By Sabine Timman
Photography: Sabine Timman
The KWPN Championships in August provided a great start for breeders anxious for information about stallions and various dam lines. Several days of finals saw the inspections for foals and males in jumping and dressage, as well as the showdown of the PAVO Cup, for four-, five-, and six-year-old horses.
The KWPN Championships are the final countdown of the inspection season for mares and foals, which started with the studbook selecting only the best to perform in Ermelo. On this occasion, The judge saw 59 three-year-old dressage horses in the morning and invited 14 horses for the finals that same afternoon.
The morning group included a lot of offspring variety, with Danish Warmbloods and Oldenburg stallions alongside the many KWPNs. For the damsires it was a remarkable majority of KWPN stallions, especially Krack C (Flemmingh x Beaujolais), Bretton Woods (Johnson x De Niro), Jazz (Cocktail x Ulster), and Rousseau (Ferro x Roemer). In general, we saw really high quality among the mares who are still quite young, although a few could have been more through the body, have better use of their hind legs, or shown a better walk. In the finals, however, were two mares from Dream Boy, Blue Hors Zackery, and Ebony.
Dream Boy daughter Ostara ST-J quickly became a favourite with the public, and was judged to be the winner of this section. Ostara’s qualities didn’t come out of nowhere, as her dam Havana (Totilas) is a direct descendant of the famous mare Annabel. bred by the Jansen Family. Annabel not only gave the approved stallions Bretton Woods (Johnson) and Chagall D&R (Jazz), but also the mare Vienna (Ferro) – who also produced two approved stallions with Four Legends KS (Wynton) and Le Formidable (Bordeaux).
Once For All Swing (All At Once x Zuchero Swing of Krack C) was the runner-up of this year’s mare finals bred by K. Ridderhof-Pols. In her dam line we see also a lot of sport horses. Her mother reached ZZL-level herself and gave birth to Small Tour horse En Vogue Swing (Gribaldi).
Third-placed O. Cynola M (Jerveaux - Cynola M x Flemmingh) shows a lot of sport in the damline in both dressage and jumping, and was bred by B. Conn. Approved stallion Lloyd (Governor) is also a product of this damline.
Thinking about the stallion selection, the proven damlines stood out, especially in the performances of the mares, with only a few descending from unproven lines. The majority, however, represented a lot of good sport horses, and even competed at higher levels in sport themselves.
Dressage foals
Something we do see at the championships of the dressage foals a lot less – perhaps because some of the broodmares are still young – is a gender mix in the final round, with both colts and fillies.
The Lord Romantic son Stallone L was honored with the champion’s ribbon. Bred by F.H.J. Leijten, out of the Apache mare Idamora, this foal showed great elasticity and a really powerful canter.
In second place the filly Salsa Tequila (Total McLaren), bred by T. Tolner out of Jazz mare, Evita, who competed at ZZL level and has already produced a stallion who made it to the second round of the stallion inspection.
Third place went to Savanne Fan T (Lennox US) whose dam, Fancy T, is still competing at ZZL level and also has a product who competed at this same level. Fancy T (Vivaldi x Havidoff) is from the famous dam line of A.M.T Toonen Arts which gave a lot of good-performing sport horses, as well as the approved stallion Grand Galaxy Win (Apache x Jazz)... To read the complete article you need to be a subscriber
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