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“You can only sell one thing – the showjumper who jumps the best, or the best dressage horse. That’s the only thing that sells – the main goal of breeding is the sporthorse. I have one mare, and everything she breeds has a chip either in the fetlock or in the stifle, or in the hock. Whatever. But they jump like hell, and make me so much money you can’t believe it! You have to take a chip out here and there, but they can jump. One is in Canada that had a chip in one hock, one in Ireland by Carthago had chips in both hocks but jumps unbelievable – so I don’t throw that mare away. It would be nice if the mare bred foals that did not have chips, but that is not the goal of the breeding – the goal is to breed good jumpers.”
OCD is heritable?
“Everything is heritable but it is a very difficult pattern of heritability, but for sure it is in the mare line. Some mares give it to all their foals. The problem with the stallion is that you cannot always see if the stallion will produce it. That’s why we are thinking of changing the system in Holland so it is not so strict on the stallions, but to look what he breeds – if there are 20 foals, do they have more OCD than the other ones? There are some ‘false negatives’ – stallions that don’t have it but spread it. There are others where it comes back, maybe in the third generation but not in the first.”
Would you knowingly breed with a stallion that was an OCD carrier?
“It depends. If I have a very strong mare and there are a lot of other reasons to use the stallion, then I use him. We have a few here in Holland that we know they give OCD, it’s not so nice, but some of them are good. There is one dressage stallion, 5 out of 10 have it, and the sons by him, also have it, but they are very nice horses. You don’t throw them away because they make OCD horses – it is a part of the breeding, you have to know it, but it’s not the main goal.”
Should the stallion owner be required to disclose to the mare owners if his stallion breeds OCD?
“In Holland we throw the stallions out, they are not allowed to breed. Every horse that is KWPN approved is OCD free, or it is not allowed to breed.”
So is OCD now less of a problem in Holland?
“We see it much less than in other countries. We have in Holland much sounder horses than everywhere else. I have 45 two year olds of my own, and I have been x-raying them to see where we should go, and what not to do, and with the German blood we always have something different. The ones that are not sound are nearly always the ones from a German mother – in Holland we have made very good progress on the soundness side, but we must be careful not to throw away too much of the rest.”
What is the goal in your jumping program?
“To breed international showjumping performers, to go to the top. It is very important to know your mare, that’s the most important thing. If I have a Julio mare, not so big but sound and very quick and reactive, then I am looking not for a Thoroughbred – I’m looking for a heavy horse, and maybe one that is not careful enough – that doesn’t matter because the Julio mother will give them carefulness for sure. But if I have a heavy mare that is very strong and very powerful, but a bit slow, then I am looking for a different stallion. Always try to improve what is lacking, don’t double up, don’t breed a big bully to a big bully. Try to find a good match up.”
If you breed a well bred jumping mare to a good jumping stallion, how sure can you be that you will get a jumper?
“Seventy percent. If you are very careful then you can do 70%, then it depends on little things, like the rider. It depends also on the mare lines, some mare lines are so strong. I have one old mare, the three quarter Thoroughbred mare, Twiggy, and Ovidius, the good sire in Holland now, is her grandson. Madison was a good jumper out of this mare. From the same family comes Baltimoor, that jumped internationally with Geir Guliksen. Now we have a Carthago son out of the same family. Nearly all of them jump – how good they are in the end depends on who gets them.”
At Aachen in the Grand Prix of 2004, three of the four horses in the jump off were from the Holstein C – C cross. How important are those two C lines?
“It is the same philosophy that we were talking about before of not doubling up. Cor de la Bryère – extremely careful, they lack a bit of scope sometimes because they are not so good in the back. The other is the Capitol line, dumb power. No brain, just power, a lot of power. If you mix that, get a little bit of quality from Cor de la Bryère (by the Thoroughbred, Rantzau) and add to that the power, then you have the right mixture. You hope for the right mixture.”
“Sometimes we use that Capitol line, because we have quite a lot of blood, and we need power. For the Julio mares you need scope and power, all the quality is there, you just add scope.”
Do you think that showjumping breeding has developed so far that now we have a hundred very good jumping stallions so we will not have the great ‘hero’ stallions like Ramiro, or Almé or Gotthard in the future?
