Christopher Hector looks at a dressage stallion that is shaping as one of the best ever…
Blue Hors Zack
Born: 2004
Breeder: B. Wilschut, The Netherlands
Sire: Rousseau – Dam: Orona – Dam sire: Jazz – Great dam sire: Belisar
We have waited a long time for a dressage stallion who was not only an international dressage star himself, but also the sire of great progeny – in particular stallion sons. There was Donnerhall, and his son De Niro, stallions and stallion makers as well as top competitors, aside from them you will be struggling to come up with a candidate but Zack is certainly putting his hoof up to claim his share of the glory…
To tell the truth, Zack has been a better competitor than either of the two ‘D’s. Fourth in the 2019 World Cup final in Göteborg, tenth individually at the WEG in Tryon, winner of the Herning World Cup Qualifier with an 83 plus score, and with top placings in Amsterdam, Neumünster, Paris and Aachen in 2018. Last year, he won the Grand Prix and the Freestyle at Falsterbo, and was second in the Grand Prix and won the Freestyle at s’Hertogenbosch. Since then he has had a quiet show career with the focus on the upcoming Games in Tokyo.
That’s pretty impressive but he has also been a top sire in his short career and has already produced 38 licensed stallions, including the Danish pair of Zonic and Sezuan.
When Zack won the stallion licensing at the KWPN show in 2007, Arie Harmoen was the head of the stallion commission at the time:
“We made Zack the champion stallion at the KWPN stallion show when I was the head of the licensing committee, and now in the breeding he is a great influence, but as a young horse he was not winning all the young horse classes. Now he is Grand Prix and he brings good offspring.”
What impressed you about Zack at the Licensing?
“He was medium size, but he had a fantastic hind leg use, and when he starts moving, he is always with the shoulders coming up. He was not extreme, when I gave the explanation after the championships, I said that he was an example of a functional mover not a spectacular mover. Now I think the breeders are looking more to functional movement.”
Are you sad that The Netherlands lost Zack when he was sold at the licensing auction to Denmark?
“We have a lot of his offspring of course. We found Lennox, a good young stallion last year from the full sister of Zack.”
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Dutch journalist, Jenneke Smit interviewed Zack’s breeder, Bas Wilschut, after Lennox starred that the stallion show, and found that the breeder was a little overwhelmed at being thrust into the breeding limelight:
“That Zack became the champion at the KWPN Stallion Show in 2007 was a huge surprise for us and since then we’ve really invested in this damline to get more sports results, and to participate in the young horse competitions like the Pavo Cup with our mares. Lennox is the first stallion that we took to the stallion selection ourselves and it went very well. It was inevitable that Le Formidable would become champion, and I hoped that Lennox would not finish last in the championship ring. That he eventually was placed second was great to experience. His dam is in foal to Glock’s Toto Jr. and we have a two-year-old Desperado son out of her. Out of this damline we also have young stallions by Franklin and Schwarzgold. The Franklin we have together with Joop van Uytert and hopefully there is more success for us to come. It all started with Zack, and he has meant a lot for us.”
Zack combines the blood of the two most influential Dutch stallions of modern times, Ferro and Jazz. He is by the Ferro son, Rousseau out of the Jazz daughter, Orona.
Rousseau
Rousseau has had a spectacular career. He was purchased for the American stud, Hilltop Farm with the highest bid at the first annual KWPN sale – 300,000 guilders – and later sold on to Harmony Sporthorses. He easily passed his performance test with an overall ‘8’ for dressage ability. He was Dutch national champion as a four-year-old, and reserve champion the next year.
Rousseau represented The Netherlands at the 2003 World Young Dressage Horse Championships in Verden, where he was second. He was immediately licensed in Hanover, Oldenburg and Westfalia.
