For such a little country, Holland has a wealth of regional differences, of architecture, religion, language and architecture, and nowhere are the differences more pronounced than in the Calvinist north, where there are some villages still so strict that they are forbidden to use their television sets on the Sabbath.
The dialect of Friesland is spoken by about 450,000 people and is unintelligible to their fellow Dutchmen. Wiepke van der Lageweg creates more chaos out of this confusion by mixing his Fries with Dutch, German and a tiny scattering of English. Still it is not so hard to understand what he is saying, his passion as a breeder makes his message clear enough.
Wiepke started breeding as a hobby back in 1972 with just one brood mare, now his VDL stud is one of the largest horse breeding operations in the world with a staggering 50 plus stallions on the books.
Right from the start, Wiepke was determined to succeed. “I think I always have to be setting myself challenges. I look for obstacles to overcome. As a boy I was one of the smallest children in my class. Even in those days I was competitive, always trying to be the best. First I wanted to be the fastest cyclist, then I wanted the most beautiful cows and later the best cows with the highest milk yield.”
We first visited in 1993 and found Wiepke’s home a wonderful mixture of the old and new – the most traditional buildings gave way to a state of the art high tech lab for producing chilled and frozen semen.
The stud first established its reputation with Nimmerdor. Weipke purchased Nimmerdor at the age of two and a half, ‘even then he was something special’ recalls Wiepke.
Nimmerdor – something special, and worth painting…
But Wiepke van der Lageweg is not one of those ‘stallion raisers’ who let others do the breeding and arrive within hours of any colt foal’s birth looking to buy greatness, he breeds his own on the basis of his fine mare band. He is convinced that it all comes back to the quality of the mare, to that all important ‘good family’.
“When you go out into a field, a real breeding mare has presence, she is looking for you, she is interested in you – that is a real mare, not the dumb mare who runs away from you,” he told me.
“We must have the best mares in Europe – here. The best stallion always comes from the best mare, you can’t risk anything else.”
Wiepke started out using Dutch mares but soon found himself looking to the mares of the Holstein breed, and found some good ones. Like Ramirha, an upstanding daughter of Farnese, a mare of at least 17 hands in height, with not the slightest trace of coarseness, here is a mare that is all class and quality and refinement, while still having such a huge frame and scope. Ramirha was a daughter of Fiance, who is a full-sister to one of the greatest Holsteiner stallions ever, Lord. Ramirha produced the approved stallion, Emilion.
Or Soraya, a Ladykiller daughter and the dam of the international jumping horse Aldato, and two National Championship mares, all by Nimmerdor.
Hyazinthe was another, an own daughter of Ladykiller, she is the sort of mare that breeders dream about, the sort of mare that a wise breeder can use to establish a dynasty. And that is just about what Wiepke did with her. Hyazinthe produced three approved stallions – Ahorn, Denver (Belgium) and Farmer (Great Britain), as well as two national level showjumpers, and three international competitors. Ahorn not only competed internationally himself, but then became a top sire, with his son AK High Valley Z winning the TNT Sires of the Century competition for two years running.
VDL sire – Ahorn
In the 90’s Wiepke looked to France for new blood, and when we visited the stud, had recently added two daughters of the great Jalisco and three daughters of Almé. He feels you have to be careful with French blood:
“The French horses are not generally liked in Holland. They tend to have big heads and not good movement, but I picked the best mares in the best stables. I want the French blood for the better jumping technique, and Jalisco is the sire of the best mares.”
For all his great success as a stallion owner and breeder, Wiepke has never lost his farming roots. I remember him breaking off in the middle of a Warmblood classification in Australia to take a phone call. It was his son Wiebe Yde (now there’s a Fries name for you) calling from the big livestock market in Amsterdam. A potential customer was being difficult over the price of a pig. Wiepke sorted him out and was back to the horses, and the Antipodes.
On our first visit to the VDL stud, as we were leaving, Wiepke drew my attention to an old rather battered sign written in Fries on the wall of his brand new house. It had been on the wall of his first, more modest, residence, and had moved with him each time his operation became larger and more prosperous. Through a blur of language the message became clear – ‘Keep your hand on the plough – and your eye on the horizon.’ He looks at us earnestly, and delivers his final message – ‘It’s true with horses too yes? You must aim for the horizons.’
