French Breeding in Crisis

This question was unthinkable, ten, even five years ago. They are more than just studs, they are architectural and cultural treasures, perhaps more important for their political master, they are largish employers. The whole structure of French breeding was changed in 2010.

I asked Arnaud Evain to explain the changes….

“The National Studs have been divided into two concepts – the Institute Français de Cheval and de l’Equitation (IFCE), which you could call the office for horse developments, that will survive, and the other is the traditional National Stud structure with its stallions, this is a concept that will disappear because the private sector is growing with a lot of energy, and the private sector and local breeders associations, will grow, and the National pool of stallions at the Haras Nationaux will not survive more than five years. The involvement of the government, the agricultural division in the horse industry will stay through the IFCE, which is the fusion of the development part of the breeding from the National Stud and École National d’Equitation at Saumur.”

To get the other side of the story, we visited one of the most famous of all the National Studs – Haras Le Pin, which will be home to the cross country eventing at the next WEG in 2014. Situated in the lush pastures of the Le Merlerault district, Le Pin was purchased by Louis XIV in 1665 as a place to breed his horses, though work on the Stud was not commenced until 1715. Thirteen years later the magnificent establishment was completed, featuring the great horseshoe-shaped Court of Honour, with the Château across its lower end – and roomy stables of natural stone and brick. The first stallions arrived in 1730. It has been a stud ever since, surviving revolutions, wars, changes of regime, even occupation by the army, but right now it faces its toughest challenge ever. Will it survive?

Frank le Mestre with one of the Normandy Cob stallions at Le Pin, and (below) their most famous resident, Mylord Carthago.

If you were expecting a uniformed director of the old school, then you are going to be disappointed. The current director of Le Pin, Franck le Mestre, is young, he wear jeans and a sweater, and his assistant is an equally casually dressed, and equally charming, Claire Caillarec. They are both super friendly and helpful, although Franck is frustrated by his English which is good enough to understand my questions, but not up to the complexity of the answers he wants to frame. Claire does a splendid job translating.

Franck explains that the current situation is in a state of flux – government funding is for a transitional five-year period: “The state used to give us money to maintain the National Studs, to improve the production of horses. Now the State has said that from 2015, they will give us no money at all for the stallions, so we have to find a new solution without government money. We won’t disappear but we have to find a way to stand alone.”

There were 22 state studs, now there are 20 – will more state studs have to close?

“Two or three years ago, they told us we had to close most of the studs and keep only eight, but they don’t talk about this any more, luckily the politicians want to keep the national studs for tourism, for employment in the local community, for children, for horse riding, for sports, and not just for stallions. Now we think they will keep all the 20 studs…”

But more as tourist attractions than serious breeding stations…

“It will be more for tourism and sport.”

It is very hard to find good stallions and they are very expensive…

“We buy the stallions when they are young – for example Mylord Cathargo at four years old, First de Launay at three years old, some we buy as yearlings, then we see which ones are good. Today we could not afford to buy Mylord, he would be too expensive.”

What proportion of the mares go to the State Studs and what proportion to the private stallions?

“Today, 60-70% goes to the private stallions, and about 40% to the State stallions. That is for Sport Horses, for ponies it is a higher rate to the National stud, for Thoroughbreds it is lower, and for Draught breeds and the Percherons, most come to the state studs. For Sport Horses is it going lower, because we have less State stallions, but we contract with the private stallion owners to sell semen for them. For example, Haras de Hus, we work with them and can sell semen from their stallions here.”

“This partnership is really important for us. France Haras has just been established and maybe it will work and the national stallions can go on like they have before, or maybe the stallions will have to be managed by associations of local breeders – and if it is the second solution, then we will have to work a lot with the private breeders. That’s how it works in Germany, at Marbach, at Neustadt, at Celle.”

Fifty years ago, you would have been in a uniform, and been like the king, telling the breeders – you must send this mare to this stallion, did you get the job fifty years too late?

The reply is swift and decisive.

