What sort of foals is Totilas producing – are they consistent? What sort of mare is he matching with as far as conformation and gaits? Those who have foals here or have seen a number in Europe – what are you seeing regarding the foals and the dams?
PennyG
They’re not consistent from what breeders in Germany have told me, but still of good quality. The foals are coming out looking and moving like their mothers, so you need an exceptional mare. He does, however, pass on his exceptional temperament qualities and his robust work ethic. It is said, Totilas always gives 150% of himself every time and handleability of his foals has been exceptional. I think his babies will make exceptional riding horses, but time will tell. I spoke with one breeder who has about 8 foals from him and all of them are different and all of them look like their mothers, but he said all of them have great minds even out of his hotter mares and he’s really looking forward to getting them under saddle when the time comes.
[QUOTE=rodawn;6625411]
They’re not consistent from what breeders in Germany have told me, but still of good quality. The foals are coming out looking and moving like their mothers, so you need an exceptional mare. He does, however, pass on his exceptional temperament qualities and his robust work ethic. It is said, Totilas always gives 150% of himself every time and handleability of his foals has been exceptional. I think his babies will make exceptional riding horses, but time will tell. I spoke with one breeder who has about 8 foals from him and all of them are different and all of them look like their mothers, but he said all of them have great minds even out of his hotter mares and he’s really looking forward to getting them under saddle when the time comes.[/QUOTE]
I think those are the most important qualities to pass on! 
Sounds like Totilas will be a great sire of dressage horses suitable for both ambitious amateurs and pros in North America!
Considering the cost of his stud fee, he probably gets very few mares that aren’t exceptional!
It is interesting that his temperament is heritable, but the extravagant movement is not to a consistent degree. However, even a baby that moves half as well as he does is most likely very, very nice.
I love Totilas (Who doesn’t?) but to me if a sire does’t really “stamp” his foals, why would I breed to him? Especiallly at that price.
It’s interesting because a breeder friend/mentor of ours always said the “freaks” rarely reproduce themselves. Therefore you may have a nice stallion or mare that always outproduces themselves, “producers”, vs. a really special one that only sometimes or rarely produces something as talented or fantastic as themself -“end products”. It was just her theory years ago so interesting to see how it plays out or doesn’t! Obviously he’s a tremendous horse and seems to be producing well, and some may not show their glory until under saddle. Time will tell just how close he came to replicating himself.
I’m with Forte.
I am interested to see/hear about more of his babies, but at that price if out of the select/nice mare base he was put to last year he didn’t do much but make them more “amateur friendly”…I would be more interested in seeing him compete and would not consider him a strong sire.
For such a high stud fee, I would want a stallion to stamp the baby or improve the foal in some way from the dam…not just reproduce her. Now, I hope this is not really the case with him, and we will see some mini Totis soon, but if not…at least he is fun to watch.
I don’t know, I think the expectations are unrealistic. Totilas himself did not stand out until a bit later in life until he was well under saddle, so why expect him to be a foal maker? There are a good number of top performance sires out there who make unremarkable foals. So yeah, I wouldn’t breed to him in the hopes of getting a super fancy foal, but he is a phenomenal grand prix horse so if that is what you want to produce, he may be a good option (though the stud fee is a bit insane…).
I have seen a couple, a few in Germany (one from a full sister to Augustine OLD) and one at the Hanoverian inspection in September (she was from a Weltmeyer dam)… all were nice. At the inspection here Dr Brockmann mentioned that she was one of the nicest of all the Totilas foals they had seen (though she was not champion foal) and that with the Totilas offspring, many can have poorly conformed necks…so you need a mare with a really good neck.
I don’t think we’ll really know if he reproduced himself until Edward Gal tries to teach a bunch of his foals piaffe and passage…
Just standing there he isn’t as exceptional as he is in motion, and as noted that developed with age. An unproven stallion who doesn’t seem to stamp his babies but costs a lot makes me think I’d rather go with a different Gribaldi son for that power who produces performers if I were breeding right now. But then he was just never my “type” no matter how I marvelled at his beauty, and if I breed it will be for myself, not for sale.
I can’t help but think no matter what having “Totilas” on the papers will be worth a lot in sales.
There are only so many hours in a day, Edward Gal can only ride and train X number of horses… let’s be generous and say that the number is 10. So, 10 horses out of umpty-ump horses in the world today have the opportunity to be ridden and trained by such a master… with the possibility of producing such harmony and sheer excellence… and the rest struggle along as best they can. 
Who knows how many great horses are out there… in the wrong hands, with the wrong riders and trainers?
