Casall – The Horse Magazine

1999 167 cm Bay

Breeder: Wilfried Thomann

Looking at the 2020 WBFSH top 20 jumping stallions, Gemma Alexander compiled a carefulness ranking; to do this we look at the top-10 offspring of each ranked stallion, and work out the proportion of clear rounds they have jumped of all their rounds at a height of 1.50m or higher. We only took results from the first round of competition, excluded Table C and Accumulator competitions, and accepted clear rounds with time as we are purely looking at carefulness. Again, this ranking is not perfect – none are! – however we think it is another pretty nifty way of ranking these stallions.

And we see that the great Holsteiner jumping star, and sire, Casall came in number 2:

The result is no surprise, when Caretino died in 2011, there was already a Caretino son ready to take his place – Casall.

Casall is out of a mare by Lavall I, considered the most elegant of the Landgraf sons, which is perhaps not surprising when we add the 50% Thoroughbred blood of his sire, to his dam, who is by the Thoroughbred Sacramento Song, out of a mare by the half-blood stallion, Wahnfried (by Waldenser xx), which according to the excellent HorseTelex website gives Lavall at ‘blood’ proportion of 63.48%.

Casall’s dam Kira has a very interesting bloodline. She traces back to line 890, one of the most successful Holsteiner performance mare families. At the 2005 stallion licensing in Neumünster, her son Clarence by Carano won reserve champion and was sold to a Spanish stallion station for €250.000.

Casall’s second dam, Maltia by Raimond, produced the mare Taura (by Lord), and Taura in her turn produced the licensed stallions Ringo Starr, Cesano I and Cesano II. Crocodile Dandy, a gelding with international achievements under Alison Firestone and his full brother Conally, winner of many international classes with Marcus Renzel, result from her breeding to Caretino, as well.

Lavall was leased to Denmark and while there competed internationally – or so we are told, I can find no record of the horse’s jumping on the normally reliable sja.it showjumping archive website. It’s one of the problems of the digital age: ‘facts’ are repeated so quickly from site to site, and so often, that they soon become established, unless, of course, someone takes the time to check. All that adds up to a ‘blood’ percentage of 44.54%.

Casall appeared in young horse classes with Rolf-Göran Bengstsson in the 2006/2007 seasons, and then in 2008 won his first Grand Prix – at Aarhus two star – and the pair were away on an illustrious career that has seen them win and place at all the world’s premier showjumping competitions.

In 2010 he won the Grand Prix of Rotterdam and Falsterbo. In 2011 he was first in the Hamburg and Monte Carlo legs of the Global Champions Tour and the World Cup jumping in Lyon. In 2013, he was 2^nd at three big Grand Prix: Lyon, Ommen and Zurich and fourth at the European Championships in Herning.

In 2014, he won the four star Grand Prix of Basel and Antwerp. In 2015, he placed in a string of five star Grand Prix – firsts at Rome and London, second at Cannes and Goteborg, and thirds at Doha and Hamburg.In 2016 success continued with wins in three 5 star Grand Prix – Doha, Valkenswaard and Paris.

Casall finished his illustrious career on home – Holstein – soil, winning the 2017 five star Grand Prix of Hamburg and was immediately retired, having won €2,722,518.

Even with his jumping career in full swing, Casall was in demand as a breeding stallion. In 2009, his son Catch It became champion stallion of the Holsteiner approval and sold for a record €450000 to Denmark. Casall has produced nine stallion sons in Holstein and also had the champion mare at the Elmshorn anniversary show in 2008.

Casall’s breeding values are impressive, with 134 points he is second on the Holstein breeding values for 2020 – behind Cascadello on 144.

Number one in the World – Chesall Zimequest out of a Concerto mare
Photo: LGCT / Stefano Grasso

On the 2014 WBFSH rankings, Casall was in 14th place, on the 2015 standings he had moved to 9th, and on the 2016 rankings, is in 4th, behind Diamant de Semilly, For Pleasure and Cornet Obolensky! He has points from 52 international competitors – the most from the 2016 No 1 showjumper, Chesall Zimequest. By 2016 he had moved into 5th spot, a position he held in 2017. By 2020 Casall has dropped from 3rd in 2019 to fifth, on the basis of points from 69 of his progeny – the most successful of whom has been Beautiful Red (Colman) in 52nd in this covid affected year.

On the 2022 rankings he has dropped from 3rd to 6th, his most successful competitor being Cochello (Cartina 4)

Ludgar Beerbaum and Casello

Casall’s progeny have been extremely successful. He is the sire of two millionaires and five 1.65 competitors – Casello, who has won €1,225,413 and Caracas, winner of €1,111,301. H & M Chilli Willi has won €725,439, Wunschkind with €324,999 and Oak Groves Chichester on €21,091.

H & M Chilli Willi and Nicola Philippaerts

His 15 most successful jumpers competing at 1.60, are headed up by Oak Grove’s Carlyle with 272,781.

This is what Holstein breeding director, Dr Thomas Nissen, has to say about Casall:

“Casall is in my eyes, for the Holsteiner population, a special stallion because he is a successful horse in competition but he also does a fantastic job as a breeding stallion. He is himself not the perfect type you might dream about. He is a lovely horse but his genes and his mother line is one of the best in the Holsteiner population. There are lots of good competition horses and stallions on that mother line. It is not so big a mother line, it is a small line but always with very good quality in the horses.”

“Casall is by Caretino, who was a Caletto II son – one of very few because Caletto II only bred for a few years before he died, but he made a very good job, and of the few stallions, Caretino was the best of Caletto II. Casall has a Lavall mother, and Lavall is Landgraf and Sacramento Song. So we have the influence of the Thoroughbred by Sacramento Song, and Landgraf’s sire, Ladykiller, and Caretino by Caletto II by Cor de la Bryère, by the Thoroughbred, Rantzau. In the background a lot of Thoroughbred, combined with a good mother line and good performance stallions. Landgraf, and Sacramento Song, who not only brought Thoroughbred influence, but also good jumping quality. Behind this is the Ramzes’ son, Raimond, and influence of Ramzes was enormous in the Holsteiner population, especially for performance horses – Capitol is one of the stallions with the greatest influences of Ramzes blood in his pedigree. This combination produces the high genetic level of Casall.”

What particular mares does Casall need?

“You have to look a little bit that they are long in their legs, this is the type Caretino needs and also Casall needs. They should not be too heavy, and then he will do a good job on different backgrounds of pedigree and blood. Always the combination is good in Holstein if you find in the background the blood of Cor de la Bryère or Ladykiller. Casall should find a lot of mares with this in their pedigrees in Holstein.”

Simon Delestre wins at the Longines Global Champions Tour of Rome on Chesall Zimequest – Photo: LGCT / Stefano Grasso