UPDATE…
Wiepke with his two sons, Janko (left) and Wiebe Yde…
It was great to catch up with Wiepke and his family in February 2010, just after the KWPN stallion show. We had seen plenty of their horses at the stallion show, with one VDL dressage stallion, Carlton Hill finishing in 4th place, and two more going into the performance test, while eight VDL jumping colts were selected to go on to the performance test. In the last twenty years, the VDL stud has gone from strength to strength, and is now divided into three sections:
The Stallion Stud which currently stands such famous sires as Indoctro, Indorado, Emilion, Corland and Cardento.
The stallion show at VDL (Photo – Jacob Melissen)
The Breeding Farm with approximately 80 breeding mares. VDL has bred stallions like: Glennridge, Montreal, Pessoa, Emilion, Ahorn, Aldato, Great Pleasure and Good Times. They have also bred top jumpers like Eurocommerce Lanapoule, Southwind VDL, Promise Me, VDL Nante, VDL Edminton and Tempo la Escondida.
Sporthorses: VDL now has a modern facility to train young horses, all the way up to international classes, in both jumping and dressage, and pride themselves on always having a wide selection in training and ready for sale.
“We have four farms. One farm is home to 150 young horses, one farm has 80 breeding mares. And then another for the young stallions – the foals are in groups of 35 and yearlings all in groups of ten,” Wiebe Yde explains.
And yet, for all VDL is a huge and modern complex, run on almost industrial lines, it is still very much family. Wiepke is still heading the show, but with two sons and one daughter, also involved in day-to-day management. It was great to catch up with Wiepke, still acknowledged as Holland’s leading jumping breeder…
When I Interviewed you in 1993, Nimmerdor was very much the star of the stud, what have been the important horses since then?
“Jus de Pomme was a great stallion for us, an Olympic winner in Atlanta, and he was a top stallion, but three weeks later he was dead. Indoctro is a very important stallion as is Indorado, Corland, Emillion, Douglas. Every year we have more young stallions, and after four years you can see if the stallion is excellent, then he can stay here. If he is normal, then we make him for the sport and take him out – we must always go for the best.”
Have you changed in the style of horse you are breeding, more to the lighter type than you were with Nimmerdor?
“Nimmerdor could come back tomorrow and have a lot of work. Nimmerdor was unbelievable – you can see now in Holstein they have a problem, and they have a Nimmerdor son there, Nekton and he makes very good work. Nimmerdor is a type that could start breeding again tomorrow. But it is true now that we need more blood. The fences are different now, so are the distances, and we need more blood – but we always need the scope.”
And the search still goes on for a Thoroughbred stallion: “It is not easy. If we could find an excellent Thoroughbred, that would be good, but it is hard. When we started we had old fashioned horses, they were for the farm and the cart, then it was easy for the Thoroughbred stallions to improve the foals, now it is not so easy to find a Thoroughbred that will do a good job on the high blooded mares that we have now.”
Has French blood been important in your breeding program?
“A little bit, not so much. Chirocco Blue had a little bit of French blood, born in France – by Mr Blue, out of a mare by Voltaire but then comes Le Tot de Semilly, Jalisco, Uriel. I like Jalisco, a little bit French is not a problem, but not too much. The same with Holstein, you must have Holstein blood, they are good jumpers. Holland is a small country and we look to the bigger countries and buy the best as foals and prove them here, and make a good combination. Little bit French, little bit Germany, with Holland, and then we have the best combination. And you can see, Holland’s jumping horses are the number one horses in the world, now also dressage. We make good horses.”
When I first came here, you were not so interested in dressage horses…
“Dressage is not very important for me. I like dressage, but not too much. I like the jumping, it is fast, you can see it in two or three minutes. I can’t stay all day to watch 25 dressage horses – I like the jumping.”
When you bought Flemmingh, you were thinking jumping?
“Okay, Flemmingh was from a jumping family. I bought him as a five month old foal, he was an excellent mover, and he can jump. I liked him very much, good mover and good jumping. At the 70 days test, he was one of the best in jumping, but also a good mover. Later, he was better in dressage. I was surprised to have a stallion, top in jumping and top in dressage – I like him.”
Is dressage a big market for you?
“For the top you have a market, for the normal, you have no market. I was very happy, at the KWPN stallion show, we had two very good stallions for dressage – type, movement, everything. For a stallion, he must always have type. If he doesn’t have that type, if he doesn’t look like a stallion, masculine, he will never be a sire – you need a macho.”
One of the current stallion stars – VDL Babalu