Clinton back in 2015 at the Nijhoff stud, where he lived for many many years…
One of the great modern showjumping sires has died – Clinton
Clinton is one of that seemingly endless line of grey Holstein jumping machines, and he combines the two great C lines of modern Holstein breeding: the careful C of the French import, Cor de la Bryère and the sheer power of Capitol I. His sire, Corrado I, was an international jumping star with Franke Sloothaak.
Franke Sloothaak and Clinton’s sire, Corrado
His mare line is solidly Holsteiner – his dam, Urte I is by Masetto who is described as thus in the Stallion Book of the Holsteiner Warmblood Breed by Dr Dietrich Rossow:
“Large framed, cleanly made stallion. Striking appearance, a great deal of presence. Smooth top line, lots of substance. Heavy bone, correct legs and feet. Excellent mover, somewhat close behind. Great jumper but not with the form desired today. Produce: Offspring are solid, correct horses of his type. At times, good jumpers a little lacking in bascule. Absolutely had to have mares with a lot of Thoroughbred blood. Unfortunately, in his time, these were not at his disposal in great enough numbers.”
Masetto produced one approved son, and 50 approved daughters before he was gelded in 1984. Masetto was from the line established by the Thoroughbred stallion, Manometer.
When he went to stud there were great hopes for Manometer as he was by Abendfrieden, a full brother to the very successful Thoroughbred sire, Anblick.
Romedio, Graf von Thun-Hohenstein, had this to say about Manometer in his work, The Holsteiner Horse:
“Even though he was not perfect in the set of his shoulder and withers, he improved upon this, without exception, in all his get. Manometer also passed on the great jumping ability which is so characteristic of this line. At the very least, his influence in no way diminished the Holsteiner’s natural talent for jumping. His undisputed strong point was his production of performance horses… Of all his sons, Maximus won the greatest number of FEI competitions. Maximus’ absolute soundness, honesty, quiet temperament and gentle disposition deserve mention.”
Clinton in the competition arena
And sure enough the line to Clinton runs Maximus – Moltke I – Montanus – Masetto.
Clinton’s grand-dam, Ohra, was a star in her own right. Competing as Olympia, with Karsten Huck and Dirk Schröder, she won more than DM50,000 – she too is richly bred, carrying the blood of the great Ladykiller plus Raimond, who was by Ramiro, the most influential son of Ramzes.
Clinton was bred in Holstein by Rudolf Wieck but sold to Dutch breeder, Henk Nijhof as a young stallion. Rather than put him up for licensing in Holland, Nijhof followed the same path he’d taken with Heartbreaker, and sent him to Hubert Hamerlinck in Belgium to be licensed with the BWP:
“We bought him at an inopportune moment and could not present him in The Netherlands that winter anymore, but I still wanted him to start covering.,” Nijhof told Horse International. “So I sent him to Hamerlinck as well, which again worked well. Here in Holland it possibly wouldn’t have worked out well either. Clinton is a boisterous stallion and if we had put him though the performance test here, chances were that he’d have come home again pretty quickly. You had to think very carefully about how to get some stallions in the circuit. If we had tried the KWPN straight away with Heartbreaker and Clinton, we might not have them as breeding sires now.”
Thanks to the modern trend of combining stud and sport horse careers, Clinton managed to star in the arena and the breeding barn. At the Athens Olympic Games, he carried Dirk Demeersman to fifth in the overall ranking over massive courses. In his final year of competition, 2006, he won at Beervalde, and was 2nd in the Lumen Grand Prix and 4th at Wiesbaden.
Out of his first crops, some super talented young jumpers have emerged, including Undorado Tibri and Unette in Ireland. He is already the sire of eight approved stallion sons, including Upsilon, Utrilo, President, Windows and Vuitton, but far and away the most impressive has been Cornet Obolensky.
Cornet Obolensky, Clinton’s most famous son
Clinton was a licensed stallion in the Belgian Warmblood, KWPN, Holstein, Zangersheide, Oldenburg and Selle Français stud books.
Beezie Madden and Coral Reef Via Volo competing at the London Olympics
On the 2013 WBFSH rankings, Clinton is 11th with 34 representatives, the most successful of which was Beezie Madden’s Coral Reef Via Volo (Heartbreaker). His son, Cornet Obolensky is ranked 6th. On the 2015 standings, he has fallen to 37th place with his most successful offspring Darlon van Groenhove (Heartbreaker).
On the 2014 German FN rankings of stallions with a reliability of 80 to 89%, he has a breeding value of 154, which puts him in equal 8th place, equal with the great Darco. On the 2015 standings, he no longer makes the top liste.
Would you like to visit the stud that made Clinton famous?
http://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2015/07/the-family-nijhof-2/