Wow! This is such a great and knowledgeable thread! I’m really enjoying it. Thank you for sharing all your hard work with us!
I think Jer makes such an important point about having a horse who wants to event rather than one you have to drag along with you.
Didn’t read all these pages. Here’s my list in no particular order:
For Play
Lendfriese II
Merlin
Windfall
Alla’Czar
Cicera’s Icewater
[QUOTE=ashley1069;5210698]
However, we would like to improve her neck as well as her movement, although she does move well enough to be competitive. [/QUOTE]
What do you want to change about her neck? Topline? Length? Looks? How it ties in to her body? Higher set?
This would indicate that you need a horse that can find a buyer. This would mean it’s relatively user-friendly, of conventional size and – this can make a difference (think about the ads) – by a known eventing sire.
Your mare is an unknown quantity as far as breeding goes. You don’t know if she clones herself or if she only passes on the the weird dent in her forehead. Because you don’t know what she’ll produce and the foal may be for sale at some point, you might think about playing it safe with the first breeding. Breed to a known quantity. Sure, there are always surprises, like my little pony, but given all that’s left to chance, why not try to increase the odds in your favor?
Also, you made a reference earlier to a stallion (Future Illusion) with a lower stud fee. The stud fee is a very small percentage of your total breeding/pregnancy/foaling/raising/training costs. A few hundred or even a thousand dollars won’t make a real difference there.
(What will make a huge difference is a good reproductive vet. Call specialist clinics and ask about their AI conception rates. They’ll have numbers for you and will discuss how their rates vary from year to year and why.)
Thank you JER for your suggestions about our mare. I know all too well that acquiring a horse in any way, be it breeding or buying is the cheapest part of the deal, very good point. I think we are leaning more toward Fleetwater Opposition for the reason that it would be a very marketable horse and he may not be availble for long. As for our mare her neck is pretty good but is set slightly lower than ideal.
I did a little more research on Contendro. It turns out he has an 8 year old son that Mark Todd is eventing that has won at the ** level. I do realize that it is only one of his offspring and I could not find any info about the horses dam, but I am not ruling him out for a future breeding. I still really like him. : ) http://www.nzhanoverian.com/index.php/news-latest/100-mark-todd-and-nzb-campino-win-at-hartpury
Digging this up as one of my own personal outside-the-box picks is in a video posted on the dressage forum.
Olivier (KWPN) – freestyle at Equine Affaire
This is a very cool horse. He was bred by his owner/rider and they’ve grown up together, did YRs and now GP.
He’s only got a small bit of TB blood and a good amount of Gelders (which I like) but with his movement and build, I think he’d be a good match for a TB mare. (He has some offspring out of TBs that look quite nice.)
If you go to Olivier’s website and look at his videos, you’ll see that he has a ground-covering canter and a lovely jump.
He also has that attitude that I’ve mentioned previously. He’s completely unfussy about the jumps, does freestyle in the dark to a noisy, cheering crowd, and seems very engaged with what’s going on. His offspring are supposed to be very easy to train and amateur-friendly.
Olivier is awesome, and may very well be a super cross on a TB for eventing
[QUOTE=bornfreenowexpensive;5209784]
Well…another sort of outside the Box.
Bruce’s stallion Keltic Lion
http://www.brucedavidsoneventing.com/Pages/KelticLion.html
Out of the dam of Eagle Lion by the jumper stallion Lux Z.
Might be an interesting cross on TB mares.[/QUOTE]
I think, bornfree, that Eagle is out of stream lion, and Bruce’s stallion is actually out of a granddaughter of stream lion.
[QUOTE=TSHEventing;5339606]
I think, bornfree, that Eagle is out of stream lion, and Bruce’s stallion is actually out of a granddaughter of stream lion.[/QUOTE]
From Bruce’s website:
Keltic Lion was produced in Ireland for Bruce by Patricia Nicolson, who is the number one sport horse breeder in that country. Imported in 2006 as a yearling, he is the only stallion out of the Stream Lion (Eagle Lion’s mother) & the Eagle Lion family.
His wording on the site is a bit funny - until I read it again I thought he was out of Stream Lion as well.
Back to what ‘bornfreenowexpensive’ said in post #155:
[QUOTE=bornfreenowexpensive;5210132]
What do we know about the breeding of Apollo VD Wendi Kurt Hoeve?
He was my favorite horse watching WEG…but his breeding doesn’t look familar. Is his breeding outside of the box for eventing?..anything we can learn from it?
I’m having trouble finding any information…[/QUOTE]
And then JER responded in post #157:
[QUOTE=JER;5210149]His FEI page is here.