At the 2006 KWPN Stallion show, Rousseau was represented by 11 sons from his first crop, the most of any sire that year. His son, Wamberto was champion of the licensing before he too was sold to Harmony Sporthorses, where he joined his sire in the stallion barn. He went on to win his performance test in the United States in 2007, but like his dad, does not seem to have done much after starring as a youngster.
The following year, the Rousseau bandwagon was in full swing when another son, Zagreb – later named Blue Hors Zack – was crowned champion stallion, and topped the sale when he was bought by Danish stallion master, Esben Møller.
And yes, the following year, another son, Ampère, made it three in a row, and he went on to pass his performance test with record high scores.
By 2007, Rousseau had the highest dressage index of any of the KWPN stallions, 181, with many of his daughters starring at the mare shows. He was also starting to gain recognition in Germany where his son, Fiorano was the premium stallion at the Hanoverian licensing and then topped his performance test at Münster-Hahndorf. Another son, Fürst Rousseau, also topped his performance test.
However by 2018, Rousseau had tumbled down the standings of the dressage stallions with a reliability of 90% or better. He is now in equal 13th place with a breeding value of 149.
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After his win at the Dutch licensing, Zack was too busy siring foals and establishing his competition career to take the performance test, and he wasn’t officially approved by the KWPN as a stallion until 2017.
Floor Dröge works for the KWPN inspecting mares and has recently been appointed to the stallion commission.
Floor is excited by Lennox W, the young stallion by Grand Galaxy Win (Apache / Jazz) out of Zack’s full sister. “He has been selected for the Performance Test, and that is very interesting when you look at his breeding. His mother Orona is a Preferent mare, which means her foals have got the predicate like ster, or approved stallion, and she is also a Prestatie mare, which is based on sports results, and she is also IBOP, which is good, it means she is able to do it herself. When we look at that IBOP she did, she did a nice test of 75.5, with a good walk.”
And do they all come from the same breeder?
“Yes, Mr Wilschut. Zack was sold in the Select Sale, and the full-sister is still with Mr Wilschut, and the Grand Galaxy Win as well. They are not really really old breeders, but they are doing quite well and I think they are really proud of the offspring of their mares.”
Zack’s competition career has been well orchestrated, as Floor observes:
“If you look at Zack’s career, there were a couple of points when people said, oh, he’s not going to be able to do that, and he really let the rider train him, in a way that he became so good at a high level. They said, oh he will never be a Small Tour horse, he will never be a Big Tour horse – and they took their time, I think they managed him really well.”
“If you look at his offspring, the technique in walking, in the movements, is very very good, and they are all really strong horses with power and a nice front leg.”
Maybe not young horse horses?
“I’m not going to say that because if you look at the 2019 World Championships, his offspring went really really well, and if you look at all the sports results of the offspring of Zack and his sons, it is getting better and better. And that is where you see the character, and the will to perform.”
Do you think it is important for the stallion to prove himself at Grand Prix?
“It depends on why the stallion isn’t able to do Grand Prix. Stallions have to do a lot and sometimes doing Grand Prix as well, is too much for them. But if they have offspring that show that they are capable of Grand Prix level, that more important for the stallion, because you want the stallion to do a fantastic job and if the offspring are better than the stallion himself, it’s good, but when the stallion is able to do it himself, it gives a lot of information on the trainability. It gives a lot of information on the durability, the health of the horse – and that is really good.”
When I analyse the breeding at the top competitions – WEG, Games – the horses that finish on top in the Grand Prix are mainly by stallions that competed Grand Prix…
“It’s a kind of certainty if the stallion is able to do it, and can also pass it on – because we know very well good Grand Prix mares and their offspring aren’t as good. If they give it to their offspring, it is really good. The mindset, the character, a Grand Prix horse needs a good head and they need that to cope with the really big shows.”
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German breeding expert, Jens Meyer, echoes the same refrain: “Look at Zack. Zack is a Dutch horse and in the pre-selection for the 2020 KWPN stallion show, there were three or four horses by this stallion, now you see a family, and this is the direction we must take in breeding horses. Not the perfect model, not the commercial horse, we have to breed Grand Prix horses. Always we can climb in small steps with the conformation, but brain is the difficult thing to breed. A smart mind.”
