BY JO DE ROO
PHOTOGRAPHY: JO DE ROO; FEI/MASSIMO ARGENZIANO
Under the saddle of Daniel Deusser, the BWP registered Otello De Guldenboom (Tobago Z - Caretina x Caretino) is excelling at the highest levels and demonstrating his exceptional showjumping qualities.
This year alone he has won five-star Grand Prix and World Cup classes, respectively in La Baule, France and Verona, Italy. Without a breeder, there would be no Otello. In this case, we’re talking about Hugo Versnick, a small-scale, unassuming breeder who uses common sense, breeding and bloodline expertise, drive, patience, and passion to breed top-notch showjumpers.
So, who is Hugo Versnick? “I was born and raised in Ressegem (Belgium). My parents ran a business specializing in animal feed. I attended agricultural college in Oudenaarde, am married to Magda, and we have one son, Gert. Professionally, I was a sales representative in animal feed for four years. After that, I worked at a textile company in Zottegem. Meanwhile, I also started as a pig-farmer, and step-by-step, we built a farm with both arable land and pastures. This way, there was always room – literally and figuratively – for my horses.
“Although I’ve been enjoying my retirement for several years now, during the last 18 years of my career, I worked at a shelter for children placed in the judicial system in Nederhasselt, where I was responsible for the buildings. When I reached retirement age, I also closed my pig farm. The rest of the farm, including the horses, of course, remained.”
◆ How did you get into the horse world?
I didn’t catch the horse bug from my parents, but from local farmers. In Ressegem, every farmer had one or more draft horses at the time. They also bred mares. For this, they used stallions from the racing sport. I wanted to be present at every foal birth in the area, purely out of curiosity.
My mother told me that when I was a child, for St. Nicholas, I wanted a wooden horse on wheels as a gift so I could ride around. When I was 13, my parents gave me a foal by Amburg van Millen (Amburg - Musta x Floris) who grew up with us. When it was 18 months old, I trained it, and it even knelt for me. I entered with it in a conformation competition, which wasn’t a success as we finished at the bottom of the rankings. But since the then three-year-old was well-trained, I could easily sell it.
That same year, the stallion Flügel van La Roche became a showjumping champion at the Heysel (Brussels), and I decided I wanted to buy a filly by this champion. In the magazine Landbouwleven, I read that a Flügel filly was for sale. My brother and I went to view the foal, whose dam was a chic chestnut mare with excellent gaits, so I bought the foal. The sellers brought the foal to a location in Aalst and I then had to walk her home for 10kms. I later trained her and was very successful with her in conformation competitions...
