BY JEAN LLEWELLYN
PHOTOGRAPHY: PRIVATE COLLECTION, FEI/SHANNON BRINKMAN
Haras FB was created by Adriana Busato in 1987 on a family-owned property in Curitiba, a commercial city in southern Brazil. Like many breeders, it was an opportunistic beginning when one of her own jumping mares could no longer compete due to injury.
The mare was sent to Cortino Joter – one of the few imported stallions available at that time – with the resulting offspring being the first officially registered product of Haras FB [HFB prefix]. At the same time, Adriana was studying veterinary medicine and later spent 14 years working as a professor of equine husbandry at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná in Curitiba.
I first met Adriana for an interview in Curitiba which was published in 2007 under what I considered to be an infamous line: “My mares are not gigolos....” It was a visionary statement at a time when so many breeders were investing in stallions, and a philosophy that has allowed her to build a herd of mares of the highest quality, producing foals from the most talented and sought-after bloodlines.
Annually, Adriana purcases straws from proven Warmblood sires which she uses herself and also resells to other Brazilian breeders. Being a competitive showjumper as well as a veterinarian has allowed her to successfully and innovatively grow over four decades of breeding dedication, so it was a personal journey for me to reinterview Adriana with similar and new questions, to see how her early vision has evolved.
◆ How has your breeding operation grown and evolved over the past 18 years since I visited Haras FB in Curitiba?
Well, I believe that a lot of studying, a lot – and I mean A LOT – of hard work, some out-of-the-box experiments, and of course a good pinch of luck have brought Haras FB to where it is today. The property itself hasn’t increased in size; we’ve only improved its infrastructure, the manage-ment, and our team.
Our bloodlines have already produced some of the best Brazilian-bred BH horse to date – the mare who became Pan American Champion and placed fifth individually at the Paris 2024 Olympics: Primavera Montana Imperio Egipcio (Calvaro Z [Holst] x HFB Primaluna [BH] x Paroli [Rhein] x Quinar Z [Holst]; ridden by Stephan de Freitas Barcha); as well as a Pan American competitor for Chile, HFB Versace (Verdi TN - Dersace [KWPN] x Indorado [Holst] x Heartbreaker; ridden by Samuel Parot Jnr); and a good number of horses that have competed at 1m50 classes and above. As a result, our visibility has grown significantly, and we now have clients not only from Brazil but also from the USA and all across South America acquiring our products.