“It is not easy to breed with Zack, this is interesting, he makes not the conformation, or the ‘pretty’ horse. The problem is that the breeder is not thinking long term, he wants to sell a foal – we must take this out of the breeder’s brain, they must aim to produce a good horse. We have to start with rideability.”
There is no doubt that much of Zack’s success is due to the extremely talented young man who has trained him throughout his career – Daniel Bachmann Andersen. Daniel has a wonderful team of Grand Prix stallions from his home base, Blue Hors Stud, now he’s got a father and son act at Grand Prix level! Zack, and the one good judges are tipping as the next superstar, Zepter (out of a Wolkentanz II mare).
You rode Zack at the WEG, now you are riding his son, Zepter at Grand Prix, do you see characteristics that the stallion has passed to his son?
“Yes in the way that they love to work, they love to perform. They are often really good when they get into the ring, they often like to show themselves off. Zepter is a little bit more of a shy horse but Zack is much more macho. Zepter is like very small inside, you have to praise him a lot, and say, good boy, good boy. You can’t tell him off. He’s starting to get better and I can ride him with a little bit more pressure here and there, but I have to be careful. He’s big, but he is small inside. Zack is much bigger, he believes in himself.”
Daniel and Zepter
There is a tendency to regard Zack as a ‘little cutey’ but perhaps that is because Daniel is so tall – horsetelex suggests that Zack is 1.74 cm, Sezuan 1.73 and Zonik, 1.71.
Jameson RS2 (Photo – Kenneth Braddick / dressage news)
At the World Championships for Young Dressage horses at Ermelo in August 2019, Zack was the real star of the show and was responsible for two of my personal favorites at the Worlds. He was the sire of Jameson RS2 (Negro) eighth in the 5-year-old final, and was the dam sire of the horse ranked ninth, For Gold OLD (by Franziskus) while his sons, Zonik and Sezuan were responsible for eight horses that qualified for the championships.
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The Z Team – Zonik and Sezuan…
Thomas Bach Jensen is publicity officer for the Danish Warmblood, and he is a mine of information, I asked him about Zonik and Sezuan:
“Both stallions have been bred by Linette Jæger who is not known to have bred any other horses than these two. She wanted to breed top horses and bought two pregnant mares from Andreas Helgstrand who could be considered the real breeder behind these stallions as he owned the mares and planned the breedings.”
“Sezuan’s dam didn’t take from Blue Hors Romanov that year and was then bred once to Blue Hors Zack, but when the foal was born the next year it was registered as sired by Romanov. Only once licensed it was proved via DNA that the sire is Zack.”
“Marianne and Andreas Helgstrand bought Sezuan’s dam as a 3-year-old filly and presented her to become DWB Mare of the Year that same year. She had the foal that she was pregnant with when they bought her, had a short riding career and got injured, whereafter they bred her to Zack and sold her with Sezuan in utero. Zonik was also sold in Utero, when they sold the mare Romanik which they have bred themselves. I believe that Romanik’s dam Dunja was mainly a sport horse.”
Sezuan – Dorothee Schneider rode him to three World Championships in a row:
2014, 2015, 2016.
“For personal reasons, Linette Jæger sold the horses. Andreas bought both colt foals from her and as he, at that time, was focused on building up a dressage barn and had not become a breeder, the two mares were sold to a friend and business partner, Mogens Pedersen who runs the stud farm Straight Horse.”
“Since the purchase, Mogens Pedersen has produced fantastic horses out of these two mares.”
“Both Zonik and Sezuan have been 4-year old champion stallions at the DWB licensing in Herning. Both sold abroad and you are well aware of their excellent show record since then. To me the most remarkable thing about these two very well-bred Danish stallions is that they both seem to pass on their valuable genetics.”