We don’t need to breed more Totilas… we need to breed more Edward Gals. 
:lol:
[QUOTE=rodawn;6625411]
He does, however, pass on his exceptional temperament qualities and his robust work ethic. [/QUOTE]
Temperament I can see. But how do you determine in a FOAL that the he has passed on his robust work ethic?
Wouldn’t you have to wait until they are under saddle to make that determination?
I’m not at all surprised the Totilas foals don’t move like Totilas. Totilas’ movement was created by the rider. He has good basic paces for sure, but Edward built on that to an extreme. What we hope is that Totilas does pass on his rideability, which will not be known for a number of years.
My horse, Coltrane (Olivier x Doruto), is nothing to write home about to look at. But he lets me ride him so much that we’re slowly but surely turning him into a fabulous, flashy mover. To see him loose? He looks like a hunter with a big head. He doesn’t have a great neckset (got his mom’s front to a T!), but as he builds muscle it looks better and better. If a horse lets you ride them and ride the hind legs and the back, you can do incredible things. Don’t count those Totilas foals out just yet! For me, I think he’ll be great in the mareline.
I think that the high expectations are legitimately generated by the ridiculous studfee associated with this stallion.
I confess that I felt a little tempted to use Toto and I have a couple of mares that are strong enough that if all they produced were themselves, the result would have been fine. But I just could not get beyond the risk of that high fee. :no:
There are many stallions that pass along good, reliable temperaments and that have offspring old enough to reasonably predict work ethic (assuming the mare has a good one as well). They also have reasonable studfees.
Granted, they may not be hot as a firecracker in attracting buyers who believe that the important part of the equation is the sire and that any old mare should do the trick when used with a superstar stallion. Experience has shown otherwise, but only thoughtful breeders who have done their homework seem to know that little detail. :winkgrin:
[QUOTE=Cartier;6628273]
Who knows how many great horses are out there… in the wrong hands, with the wrong riders and trainers?
We don’t need to breed more Totilas… we need to breed more Edward Gals. :lol:[/QUOTE]
This is the issue! If you looked at video of Toto being ridden “normally”, you wouldn’t look twice. Even now, with all his fabulous training, he isn’t looking as good with Rath on him. Gal made him what he is - it was that rare combination of the right horse and the right trainer. Together, they are magic!
BTW, I’ve seen a few Gribaldi horses now, and none of them show any of the work quality that Toto has. Of course, none of them were ridden by Gal either.
Waiting to see - until they are far enough under saddle, we don’t really know anything. Easy to handle foals don’t always translate into easy riding horses or into GP prospects.
Good post.
[QUOTE=Cartier;6628273]
We don’t need to breed more Totilas… we need to breed more Edward Gals. :lol:[/QUOTE]
:yes::yes:
[QUOTE=Cartier;6628273]
We don’t need to breed more Totilas… we need to breed more Edward Gals. :lol:[/QUOTE]
Sadly, the stud Gal doesn’t fancy the mares. ;):lol:
Seriously though, I hope Edward has the opportunity to pass his knowledge onto as many students as possible. He is so gifted, and we need more like him!
[QUOTE=Cartier;6628273]
Who knows how many great horses are out there… in the wrong hands, with the wrong riders and trainers?
We don’t need to breed more Totilas… we need to breed more Edward Gals. :lol:[/QUOTE]
It was kind of my point, too. Totilas was very much a “made” horse with a great mind and an ability to piaffe/passage.
Sadly, I have to look more at the biomechanics of how someone like Debbie McDonald rides in order to learn about what will work for me. No matter how perfectly EG may use his body, well, we’re VERY different shapes… (I love Debbie - that wasn’t meant as a knock on her!)
When I was younger that would have been hugely significant… but at my age, not so much.:lol:
Seriously, these days I find a lot of joy in watching someone’s expertise… even knowing that I will never be able to do that.
As breeders, Arthur and I still have goals… but we have always known that we will not be in the saddle when/if the horse we’ve bred gets to where it’s going. And in the meantime, we very much enjoy the process. One of our greatest pleasures in all of this is simply meeting breeders from around the world who have knowledge of the stallions and bloodlines we are drawn to.
I really agree with this^^
I bred two Totilas foals and one Scandic this year. It would be difficult to say Toto didn’t ‘stamp’ my foals given they look almost identical Of course the mares were black too so it’s hard to say… They both have Toto’s neck and they seem way more laid-back then the Scandic foal as you can see in this video (sorry for those who aren’t on Facebook): The Toti foals look at me like I’m crazy when I try to get them to run around for the camera:
