BY BETTINE VAN HARSELAAR / KWPN
PHOTOGRAPHY: DIGISHOTS

“I would like to win the [KWPN] Stallion Competition with a stallion one day and reach the very highest level in sport.”
The KWPN stallions Guardian S (Bodyguard Moorland) and Jarville (Ferdeaux) were bred by Peter van de Sande himself. His breeding programme began with the Juventus daughter Pradin (damsire Michelangelo), who actually crossed Peter’s path by chance. “You could say that breeding and finding a good mare is a matter of expertise, but that wasn’t the case here. I thought she was an incredibly good horse when I saw her move, and I bought her without having seen her pedigree.”
It was only a few years later that he discovered that Pradin not only moved well, but also had an outstanding pedigree. The mare, bred by F.J.M. Thijs, came from René Franssen’s well-known mare line. “I saw her when I was out looking for horses to trade and bought her for very little money. We started riding her, and in hindsight it turned into a success story.” Van de Sande bought Pradin purely for her quality. Peter’s wife Monique trained Pradin up to Z-level dressage. When Monique became pregnant with their first child, they decided to breed the mare. It was only then that Peter took out her pedigree and realised what he actually had in his stable.
Working hard for the horses
At that time, Van de Sande was still barely involved in breeding, with his main focus being on the horse trade. His love of animals was instilled in him from an early age by his parents on their farm. Peter’s former Welsh pony was also used for breeding, and every year there was a trip to the UTV. When Peter told his father after leaving school that he wanted to work with horses, his father was not particularly enthusiastic. “My father said: ‘You’ll become as poor as you can possibly imagine.’ But when someone tells me that something can’t be done, that only makes me want to do it even more.”
Starting out in horses without any initial capital is difficult, so Peter began working for an agricultural contractor and later bought a mini excavator, which he used to work for contractors during the week and for private clients at weekends. “At the same time, I already had horses. I rented eight boxes. During the day, I did a lot of road construction work with the excavator, when I got home I would ride another four or five horses, and at weekends clients would come by for the horse trade. When our daughter was born and I saw so little of her during her first year because I was always working, that was the turning point for me. From one day to the next, I decided to devote myself entirely to the horses.”
So, Peter sold his business and focused on the horse trade. “Buying horses, backing them, riding them, grooming them, and selling them, I did everything myself. At that time, I sold an average of five horses a week.” Peter also competed many horses up to Z-level dressage and occasionally did some jumping as well. In 2010, he bought his current premises in Liempde. The old pig sheds made way for stables and an indoor arena. Only the house remained. Today, it is a well-designed and functional equestrian facility with an indoor arena, outdoor arena, well-kept stables, an area for raising young horses, a lunging circle, breeding facilities, and neatly fenced paddocks...

CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE IN THE ONLINE EDITION OF BREEDING NEWS