“No. I am not an official of the state stud. Fifty years ago I could not get the job because you have to do a special course and qualify. It is the same at Marbach, a woman is in charge, fifty years ago that would not be possible. Same at Celle, Axel Brockmann is very young – there is a new generation working in the studs.”

Can you find a way to keep this beautiful stud operating?

“I am confident. The economic situation is hard, but we have to find a solution and we will. I am hopeful. Breeding is changing, it used to be the little breeder with one or two mares, now it is the bigger breeders with big studs with a lot of money. But while everything is changing, there are still little breeders and they need help to keep going, to learn, to get the best semen, and to sell their horses, and they are expecting us to help them.”

“We also work with the big private studs to transport the semen everywhere because our trucks are going everywhere in France. With stallion owners, like Mr le Courtois of Brullemail, we work well with him.”

“We have to create a new national stud. Initially they were created to produce horses to go to war. Now it is not just the stallions, it is also competitions, eventing, carriage driving, here we have 120 days a year of competition. There is also tourism, 140,000 visitors a year.”

BRULLEMAIL – The Private Stud

And that was our next stop, just down the road, one of the world’s most beautiful studs, Brullemail. In July 2011, to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Haras de Brullemail, Bernard le Courtois staged a special auction of Brullemail stock. The weekend also marked the 15th anniversary of his partnership with the British born, Christopher King. Christopher is an international fashion consultant and he planned the celebratory party with admirable flair, wonderful flowers, flamboyant decorations, and show girls from Paris. Bernard’s breeding operation has something of that same flair, the mares are just so beautiful, the bloodlines always have that touch of the exotic, Bernard is always pushing the barriers looking for that perfect breeding cross…

Bernard wasn’t always a horse breeder, for much of his working life, he was an equestrian journalist, and it was while he was the editor of the French equine magazine, L’Eperon that he conceived a daring plan to rescue the great stallion, Almé from the clutches of Leon Melchior and the Zangersheide stud. Earlier Bernard had resuscitated the breeding career of the great Thoroughbred showjumper, Laudanum. The chestnut stallion was a jumping star with young Pierre Durand, and is the last Thoroughbred to win major European Grand Prix. Laudanam may have been a great performer, but standing near Bordeaux, his book comprised just nine mares in the season before Bernard adopted a tactic well used in the Thoroughbred industry and syndicated him and moved Laudanam to Normandy where he became an influential sire.

Using the same formula, Bernard sold shares in the great Almé and the stallion returned to France at the age of 18 to resume a stellar breeding career in 1986. He died in 1991, and his headstone is one of the first things you see as you sweep up the drive to the Chateau at Brullemail. Probably the next thing you are going to see is the largest dog you have ever set eyes on, since Bernard is also an internationally famed breeder of Mastiffs.

Bernard is the perfect candidate to give us an informed overview of the French scene. For two decades Bernard carried on a passionate campaign against the influence of the statistical breeding values – the BLUP. While these indicators are compiled in all the major European breeding countries, it was only in France where they became a decisive influence, particularly in stallion selection. Nowadays, it is very difficult to even get your hands on the BLUP standings…

There have been great changes in French breeding – the BLUP seems to be dead, the resistance to outside blood has disappeared, and it would seem that the great National Studs are also in the process of disappearing…

“The BLUP is not dead because the National Stud continues to calculate it, but the Selle Français studbook has stopped using it only a few years ago – I have been Vice-President of the Selle Français stud-book since 2005. “

“The magazine L’Eperon continues to publish the BLUP standings once a year, but for the breeder it is nothing, and for the Studbook, the BLUP is finished. It is something we have been hoping for twenty years…”

And the introduction of foreign blood, is that a good thing?

“It was necessary. When the studbook managed by the National Stud, created the BLUP that made it necessary to import new blood. Because of the BLUP they had stopped using Thoroughbred stallions, and Anglo Arabs. In the 80’s it was usual to cross with Anglo Arabs, but because of the BLUP, the Selle Français breeders stopped using the Anglo Arab and Thoroughbred. We were down to five lines, the lines of Ibrahim, especially the one through Almé and his grandson Quidam de Revel, the line of Nankin and his son Uriel, Grand Veneur and his grandson Diamant de Semilly and the line of Laudanum.  I think the line breeding could have been dangerous, and we needed new blood, and because we didn’t use Thoroughbreds and Anglos, then we had to find new blood abroad, especially in Holland and Germany.”