Thomas makes the interesting point that there is a reason Zack has been more successful in Germany and Denmark than his native Holland.
“You hear it said that Zack is a great KWPN product, but not so much used in the KWPN, I feel it needs to be said that Zack actually has been bred quite a lot in KWPN but he does his magic on the typical German/Danish mares and not on the Dutch ones. The typical German/Danish mares have a lot of classic dressage lines such as Donnerhall, Florestan, Rubinstein, Weltmeyer etc. Many of these mares are quite rectangular in their body (relatively long in the back) and very good, big and supple movers, and somewhat flat in their front leg movements, and that’s where Zack kicks in with his short and strong back/topline and very mechanical movements with beautiful elevation.”
Once again, thanks Thomas for your help and insights…
Andreas Helgstrand shares Thomas’ feeling that it is the Dutch over German and Danish cross that is the key…
“Zonic’s grandmother, Dunja, was a really nice mare. When we bought her we said, okay the mare is young, she can have a foal as a three year old, and that was Romanik. There were a couple of people who wanted to buy Romanik and also the mother of Sezuan, Don Romina, so I said, okay, you can buy them but I keep half of all the offspring and I decide which stallions to use. That was fine with them, it was a win win situation, but then Linette Jægerthe owner, she got divorced and she had to sell the mares and the two offspring. I bought both of them back and how lucky can you be, one was Sezuan, one was Zonik. I sold the two mares to Straight Horse and I made the same deal again, I’ll sell you these two mares, but I want half of the offspring, so I still own half the offspring of these two.”
I asked Andreas why he went to Zack…
“The mother of Zonik, she’s very elegant, very pretty, a very good type. Why I bred her to Zack, she had good hind legs but she could have a little more shoulder freedom, and that is what I wanted from Zack, a bit more knee.”
The mother of Sezuan?
“I bought her as a two year old, she was a top nice horse, she was Mare of the Year one year afterwards, so that was a good choice. The same with her, okay the mare is young, why not make a foal, so I put her to Zack.”
Zack has been such a good stallion, not only lots of really good foals, but he has also produced stallion sons, what do you think are the strengths of Zack?
“For sure Zack makes good horses, but to be honest, it is not so much about Zack, it’s more about the combination, you put together Dutch horses with German and Danish horses. If Zack had stayed in Holland, you would never hear about Zack, not at all, because he is the typical product of the Dutch horses, a bit short in the back, a lot of leg moving and not so much back moving, but with the combination with horses that are a little bit long and flat was super to make them how we want them nowadays, to make them modern – that’s how I think it happens.”
You are best known as a dealer but are you also serious as a breeder?
“I am. I buy about 100 foals a year, but we also make a lot of embryos with our top mares, so we get around 20 foals a year.”
Which stallions do you go to?
“I go to our own, I mean we have 35 stallions here, and I think we have some of the best! ”
How important in history do you think Zack will be as a stallion?
“He has already shown it, he has a lot of top horses going. Of course, one thing is young horses, and the other is the Grand Prix sport. Stallions like De Niro and Jazz, they have made a lot of Grand Prix horses, so now we have to see with Zack. The oldest ones are nine or ten, and he didn’t breed that much at the beginning, so out of the number of mares he had, he has made very good results but we will see when they get older, because we also want Grand Prix horses.”
Does the fact that Zonik has competed Grand Prix make him a more attractive stallion than say, Sezuan?
“I don’t know. I mean, it’s fun to see a stallion like Zonic. He also had three horses in the World Young Horse championship final of the six year old, so he is also showing he is producing good horses. Sezuan is for me, one of the best stallions we have. The breeding is now going so fast – I have a fantastic two year old son of Sezuan who is coming to the Oldenburg licensing this year, which is more modern, more pretty but still moving the same, he’s out of a Sir Donnerhall mare – really nice.”
