At the 2011 Bundeschampionate, Susan Pape experienced one of those incidents all riders dread… her beautiful stallion, Fioriano took one look at the competition arena and said NO WAY!
Susan and her husband, Ingo, run the famous Pape Family Stallion Station, and Susan has shown stallions with enormous success in the past. I thought I’d talk to her and find out, how a professional tries to deal with that sort of situation.
What goes through your head when you are about to enter the ring, and shit happens?
“The word you just said, with four letters. What can I say? You cannot do anything at that moment. Fiorano was really super in the warmup, but I know he always gets very upset when he is away from the other horses, and here at the Bundeschampionate, when they are in the arena, they can’t see anything. I knew the minute I got in. He got tense and I thought… oh no! And he has been so good the last couple of weeks. We’ve been to horse shows, but there he could see other horses next to the arena. Here, he just panicked, and you think, why? There is nothing wrong, nothing will happen to you. It is just very unfortunate.”
You have been successful with a lot of stallions, is there a secret to getting stallions to show?
“I think you have to have them on your side. Some stallions they power up a lot when you go into the warm up, and they can get over the top so quickly. Sometimes it is very difficult to time your warm up. I’ve been very fortunate having very good stallions with great temperaments – maybe a little bit sharp, but in the long run you need that if you want to compete at the higher levels.”
“If something happens in a test, if they jump away, or get distracted by something, I don’t get very worried about it because I know the quality, and if they have this sharpness, you need it later. It’s just unfortunate that there are so many people watching you when something goes wrong.”
Baroncelli, one of Susan’s stallion stars….
Is it harder to show stallions in the breeding season?
“I don’t feel any difference, my stallions that I have ridden don’t feel any different in the breeding season, or out.”
Is it important to get them used to breeding and competing, early?
“In our barn they learn it right from the beginning. When our breeding manager comes with the breeding bridle, they know, now we are off for breeding. If you take them out with the halter, and put them in the tacking up area, they know, we are ready for riding. They get to know the routine.”
Would you rather ride a stallion than a mare or a gelding…
“I have also a very good mare, Cayenne W, who I ride. I think every horse, gelding, mare or stallion, has a certain personality, and you are attracted by the personality of the horse.”
…and Regazzoni was another
You like to take your young horses slowly and carefully?
“With very young horses we don’t go to many shows. We would rather take them, go into the warmup area, then take them home. If you have stallions who scream or get a little horny, they have to have a certain discipline. You have to be strict with a stallion, but also, if they are good about it, work them, pat them – but if they get horny, get a little more firm.”
Sometimes it goes wrong?
“It went wrong here but this is the only time with him. I have had so much luck, and so many good stallions: Del Piero, San Remo, Baroncelli, Regazzoni, so many, and they were all in the finals at the Bundeschampionate.”
And Fiorano, is he as good as those ones?
“I think he is very very special. He is so powerful, he has such a super hindleg, he is so connected, and it all flows through the body. He learns so quickly. Like changes, or half passes, they are no big deal for him. It comes all so easy, he has such a good brain… in the warmup, and at home! He has super presence, we’ll get over it.”
The story has a happy ending – on Saturday February 18, 2017, Susan and Fiorano won the FEI Grand Prix in Wellington with a score of 74.900%. Photo: Kenneth Braddick
But for for Susan’s husband, Ingo Pape, back in 2011 when I wrote this story, it was just another chapter in the story called – It’s Tough Standing Stallions in Germany Right Now.
“The numbers in breeding are going down for quite a number of reasons, and we have the tendency where everyone is looking for the perfect horse, they are looking for a superstar. The old knowledge of the traditional breeders is being lost, they had the feeling to select the right stallion looking at his highlights, and at the same time, accepting his weaknesses, to go the right way to highlight the strengths and minimize the weaknesses. At the moment people are looking for the horse that scores 10 for everything, and that is very hard to find. It is very hard to please this kind of new breeders.”
In former times, there were loyal breeders… your local farmers would come to your station year after year and accept the advice from your father about which stallion for which mare…
“It’s not any more like that, they don’t ask those questions – this is my mare, can you tell me the best match for her. They come with their own ideas. I try to help them but help is not always wanted.”
Is it harder to establish a young stallion because you are not getting enough mares to put enough foals on the ground to show what that stallion can produce…
“It is very difficult if you have a stallion that is not in the spotlight right from the beginning. In the first two years you need a certain number of breedings to be able to show good foals, and when you are only getting 20 to 30 mares with a three or four year old stallion, you are out of business. You need at least 60 to 80 mares.”
What happens to the number of mares when your stallion gets upset at the Bundeschampionate and has to leave the arena?
“It really depends. We live in a different decade with the internet and live screening, and chat rooms and people with not too much knowledge start to discuss things, and throw around their opinions, and they are far away from the horse or the problem, and from the reasons. That is not helpful for sure.”
Will it affect your breeding season?
“I hope not, we’ll see.”
Fiorano the next day below
And of course, next day, Fiorano worked beautifully…
You told me once Ingo, that you had a proven stallion like Davignon, and you knew what mares worked with him, but no one wanted to breed with him, they all wanted the new young stallions….
“In former times, when a cross was working well, and the breeder had a nice foal, he kept doing that cross. At the moment, they are just looking for the new super star, and their fingers start to tingle when they see the new videos and the new ads, the hunger for the new, especially the young stallions, where there are no offspring under saddle, not even in foal shows, that is one of the big problems of our breeding.”
“What would be helpful, would be if each breeder with five or six mares would say, okay I will play around a bit with the young stallions, and breed two of the mares with them, but I will continue the good crosses I have had before with two of my mares, and I will take the other two mares to really solid proven stallions that I know from the offspring under saddle with good sport results, this cross will work with that kind of mare, this stallion needs that kind of mare, that would really be helpful. But at the moment it is not like that, everybody is looking for the new Messiahs, and the new Messiahs are mostly very young and not proven.”
Hopefully the real breeders realize that a freak out five minutes is not – should not be – the end of an exciting young stallion’s breeding career, hopefully they were watching the next day when Susan took Floriano out to show what he is really like, as you can see.
This article originally appeared in the February 2011 edition of The Horse Magazine