Which have been the most successful of the imported stallions?

“It is difficult to say because some of them breed a lot – not necessarily the best, but the more commercial. It is too early. We started to import frozen semen at the end of the 90s, so it is only just over ten years. I remember when I was the agent for Zangersheide, I sold the semen of Calvaro and Carthago, but at that time I sold maybe ten Calvaro and twenty Carthago, just a few. Later when the National Stud leased Calvaro, he bred 300 mares a year. I think the first big generation of the foreign stallions are less than ten years old, it is too early to know which ones are going to have a big influence on the Selle Français studbook.”

“The first stallion who bred a lot was Voltaire. He was half Selle Français, by Furioso II, and he bred 100 to 150 mares a year, but the success of the offspring was not so good in France. He had no son at the moment to continue the line with a Selle Français dam, but now, the most successful stallion in France is Kannan, who bred more than 500 mares in 2011, and he is a son of Voltaire. Maybe through Kannan, this line will be successful. He is the only stallion now in France who brings back the blood of the great French Thoroughbred, Furioso. We have no more pure Selle Français of that sire line, and now we get back the blood of Furioso through Voltaire and Kannan.”

Are there distinctively French qualities that are under threat – are we going to end up with a universal jumping horse?

“I don’t think so. Of course, now in all the countries of Europe, the breeders use the same lines. The foundation stallions in Europe are Almé, a Selle Français, Cor de la Bryère, a Selle Français, Furioso II, a Selle Français but also the Holsteiners, Capitol and Landgraf I. They are the five – maybe also Darco, but Darco has no son to continue the line actually, but his influence is important in showjumping, more than in breeding for the moment. So all the breeders use the same sire lines but the horses are not the same – the land is not the same, the mentality of breeders is not the same, the way of managing the horses, the feed… it is all different in every country and because of that, the horses are not the same.”

“Twenty years ago everyone said, ‘in 2020 all the horses in Europe will be the same’, same conformation, same breeding, same qualities, but it doesn’t happen like that. The breeders and the land are not the same.”

The old structure of the farmer with one or two mares taking his mares to the stallions of the local state stud, that has all changed…

“It’s finished. Many national studs are closed, all over Europe – they are museums, but there are no horses. I am not sure we will have National Studs in France in ten years. We will keep the buildings, but the organization of the breeding is no longer

in the hands of the national studs. In every country, the breeders are the same, private people, mostly with one mare, just a few have more than five mares, and sometimes the qualities of the mares are not so good because these private breeders keep the mare that the wife rode, or the children rode, they don’t have the mentality of the old farmers. The old farmers knew exactly what was the good conformation for a horse, they are farmers and they know how to look at animals. They look at their cows exactly the same way as they look at their mare, they want good  conformation, they know the mother line of their mare. Of course they can be short-sighted in their choice of the stallion, because they use only the stallion that is close to their farm. But thinking back to the brood mare shows, 20 or 30 years ago, the mares were very nice, with good conformation and structure – now when we go to the brood mare shows, we can see tiny mares, there is not the same quality. The winners are always good, but sometimes the other mares, are not good.”

“I find it when people ring me to help them choose a stallion, and I spend a lot of time on the phone, or email, trying to explain because they want to know what are the qualities and faults of my stallions to cross with their mares – but my question is, tell me something about your mare? What is the quality of the mare, how she moves, how she jumps, the conformation, and I think 40% of the people have never seen their mare jumping. I say, if you don’t know what is the technique, what is the scope, the balance of your mare, then I can’t give you any advice about my stallions. If you don’t know anything about your mare, it is like taking a Lotto ticket when you select a stallion, and many people are like that now. They breed a foal but they don’t know anything about the breeding, or the qualities they have to produce… it’s a pity. That is only 40%, the other 60% they know what they want… or they think they know what they want.”

