By Christopher Hector
Photography: FEI/Shannon Brinkman
The black Trakehner stallion, Millennium (2008: Easy Game - Merle x Ravel, bred by Bettina Bieschewski) announced he was a force in the world of dressage breeding when he dominated the 2014 stallion licensings in three different studbooks. It all started at the Trakehner Licensing where they licensed five sons of Millennium including their champion, Sir Sansibar (2012: out of Susuya x Cadeau, breeder Norbert Timm).
The next studbook to jump on the Millennium band-wagon was Oldenburger, where their licensing champion was a very attractive black colt, by Millennium out of a Rubin Royal x De Niro x Rubinstein mare. Milliennium was popular in Westfalia as well, with three colts approved for the Westfalian book, one of whom made the premium ring; Walter Droege’s Millepoint (Millennium x Fürst Heinrich x Weltmeyer x Azur). And suddenly people were asking, who is this sire?
Millennium had been the Reserve Champion of the 2010 Trakehner licensing. Then second in dressage at his 30-day test, and first in dressage scores in a 70-day test in 2013. In 2012, he ‘won several young horse riding classes’ but it has taken some time for him to emerge in FEI ranks. Ridden by Sprehe resident rider and Olympian, Simone Pearce, the black stallion competed twice at FEI level in 2020, both times at Herzlake CDI*, for two seconds, 71.618% in the Prix St George, 71.274% in the Intermediaire I.
His sire, Easy Game, is by Gribaldi out of Evita XII, a Schwadroneur mare – both these stallions com-peted Grand Prix – but Easy Game we are told was ‘educated to S level in Holland’ although thus far he has not appeared on the FEI database record of all international perform-ances from Prix St Georges up.
I asked my colleague, a Trakehner expert, about Millennium. My informant is not only very well informed, but a genuine fan of the Trakehener breed. He pointed out that the year Millennium was third at his licensing, was the year Paul Schocke-möhle bought Totilas, and that it was a year in which black Trakehners with the name Gribaldi in their pedigree, were keenly sought after.
Millennium did not enjoy the best of rep-utations. His sire, Easy Game, seemingly was not easy at all. Whenever he appeared in public, he was only led by the stallion master, Joep van Uytert, and then always on a lungeing rein, since the stallion not only had the tendency to stand on his hind legs, but also tried to kick his handler. However my friend is fulsome in his praise of Easy Game’s dam, the Schwadroneur mare, Evita, a former auction top seller.
In 2014 Belgian based Dutch rider Veronique Swagemakers purchased a half share in Easy Game with the intention that she would compete the stallion at Grand Prix level. Three years later he was back in Joep van Uytert’s stallion station without an FEI start.
Stallion of the Year 2021
Since then he has received a limited numbers of mares, but was proclaimed Trakehner Stallion of the Year 2021, largely on the basis of the success of a daughter from his first crop in 2006, the current world number one, Dalera BB, but also his licensed son, another of the van Uytert stallions, Hermès (out of a Flemmingh x Jazz mare) who won the CDIO-5* Grand Prix of Aachen this year with a score of 78.022%... To read the complete article you need to be a subscriber
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