Sire is Polidiktus van de Helle. Dam is Naewshit van Wendijkurt by Township xx (Irish-bred). Listed as BWP.[/QUOTE]
So how do we find out if there’s any shot of getting frozen semen imported to the US? Anyone have any hints? (My flemmish is not so good… Doesn’t go much beyond exclamatory comments, I’m afraid!) =)
Apollo Waytoomanynames is Italian-owned and operated. May not require Flemish.
The BWP would probably have contact details.
Aberjack is proving successful in the USA. Last night I researched his get who have registered with him as sire with the USEF.
He started breeding in 2002, so his oldest are 8. He has probably 20 registered, and eight have FEI passports, which means they are going Prelim or above. Those eight are all with pros and are coming along quite nicely–2 have done 3*s. All of the horses that have the passports competed in 2010.
Gillian Clissold has a homebred bred from Sportscar that she’s bringing along. Laine Ashker has a homebred that she’s bringing along. Buck Davidson is riding one, and DOC was riding one prelim early last year. Lauren Kieffer has developed two and still has one who has been winning with her. The other was sold to a YR and has been competed by Mike Huber and Heather Morris after the AECs this year. The others with FEI passports seem to have been or are being pro ridden.
I’d say of the current US eventing stallions, Aberjack is probably the most prolific and the most proven. What I don’t know (because I didn’t do a results search on all his get) is whether he produces rides for pros as a general rule. But if I wanted a US stallion for eventing, I’d look very closely at him.
Almost all of the USEF registered Aberjacks are from 2002 to 2004, but maybe people wait until they are competing USEF level to actually register.
Aberjack is one of Mark Todd’s former rides and is 7/8ths TB, IIRC. According to something that I found on the Internet, which may or may not be correct, he’s Oldenburg approved, but they don’t say which one.
I have one by Aberjack out of a TB mare. I think she is a 2002 model off the top of my head. She did a CCI* at 7 with a pro but it wasn’t because she was a pro ride. She is built like a tank. He shortened up the top line and added substance for the mare but she is a bit downhill.
She had a wicked buck as a youngster but was never evil and it went away very quickly. I would say she really was pretty easy to bring along. She is truly an ammy ride about a lot of things (but she doesn’t totally pack you around–just forgives you of your mistakes for the most part). She has some of the best jumping instincts. She makes very good decisions. Very easy to jump around a 3’6" stadium course and could easily make a nice child/adult jumper.
She is now packing a young rider around novice and will hopefully help this girl move up the levels. I could see them doing YRs in a couple of years.
Cicera’s Icewater babies
I have several Icewater’s including, Cappuccino Ice, a coming 6 year old out of a Voltaire mare who is eventing with my daughter. We have taken it slowly with him as he is so talented and this year he went BN and then won his last Novice. Hannah Sue Burnett rode him at the Young Event Horse Championships at Fair Hill last year. He was pretty green in dressage, but was second in conformation and fourth in the jumping phase. KOC says" He is a keeper"!
Cappuccino Ice also hunts in the field and whips in. He has a huge stride, jump and is forward. He may be an awesome jumper because his grandfather is Voltaire, but Icewater’s dam is a full sister to Cavalier Royale, so Chino comes from 100% jumping bloodlines.
I have three full siblings. The other two are fillies. I bred the older one to Concerto Grosso in 2009 and have a fabulous colt who I plan to keep a stallion. The three year old will be bred back to Concerto Grosso this spring. They all have great minds and a great work ethic.
You can see photos of these horses at www.virginiafieldhunters.com
There are great videos of Cicera’s Icewater and Concerto Grosso on Youtube
Decision Made
After a lot of consideration, we are going with Grafenstolz. It came down to Royaldik and Graf; according to his handler, Royaldik is not going to be available frozen in the U.S. until next year, so that ultimately decided it for us for this breeding season.
Thanks to all of the recommendations/thoughts/discussion on this post.
PF
I’ll be interested in seeing your produce from Grafenstoltz - I’d love to breed one myself.
Desir du Chateau
A group of breeders in the USA is bringing in semen from Desir du Chateau (Quidam de Revel x Cor de Chasse x Rantzau xx), sire of the 2010 World Champion 7-Y-O Showjumper. He is 68% “blood”, has produced both international showjumpers and international eventing horses, and he comes from one of the world’s best damlines.
We are finalizing the group this week.
Avebury WF comes from generations of successful American event horses:
http://watermark-farm.net/avebury.html
He was highly placed in his first Preliminary, and is being prepped for higher levels in Aiken, S. C. with four * rider Ryan Wood right now.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