Is it a problem that now the breeders don’t just go to the local stud, the chances of finding an out-cross stallion become less and less because people all want to breed to the famous stallion with the beautiful stud brochure…

“In the past, if the director of the National Stud decided to put a stallion in a district for five or ten years, and the breeders used him every year, and the combination with the mares by the stallion that stood there previously was good – that was perfect. But if the combination was not good, then they produced bad horses for five or ten years. For example, in La Manche a Thoroughbred, Ultimate, bred a lot, and the breeders kept the daughters, and later, they put Ibrahim at that station, and the combination was fantastic, that cross produced Almé. Now it is so different. For my stallions, 20% of the mares will come from around my place, within 100 kilometres, and the other 80% from all over France – it is more difficult to repeat the same cross.”

“Of course now the breeders are very sensitive to the publicity and the marketing, the video, the internet, and sometimes I talk to the breeders and say it is very dangerous to use the stallion you can see on the TV at the World Cup, because usually you will see horses that are ten years old, and the natural quality of the horse is not easy to see, because the work of the rider is so important. For example, after the Olympics, I used Lando. I had a very good mare to cross with him and I was very happy, the result – Ornella Mail – was exceptional. But some people say to me, it’s difficult because Lando was very good with Albert Voorn for a number of years but you never saw Lando before that because he was very difficult to ride and Albert Voorn did a very good job to make him perfect. After when he was ridden by Otto Becker, the result was not so good. The influence of the rider is very important. The offspring of Lando are not well-known in Germany.”

“Take the fashionable stallion Cornet Obolensky, I saw him when he was six or seven, and he was very difficult, he stopped, he refused to go in the ring and so on. But when you saw him with Marco Kutscher in the German team, then I can understand that people would want to use the stallion, but they don’t know what has happened before. When you choose a stallion you have to know what the stallion was like when he was five or six years old, that is the perfect time to assess the natural quality of the horse. Three or four is too early, but at five or six, you can see if the horse has a good technique, easy to ride, after that the riders are so talented, they can mask all the faults of the stallion.”

“For example, Hickstead, I never saw him when he was five or six, but I think it could be interesting to see a video…”

You don’t want to breed to him?

“I never used him because he is very expensive, and the quality of the semen is difficult for the price, I would like to use him once because the horse is so fantastic. I could use a stallion like Hickstead once or twice to make an out-cross, or to make something special. But the stallion does not have a very good pedigree, he doesn’t have a strong mother line, and I think the most important thing for a stallion is to have a strong pedigree. The horse that is a genius from nowhere is never a good stallion. I prefer a stallion that jumps not in the Olympics but in 1.50m Grand Prix competition with a good pedigree – this is more interesting  than the star from nowhere.”

In Holstein, they say their problem is that the breeders only want to use the old famous stallions and they won’t give the young stallions a chance, is that the same in France?

“In France it is horrible, because no one wants to use the young ones. It is very difficult to promote a young stallion. It is the mentality of the Germans for a long time that they like to use the winner of the Licensing, in France it is difficult. Last year the Selle Français studbook made a special promotion with winner of the three-year-old stallion show, with a special stud fee price, to try and get the stallion used by the breeders. In my catalogue I have three young ones, and this year they bred eight mares each. The seven-year-old one, he won an international Grand Prix for seven-year-old horses, but no one uses him. Just a few young ones breed a lot – if at Fontainebleau, they jump very very well – too well for me, too ‘prepared’ – then the people will use them in the year after that. A spectacular horse at the four and five-year-old final, can breed a lot, but for all the others it is difficult. The breeders in France prefer to breed to the older ones.”

Which of the French stallions do you think are the most important? I think you wrote that Diamant was yet to produce a really good competitor…

“No, I have never said that to my knowledge. With three horses at the Lexington World games that would be an error to say but maybe we are still waiting for the  super crack out of Diamant.”

