By Jo de Roo
Photography: Jo de Roo
During the past months, foal championships have been organized at various locations in Belgium. I attended a total of 10 and found that these events are still very popular, not only for their social character, but for commercial reasons, too. After all, business is conducted and various auction committees visited certain events in order to select foals.
There are even more advantages, as one gets a look at the offspring of sires and dams, the foals learn a lot (transport, being groomed, different environment, etc), and the breders can compare the quality of his or her own foal with that of others. Following all the local championships, the BWP national championship for elite foals was hosted, with more than 250 entries.
Valkyrie JM, best showjumping filly
In the category female showjumping foals, victory was claimed by Valkyrie JM. The Van Dijck Hengstenhouderij bred this daughter of Ermitage Kalone out of Hanky Panky (Calvaro). According to Joris Van Dijck: “I bought Hanky Panky when she was five years old with a view to a sports career. She was broken in at the time but had no competition experience yet. We trained her for about six months until one morning in her stable we saw that one of her legs was broken. We don’t know how it happened. We immediately called our veterinary sur-geon. He came by and said she could still be used for breeding after a few months of wrapping the leg in plaster, so we followed his advice. During the first year we did not use her in breeding. It is only during the tran-sition from her sixth to seventh year of life that we started using her as a broodmare.”
He continued talking about her offspring by saying: “The first descendant I bred from Hanky Panky is called Parenthese J&F Champblanc. I sold this daughter of Baloubet du Rouet when she was four years old.” Then, in 2017, Hanky Panky became the dam of Quaprice du Bois Margot son Requiem J&F Champblanc. Van Dijck: “During the auction in Mechelen he was bought by Hilton Stables. Requiem was the auction topper. Afterwards he was approved as a breeding stallion in Zangersheide. It is also great that we now have a champion foal out of Hanky Panky. Last month Valkyrie JM already ranked fourth during the foal championship in Pulderbos. We knew she had a chance to win a final ticket at the national foal championship, but it all has yet to be realized during that snapshot. Valkyrie JM is a very athletic filly with a lot of suppleness. That is undoubtedly a strong asset.”.. To read the complete article you need to be a subscriber
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