“There are more good ones than there were in the past for sure, and it is not so easy to be a star like Voltaire or Ramiro, because a lot of people are sending their mares to many different stallions, not just using one stallion. Ramiro he made some nice horses, but he also made some normal horses, very normal. But now there are so many stallions everywhere, that no one stallion gets enough mares to be the superstar. But among those ‘equal’ ones, there will be one in the end who will be the better stallion for sure. It is always the same family they come from, the dam line is so important, always look to the dam it is much more important than the father.”
If you could have any stallion in the world now – free gift – who would you take, Quidam?
“I used Quidam years ago when no-one heard of him. I bought Guidam out of his first crop. I heard that Quidam de Revel was jumping good, and he has got the most fantastic pedigree in the world, it’s all international or Olympic horses. So I looked for, and found, Guidam, who also proved to be a very good sire, I’m always looking for something new. Quidam de Revel is no longer a goal for me, everyone is using him. It was nice to breed to with him at the time when no one used him, too crowded on the bus. And I believe his son Guidam is better, if he gets the same mares as his father, he is better, more rideable, more elasticity, more power to collect. That is very important for the showjumper, to be able to collect your body, to make a stride on a metre and jump up – that is one of the most important things.
There are some nice young horses, Carry – a Holstein horse in Germany – he’s a nice horse.”
What about Darco?
“Darco is fantastic. You need a special mare, you don’t want to go with a big bully to Darco, you need some blood, with a strong back. It’s not so much looking around for stallions, I like to know my mare all year round and then find a stallion that will fit that mare. Aldatus, he is in Ireland now, he makes good horses, I think he will be very popular in a few years time.”
You are not only a breeder – you have a training barn?
“I have a dressage rider, he has about 10/15 horses, my son is now home, he was with Henk Hoorn for two years, and he is riding jumping horse, then we have a young man who rides the young horses. We have quite a lot of horses coming out every day.”
“I like to give every horse a chance, to see where they go to. I sold Authentic to Beezie Madden as a three year old, now I have the opportunity to hold onto horses longer and see where they go.”
Klipper in den här och länkar. Den är lång.
“You can only sell one thing – the showjumper who jumps the best, or the best dressage horse. That’s the only thing that sells – the main goal of breeding is the sporthorse. I have one mare, and everything she breeds has a chip either in the fetlock or in the stifle, or in the hock. Whatever. But they jump like hell, and make me so much money you can’t believe it! You have to take a chip out here and there, but they can jump. One is in Canada that had a chip in one hock, one in Ireland by Carthago had chips in both hocks but jumps unbelievable – so I don’t throw that mare away. It would be nice if the mare bred foals that did not have chips, but that is not the goal of the breeding – the goal is to breed good jumpers.”
OCD is heritable?
“Everything is heritable but it is a very difficult pattern of heritability, but for sure it is in the mare line. Some mares give it to all their foals. The problem with the stallion is that you cannot always see if the stallion will produce it. That’s why we are thinking of changing the system in Holland so it is not so strict on the stallions, but to look what he breeds – if there are 20 foals, do they have more OCD than the other ones? There are some ‘false negatives’ – stallions that don’t have it but spread it. There are others where it comes back, maybe in the third generation but not in the first.”
Would you knowingly breed with a stallion that was an OCD carrier?
“It depends. If I have a very strong mare and there are a lot of other reasons to use the stallion, then I use him. We have a few here in Holland that we know they give OCD, it’s not so nice, but some of them are good. There is one dressage stallion, 5 out of 10 have it, and the sons by him, also have it, but they are very nice horses. You don’t throw them away because they make OCD horses – it is a part of the breeding, you have to know it, but it’s not the main goal.”
Should the stallion owner be required to disclose to the mare owners if his stallion breeds OCD?
“In Holland we throw the stallions out, they are not allowed to breed. Every horse that is KWPN approved is OCD free, or it is not allowed to breed.”
So is OCD now less of a problem in Holland?
“We see it much less than in other countries. We have in Holland much sounder horses than everywhere else. I have 45 two year olds of my own, and I have been x-raying them to see where we should go, and what not to do, and with the German blood we always have something different. The ones that are not sound are nearly always the ones from a German mother – in Holland we have made very good progress on the soundness side, but we must be careful not to throw away too much of the rest.”