“It is difficult, when a horse is successful, then they are a lot of people who are quick to say bad things about that famous stallion. I was at a show last weekend, talking with the breeders, and they were talking about Diamant – and yes, he bred a lot, but I think that is because people are happy with the production. The problem is at the beginning, when the stallion starts, the people who use the stallion are more intelligent because they compare the mare and the stallion, and they bring the right mare to the stallion. After that, when the horse is fashionable and very expensive, everybody wants to have a foal by this stallion, and they don’t consider the conformation and jumping technique of the mare before they send her to this stallion. Sometimes the first generation is better than the later ones.”

“For several years now, I buy Diamant stud fees because it is easy to sell the foals when they are from a good  and beautiful well born mare. As he is very fertile in fresh semen, I made two embryo transfers in 2011 with Diamant and Katchina & her dam Elvira Mail.”

“Some other Selle Français stallions, very famous all over the world, like Quidam de Revel, Quick Star or Baloubet du Rouet  were  also  criticised but finally they are some of the best in the world.  I used all three with my mares and I have a fantastic young stock from them.”

“But now Quidam and Baloubet are retired, Quick Star is dead… Who will be the next Selle Français foundation stallions?”

What is the horse market like in France, has the financial meltdown affected the prices?

“Yes, like everywhere. In my stud farm every year since 2009, we have 10% less stud fees every year, now it is 30% less than it was in 2008. At the moment, the market is better only for a few stallions who breed 300 or 500 mares a year! I think many people breed don’t really have the money to breed, and the quality of the mare is not so good, they don’t want to spend much. Now the stud fee is less than it was 20 years ago, but everything except the stud fee is more expensive – the vet, the cost of the breeding procedure. Sometimes the cost of the vet is as much as the stud fee. Some of my customers have told me, to get a foal you have to spend two or three thousand euros and at the moment, they have to choose, to take my children away on holidays, or have a foal, and my mare can wait… Especially when I have not sold my yearling, I have not sold my two-year-old, and my three-year-old is still for sale. A lot of people have had a break with the mare, especially 2009, 2010, this year people have told me, I have waited two years, now I want to breed the mare, but because 80% of the breeders only have one mare, and many people stop breeding for a couple of years, the market is down. To sell a top horse is very very easy, better than ever, but the price for normal horse for the amateur market is really down, it is not the seller who decides the price, it is the buyer, and that is very dangerous.”

Would you breed a mare of yours to a clone stallion?

“No. I had here on my farm for a couple of months, the clone of ET, I remember ET, but the clone did not look like him at all, he has an ugly head, very long back like a dachshund. It was not at all interesting. I saw Quidam’s clone when he was a foal at Zangersheide… I could use a clone of Quidam, but not for the stud fee of Quidam. I could make the test with the clone, but for €500 not for €5000. At the moment we are a bit anxious about that in the Selle Français studbook because a clone is not recognized in France, we can’t breed with them. But we have a problem, Mr Velin who owns Quidam and the clone, told us, the clone and Quidam are the same horse. So we are worried that we might receive semen of the clone without knowing it, because a blood test will not tell the difference. There is no more semen from Quidam on the market because he is very old and the quality was not so good. Two years ago, breeders said, oh all the mares bred to Quidam are pregnant, and some people said, maybe that is because it is the semen of the clone! I am not sure, it is not easy to verify this. Last year, in France there were only 13 foals by Quidam. I suppose if they export the good quality semen of the clone, then there would be more – so I think there is no clone semen on the market but it is difficult to control. Some technicians say you can look at the construction of the spermatozoa and it is different. After insemination, after the foal is born, then there is no difference in a DNA test.”

“Really for me, cloning is more interesting for the mare. The genetics experts say performance is 20% genetic, 80% is the environment of the horse, and it is dangerous to use a clone that has never competed. Okay use a clone, but after you see it competing like a real horse.”

You started the Stud twenty-five years ago – is it still fun?

“Sure, I breed a lot, maybe too much. I like very much to choose a young mare, and then choose the stallion and make a cross and write on a piece of paper the pedigree of the cross. That is fascinating. But the market now is very different. I was very lucky to start with Laudanum and Almé… now there are so many new people on the market with a lot of money who can buy the best stallion for a lot of money. It makes it very difficult to find a new stallion, but when I have the opportunity to buy a good one, I make the effort. I bought Quite Easy, and this year I bought Utrillo vd Heffinck. For me, Utrillo is very interesting because he has very different blood – Clinton / Heartbreaker, I don’t have any of this blood in my pedigrees, these are new genes for me. The horse has a very good conformation, very good jumping technique, I am very happy with the first generation who jumps very well in CSI.”

