BY JENNEKE SMIT / KWPN
PHOTOGRAPHY: DIRK CAREMANS
As a full sister to the KWPN stallion Van Gogh, Wunderfull Vera began her breeding career with an impressive pedigree. With three offspring competing at the highest level, this Numero Uno daughter of Peter and Renate Stultiëns has lived up to all expectations.
She produced Alise Oken’s successful Gelvera, Barbara Schnieper’s Escoffier and Lily Attwood’s Johnnie Walker, and has also proven to be an influential link in the dam line.
Inextricably linked to Van Gogh
Breeders Peter and Renate Stultiëns from Weert in the Dutch province of Limburg are inextricably linked to the Grand Prix stallion Van Gogh, with whom Marco Kutscher achieved great success. The pair won, among other events, the Global Champions Tour Grand Prix of Valkenswaard (under the watchful eye of his proud breeders), the 1m60 Grand Prix at CSI5* Los Angeles and the 1m60 Grand Prix at CSI5* Hong Kong. In breeding, Van Gogh earned the keur predicate, thanks to offspring competing at the highest level such as La Gupardie, Karius, New Libero One d’Asschaut and Bella Brow.
Modern offspring
Although the breeders have used several dam lines in their breeding programme, Van Gogh’s dam line is the only one that has remained. “I used to ride ponies and at some point I started looking for an interesting mare for breeding showjumpers. We saw the Bernstein daughter Movera advertised as a yearling, and I went to see her together with my father. He was involved with ponies himself, and I think I inherited my passion for breeding from him. Once Renate and I had taken over the farm, we no longer had time to ride ourselves anyway. And a lack of talent also played a part in that,” Peter says with a laugh.
The Bernstein daughter Movera moved to Weert more than 30 years ago and has been the foundation of all the Stultiëns family’s breeding successes. “At the time, it was already quite an achievement that Movera’s dam Govera had produced a stallion selected for the performance test as well as a horse competing at national 1m40 level. That may not seem like much nowadays, but back then it was one of the reasons why we were so keen to have Movera. She was also an attractive mare with good movement, and later it became clear that she produced a better foal every year. Her offspring were more modern, which was certainly also thanks to stallions such as Numero Uno that we used for her.” Movera produced 18 offspring, five of which were sired by Numero Uno. “When we used Numero Uno for the first time, he was five years old. He immediately caught my eye and produced two fantastic horses for us with Van Gogh and Wunderfull Vera, among others. We also bred successfully for many years with their full sister Zovera. In addition, we are still breeding with the Harley VDL daughter It’s Vera, who is directly out of Movera, and in the past we also bred with Movera’s Clinton daughter Era Vera, but she, like Zovera, has since passed away.”
Van Gogh
The combination with Numero Uno resulted in Van Gogh in 2002. “We offered him at the Limburg Foal Auction as a foal, where he was purchased by the Horn family. And he is still there today. Last spring, we saw him in excellent health at the stallion show at De Wiemselbach. For us as breeders, it has of course been wonderful that he ended up with people who had great faith in him and carefully produced him for the sport. As a result, Van Gogh was given every opportunity to fulfil his potential, and that has led to fantastic results...
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