By Christopher Hector
Photography: FEI/Leanjo de Koster

Some time ago, I wrote an article for World Breeding News entitled ‘Have the Warmblood breeds now completely merged into one?’ For this, I was roundly taken to task by a couple of equestrian experts.

One suggested that breed associations were like football clubs, and it was a good thing they had the supporters. Another said she did not like the idea of regional differences disappearing. The trouble is, I was not writing about what I thought was a good thing – in fact I rather liked the old system of small breeding stations that where the local social centres for a group of passionate supporters of ‘their’ breeding association – I was describing a reality!
Looking at the licensings of five leading studbooks – Hanoverian, Oldenburg, Westfalian, Danish, and Dutch – I found that of the five, only the colts at the KWPN approvals were distinctly Dutch. The rest showed that the breeders were more interested in producing foals to meet the market, the pedigrees clearly show that studbook loyalty was a thing of the past, and whether we like it or not, the pedigrees reveal in each case a hefty infusion (should that be transfusion?) of blood from other books.
When Dr. Roland Ramsauer died in October 2024, we lost one of the world’s great experts on sport horse breeding, which is not surprising since he literally wrote the book: Das Oldenburger Sportpferd. Even though Roland was for many years one of the classifiers for the Oldenburg Verband, he was not a devoted follower of the breed, in fact he told he told me back in 2017 that he was looking to the day when all the breed associations merged into one German Sport Horse book.
“Of course, when I started 30 years ago, the breeder would ask, oh what breed is the stallion? Today nobody asks. They all ask what is the stallion doing? They don’t care if he has a Bavarian brand or an Oldenburg brand, or Netherlands or Holsteiner brand.”
Is there still an Oldenburg horse, or do we just have a German sporthorse – with the possible exception of Holstein and the Trakehners? “That’s exactly right. We have a German Sporthorse. Already in the south, the associations are working together, and they don’t say Brandenburg or Bavarian or Baden-Württemberger, they call it the German Sport Horse. In the north it is a little bit different, still Oldenburg or Hanoverian or Westfalian, but anyway, the customers who will breed and buy horses, don’t look at the brand, only the pedigree. If the pedigree is good, he buys the horse, for showjumping, or dressage, or whatever.”
Let’s look at the new dressage sensation, European gold medallist, Zonik Plus. The stallion is described as Hanoverian, although he was bred in Portugal. His sire, Zonik, is solidly Dutch bred (yes, two of the foundation sires of Dutch breeding, Ferro and Jazz grace his pedigree) on the third line of his pedigree, the only outsider, is the Westfalian, Roemer. Zonik Plus’s dam, Romanik is branded Danish Warmblood, though she is a familiar mix of Oldenburger and Hanoverian blood. Zonik Plus is out of Heideblume, by one of my favourite stallions, the black Trakehner, Hohenstein, out of a Donnerhall mare. Looking at the paper, it would be hard to tell which breed association he belongs to...

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