“For the 25th anniversary of the stud farm we organized an auction, and one of the top prices was for a two-year-old filly by Utrillo who jumped very well, Violette Mail, an extravagant jumper, and I think Utrillo will be successful in France next year.”

“I bred 30 mares this year, I like that, but Christopher is telling me all the time to reduce the numbers because the market is so difficult. I try to convince him, that if 20/25% of the amateur breeders have stopped breeding, then in a couple of years, there will be so many less horses on the market, and as a professional breeder, I should take this opportunity, and I hope the prices will be better. I am not very sure… but I enjoy creating those new crosses.”

“A breeder has to look to the long term, not just see an Olympic horse on the TV and breed that to a normal horse, and hope to breed an Olympic horse. It is not like that, it is a job, it takes time, and dedication…”

Haras Couvains – the dynasty

The current top sire in France, Diamant de Sémilly is the product of one of those classic ‘horse families’, in this case, the family Levallois. And like most of those families, the last three generations has seen the shift from Agricultural to Sport horse. The dynasty was founded by Louis Levallois, a stallion owner and horse dealer between the wars. However he dealt in work horses not showjumpers, mainly selling Normandy Cobs. After the war, the trade shifted away from agriculture. According to his son, Germain Levallois: “The farm horses went to the butchers by the truck load. The farmers kept only the most luxurious types to breed hunters. That was the first step towards the riding horse. Horses that displayed a great aptitude for hunting laid the basis for the Anglo-Norman horse.”

(I am indebted to the French journalist, Pascal Renauldon for his article Le Tot de Sémilly or the rehabilitation of Grand Veneur in Z Magazine, Feb/April 2000, for these quotes.)

Germain’s advice was often sought by local breeders, and when Jules Mesnildrey was looking for a filly, Germain found him, Venue du Tot, a mare with a double cross of the great Thoroughbred, Ultimate.

Germain Levallois makes the point that when he selected the filly the fashion in horse selection was rather different: “She looked very much like her dam and in those days one paid more attention to the conformation of the dam than they do now, when one is relying too much, I think, on genetics and indices. I always bought my horses for their conformation, their suitability, their balance and movements, and I have never changed my views. I am not against indices, but it is just one piece of information among many other important aspects. If I buy a colt, my main criterion is: is he an athlete?”

As the sire of her fifth foal, Jules Mesnildrey chose Grand Veneur, then a young stallion and standing at nearby Marigny.  Germain Levallois purchased the Grand Veneur foal out of Venue de Tot and christened him, Le Tot de Sémilly, and gave him to his son Eric to ride.

Together the pair made their names in the sport. They won 22 international and 63 national Grand Prix between 1988 and 1991, and almost €200,000 in prizemoney. He was the first French horse to be sponsored by

the French Federation. At the age of seven, he was a member of the gold-medal-winning French team at the European Young Rider Championships, and placed fourth in the individual standings. The next year, he was second at the Nations Cup in Hickstead, and as a nine-year-old, was second in the Wiesbaden CSI Grand Prix, won the Bois le Roi Grand Prix and finished third in the Gijon Grand Prix and Nations Cup. When he retired in 1991, he had won €183,000.

Jules Mesnildrey came to Germain Levallois again seeking a filly, this time with different blood. Germain found Venise des Cresles. Levallois offered a free service to Le Tot with the deal.

The mare died giving birth and the breeder wanted to get rid of the foal: “We took it in and bottle-fed it, together with another orphan. The two were always running free in the courtyard and would follow us around like two puppies.”

The foal was Diamant de Sémilly who made the four, five and six-year-old finals at Fontainebleau before going on to a star-studded international career, with Eric Levallois. Now he is France’s most sought-after stallion.

