By Adriana van Tilburg
Photography: SF/Les Garennes
There were 44 two- and 82 three-year-old stallions in the catalogue and, as breeding is becoming more international, there were several scouts from other studbooks who were looking for ‘Selle Français originel’. One breeding director actually said, “I cannot buy a Holsteiner x Selle Francais.” It is, however, hard to find a 100 % SF-bred stallion.
It can be mixed with the KWPN-bred Kannan or with Mylord Carthago – French-bred but with Carthago as a sire. Vagabond de la Pomme is sBs, Cornet Obolensky is BWP, Big Star is KWPN-bred, and so on.... Plus if you look at these names you might come to the conclusion that every studbook is using the same stallions. So the key factor is becoming more and more the motherline of a stallion.
Dancing Bride (Almé)
Among the two-year-old stallions only two were bred ‘SF originel’. Second place in the final went to Gentleman d’Elle (Balko d’Elle - Devinette d’Elle x Natif de Corday, bred by Bertrand Pignolet), while third was Gandhi Savoie (Canturo -Rafaele Savoie x Indoctro II, bred by Maurice Moine). There you already have your shot of Holsteiner blood.
In fact, the type of stallions in the top 10 were very different. Jean Louis Lenoury, a member of the approval commitee for two year olds said, “Unlike other studbooks, we want to approve different types of stallions because our mare base has different mares. In many studbooks you see that they approve a similar type of stallions, but we don’t like to do that.”..
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