEI rider/trainer. We are both very impressed with our foals, and find them to be straightforward to handle so far. They are both very alert and intelligent foals, sensitive, but respond very well to correct handling and learn quite fast. These are the kind of foals that will learn everything you teach them, good or bad, so I’m going to say these two are the kind of foals that need skilled handling from day one. Of course that is true of foals in general, but I get the sense these two are taking notes. Both colts are very correct, and Negro has stamped the same expression in their faces. Negro has given my colt the best hindquarters the mare has ever produced: he lifts up. Also the canter is very balanced and impressive. My mare’s trot action is more up/down like Negro’s is, and in the past I bred her to stallions with a more round mechanism, but this cross actually improved the trot in her foal, giving this foal really good gaits all around and very powerful in his movement. The front on my colt is all Negro, which to me seems to be a Ferro type front in general. In type, Negro did not add any length to the mare, not in body nor in leg, nor did he add additional bone. My friend’s mare is long-lined in body and leg, has a longer neck than my mare, and I’d say her mare is the type of mare Negro probably does best with. I like these colts so much, I bred another mare of mine back to him, she being longer-lined and needing improvement in the canter. In addition, the semen quality is excellent, all three pregnancies conceived on the first cycle. Look at Van Olst Stable’s website for photos of Negro offspring for an idea of what he produces. They have a lot of his offspring, and have bred a number of Negro mares to Lord Leatherdale with good results. There is a short clip of my colt at 6 weeks via the FB link below. It’s a public link.
http://www.vanolst-stables.nl/pdf/horse_and_hound_07042011.pdf
Carl Hester on Negro and his offspring. As mentioned above, he is clearly a fan of the horse.
And the page with several photos of Negro offspring:
http://www.vanolst-stables.nl/pages/fotogallerij.php?hengst=2
It is actually not that difficult to find out what traits he tends to throw because he is Dutch! They make their breeding values very easy to access.
Here is the link (you will need to scroll down to Negro, as it is an alphabetical listing of all dressage stallions):
http://cms.kwpn.nl/mediafile/0002/9806/dres_eng.pdf
Please note that I am not suggesting that breeding values are the be all end all, however when you want to know whether a certain stallion is likely to complement a particular aspect of your mare they can be SOOO helpful.
PS I love, love, love Valegro and had no idea he was by Negro. I have seen him on the HRTV program “At Home With Carl Hester.” The horse can MOVE! Makes me drool 
A couple things about the above link. Breeding values are not accurate until the stallion has produced many offspring!
Please note the reliability of any particular stallion by looking for the percentage of accuracy (or the number of offspring he has in competition).
Also, you will see that some traits have a “good” option and a “bad” option (for example: Shoulder- Sloped or Straight, obviously dressage people want sloped!) while other traits seem to be 2 bad choices! (ie Toed-in or Toed-out)
In the case of two “bad” options, you would want the stallions value to be close to the middle (100).
Also note that the farther the number is from 100, the more significant it is! So, if the stallion gets a 101- it is nearly meaningless (practically 100) while a score of 110 (or 90) is much more meaningful and can be used to help make a decision.
For example if your mare is a little weak in the canter, you would want a stallion with a very good score here. If your mare tends to toe out a bit and the stallion has a strong mark for toed-out, you will know that there is a very strong liklihood of getting a toed-out foal.
So who in the US is handling this semen? I’ve seen it on the Hilltop Farm site. Are there other places to get it as well?
I believe Hilltop is the only approved farm to broker his semen.
Please, someone speak up if they know differently.
No they are the sole representative. And it’s LFG; that’s why it’s $2000 stud fee.
However Ferro (his sire) is carried by a number of brokers…his semen is also very, very good.
I worked at Van Olst stables this spring, and I must say I´m a big fan of Negro.
Chippendale, who is Lord Leatherdale x Negro, is incredibly uphill and expressive. Great action behind as well and a good temperament to boot.
They recently had another young stallion approved, Diego, who is Ferro x Don Gregory , and is also very very nice.
Regarding Ferro, one of the nicest young horses with an incredible temperament -3 weeks under saddle and he behaved better than most 7 year olds!-, was a Londonderry x Ferro.
While I agree that Negro can add a lot of good qualities to his offspring, I do think he is more on the old-fashioned side of things and, therefore, needs a more modern type mare with longer legs.
Just my opinion…
I took several pictures of a Negro x Kaspareit foal at a recent Oldenburg inspection I hosted at my farm. If you have a Facebook account, I just made the album public. I cannot remember what the comments were on this attractive foal, however–it was the last mare and foal presented of the day.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.249952545021098.84853.100000190631992
My old trainer purchased a Negro foal probably 5 years ago as a…3 or 4 year old through Gunnar Ostergaard… He was phenomenally put together and EXCELLENT loose, easy gaits. I do recall him paddling slightly but it seemed to be just his way of going. He was hyper intelligent and very ‘busy’ brained…had to be ‘doing’ or thinking at all times and if I recall correctly went through a terrible ‘rip roaring’ phase where he would snatch the bit and bolt/buck/act like a teenager. He seems to be settling into himself as the years go on, as I understand anyway but definitely has more ‘fire’ in him than her placid and reserved (chestnut!) Danish mare.
If you want to breed to the current KWPN criteria then a modern mare with long legs is definitely a plus from a starting POV. I love Negro, big big fan. If i wanted to improve a canter i would use him in a flash.