The dynasty at Haras de Couvains is into its third generation, with the fourth shaping up already. The breeding sire of the operation is spearheaded by Richard Levallois, with his brother Eric, in charge of the competition horses. Richard’s wife, Sophie comes from an agricultural science background, and is very much part of the operation, and she was kind enough to take time out to explain how the stud functions.

From its small beginnings, Haras Couvains is now a major player in the world breeding stage. According to Sophie: “We have more than 20 stallions. Some here, some we only sell semen. We own 16 stallions. We send semen all over the world, here there are nearly 700 mares who come in the breeding season. We own around 20 and with the EI that we do, we have around 25 foals a year.”

After Le Tot, who was the best stallion for your farm?

“Diamant de Sémilly, the son of Le Tot. He was in the World Championship team at Jerez – he had a temperature of 45 degrees before the show, but for that he could have finished much better, he was a little tired by the end and for the individuals he wasn’t at his best. He produces very well, he is the best Selle Français stallion, even better than his father, Le Tot.”

What qualities does Diamant put on his progeny?

“He has more blood than his father, because on his mother’s side, there is the Thoroughbred, Amarpour. He brings more size, he brings also strength and a very good balance, so he produces horses that are very easy to ride, even by amateurs. He brings a very good mind because he brings the mind of his sire, Le Tot de Sémilly. His progeny are much appreciated by the riders.”

Do you use much ‘foreign’ blood in your breeding program?

“Not a lot, we prefer to stay more Selle Français, because we have many foreign breeders who come here to buy, and they want something they can’t find in their own countries, and they appreciate the very good mind of the Selle Français. This is why we try to keep our best Selle Français mares. We also have a few with German blood, but 95% of our breeding is pure Selle Français.”

Has the pattern of breeding changed much – from the farmer breeder to the hobby breeder?

“It is changing a lot at the moment. The old breeding structure that was here in Normandy, with the farmers who had cows, and some mares, and they knew the horses very well, that is decreasing, that is a pity. There are many breeders who just have their mares for their children, and they keep them for reproduction later.”

“There is also a growing part, the new investors in horse breeding who come here with a lot of money and invest a lot in mares and stallions. They are growing very quickly but sometimes they don’t really know what a good horse is. They buy, and invest a lot of money in what they think is the best but they don’t have a real feeling for the horse, they don’t have the horse knowledge. I think that is a pity because sometimes they bring horses from foreign countries, that the Germans don’t want any more, and that can bring bad things into Selle Français breeding because they can bring bad minds.”

“The Selle Français qualities are going down because of those crossings which are not always successful. The German breeding is very closed, the best they keep for themselves. For example, you can find semen of Cassini II in France, but Cassini I – you can’t find any. Cassini II doesn’t produce as well as Cassini I. When they sell stallions to foreign countries, I think they never sell the best ones. Sometimes they can make mistakes but most of the time they don’t.”

What are those Selle Français qualities?

Sophie’s reply is one I have heard on several occasions on my trip through Normandy, it is complimentary to the horses, not so kind on the riders…

“The very good mind, the easiness, because you know most of the time with the foreign horses you have to train them a lot and repeat always the same exercises, and the day after, you have to repeat it again. The Selle Français is made for the lazy rider, like the French riders, once they understand something, it’s okay, it’s done and you can leave the horse for a few weeks in the field, and when you ride him, he is the same.”

While the bloodlines from other parts of Europe are flooding into France, the rest of Europe is returning the compliment. In the 2007 Holstein stallion licensing, the champion, Diarado, was by Diamant de Sémilly. Holstein director, Herbert Boley put together a consortium with Paul Schockemöhle and Dutchman Joop Van Uytert, to jointly stand the young stallion. At Schockemöhle’s recent AOS auction, a two-year-old son of Diarado, out of an Argentinus mare, topped the sale at a staggering €450,000!

No matter how much the shape of French breeding changes in the future, the blood of the Selle Français will continue to flow as long as there are competitions for jumping horses, and you hope that much of that idiosyncratic Gallic style of horses, and horsemanship will survive the upheavals.