What is the goal in your jumping program?
“To breed international showjumping performers, to go to the top. It is very important to know your mare, that’s the most important thing. If I have a Julio mare, not so big but sound and very quick and reactive, then I am looking not for a Thoroughbred – I’m looking for a heavy horse, and maybe one that is not careful enough – that doesn’t matter because the Julio mother will give them carefulness for sure. But if I have a heavy mare that is very strong and very powerful, but a bit slow, then I am looking for a different stallion. Always try to improve what is lacking, don’t double up, don’t breed a big bully to a big bully. Try to find a good match up.”
If you breed a well bred jumping mare to a good jumping stallion, how sure can you be that you will get a jumper?
“Seventy percent. If you are very careful then you can do 70%, then it depends on little things, like the rider. It depends also on the mare lines, some mare lines are so strong. I have one old mare, the three quarter Thoroughbred mare, Twiggy, and Ovidius, the good sire in Holland now, is her grandson. Madison was a good jumper out of this mare. From the same family comes Baltimoor, that jumped internationally with Geir Guliksen. Now we have a Carthago son out of the same family. Nearly all of them jump – how good they are in the end depends on who gets them.”
At Aachen in the Grand Prix of 2004, three of the four horses in the jump off were from the Holstein C – C cross. How important are those two C lines?
“It is the same philosophy that we were talking about before of not doubling up. Cor de la Bryère – extremely careful, they lack a bit of scope sometimes because they are not so good in the back. The other is the Capitol line, dumb power. No brain, just power, a lot of power. If you mix that, get a little bit of quality from Cor de la Bryère (by the Thoroughbred, Rantzau) and add to that the power, then you have the right mixture. You hope for the right mixture.”
“Sometimes we use that Capitol line, because we have quite a lot of blood, and we need power. For the Julio mares you need scope and power, all the quality is there, you just add scope.”
Do you think that showjumping breeding has developed so far that now we have a hundred very good jumping stallions so we will not have the great ‘hero’ stallions like Ramiro, or Almé or Gotthard in the future?
“There are more good ones than there were in the past for sure, and it is not so easy to be a star like Voltaire or Ramiro, because a lot of people are sending their mares to many different stallions, not just using one stallion. Ramiro he made some nice horses, but he also made some normal horses, very normal. But now there are so many stallions everywhere, that no one stallion gets enough mares to be the superstar. But among those ‘equal’ ones, there will be one in the end who will be the better stallion for sure. It is always the same family they come from, the dam line is so important, always look to the dam it is much more important than the father.”
If you could have any stallion in the world now – free gift – who would you take, Quidam?
“I used Quidam years ago when no-one heard of him. I bought Guidam out of his first crop. I heard that Quidam de Revel was jumping good, and he has got the most fantastic pedigree in the world, it’s all international or Olympic horses. So I looked for, and found, Guidam, who also proved to be a very good sire, I’m always looking for something new. Quidam de Revel is no longer a goal for me, everyone is using him. It was nice to breed to with him at the time when no one used him, too crowded on the bus. And I believe his son Guidam is better, if he gets the same mares as his father, he is better, more rideable, more elasticity, more power to collect. That is very important for the showjumper, to be able to collect your body, to make a stride on a metre and jump up – that is one of the most important things.
There are some nice young horses, Carry – a Holstein horse in Germany – he’s a nice horse.”
What about Darco?
“Darco is fantastic. You need a special mare, you don’t want to go with a big bully to Darco, you need some blood, with a strong back. It’s not so much looking around for stallions, I like to know my mare all year round and then find a stallion that will fit that mare. Aldatus, he is in Ireland now, he makes good horses, I think he will be very popular in a few years time.”
You are not only a breeder – you have a training barn?
“I have a dressage rider, he has about 10/15 horses, my son is now home, he was with Henk Hoorn for two years, and he is riding jumping horse, then we have a young man who rides the young horses. We have quite a lot of horses coming out every day.”
“I like to give every horse a chance, to see where they go to. I sold Authentic to Beezie Madden as a three year old, now I have the opportunity to hold onto horses longer and see where they go.”