Zonik
Born: 2008
Breeder: Linette Jæger, Denmark
Sire: Blue Hors Zack – Dam: Romanik – Dam sire: Blue Hors Romanov – Great dam sire: Don Schufro
2019 was a wonderful year for Edward Gal and Zonik. After winning the Dutch Championship in May, the pair starred at the Europeans in August, finishing sixth in the Freestyle, eighth in the Special and fourth in the Grand Prix – with Zonik’s sire, Zack, just behind him in fifth place!
Zonik has always been a star. Zonik won the Danish Stallion Licensing, then impressed at the Danish Dressage Championships winning with a final score of 9.3, where his trot was awarded a 10.0.
On debut in St George in 2015, he won with 78%, and the next year was Dutch Small Tour champion with a score of 81.7%. He was Big Tour champion at the Dutch Championships of 2017 and 2018. He made his World Cup debut in London in December 2017 winning the Grand Prix with 76.68 % and taking third place in the Freestyle with 79.34 %.
In 2018 Zonik was selected in the Dutch team for the WEG in Tryon where he was 7th in the Grand Prix and the Special.
Zucchero by Zonic (Photo – Kenneth Braddick dressage news)
Zonik was a star at the 2019 World Breeding Championships for Young Dressage horses, with three representatives and all three made the top ten of the six-year-old championships. Zonik was the sire of the six-year-old champion, Zucchero (from a Prince Thatch xx mare), and the third placed, Zhaplin Langholt (Stedinger).
Sezuan
Born: 2009
Breeder: Linette Jæger, Denmark
Sire: Blue Hors Zack – Dam: Bøgegårdens Don Romina
Dam sire: Don Schufro – Great dam sire: Lionell
Sezuan produced a staggering five progeny that qualified for the World Young Dressage Horse championships in Ermelo in August 2019, which is perhaps not so surprising since Sezuan himself was a Young Horse sensation. Dorothee Schneider rode him to three World Championships in a row: 2014 – 16.
The stallion made one international appearance in September 2017 winning both the Prix St Georges and the Intermediaire I with Dorothee, before he was transferred to Patrik Kittel’s care, for a Grand Prix debut in 2018. He appeared at a Danish stallion show in March 2018, then disappeared in a fog of ‘no comments’. Earlier this year it was announced that he would not be standing at stud, available only frozen, since he was being prepared by Patrik for a 2019 Grand Prix debut. We are still waiting…
The horse’s bloodlines are a brilliant amalgamation of Dutch and German dressage lines. On the top, Zack, on the bottom, Don Schufro (Donnerhall / Pik Bube), with only the somewhat obscure Holsteiner stallion, Lionell l (by Leonid – Landgraf – out of a Carneval – Cor de la Bryère – mare) in the fourth line to remind us that a little jumping blood never goes amiss in the dressage horse recipe.
One of the eye-catchers at the 2020 KWPN stallion show – Max
By Sezuan out of a Johnson / Partout mare
Thomas Bach Jensen has personal experience of the Sezuan ‘touch’:
“Personally, I have not bred with Zonik, but I have produced four exceptional full-siblings by Sezuan that I have been very happy with. I wanted to get size, frame and canter. And I got all that plus great rideability, active hindlegs, good mechanics and just very attractive dressage horses.”
This is one of Thomas’ progeny by Zack. Her name is Schwarze Schwalbe Macohl, and the rider is Michael Søgaard.
“In 2015 she was DWB Dressage Filly Foal of the Year and became most expensive filly at the DWB Elite Foal Auction, so I don’t own her anymore. Last year she was graded with a gold medal which is the top three of the year.”
With the enormous expansion of dressage breeding over the past twenty years, it has become much more difficult for any one stallion to really stamp himself on the sport, yet Zack has done just that in his relatively short career. Perhaps the best is yet to come…
Want to try some of the bloodlines in this article in Australia? Look for the right bloodlines for your mare and produce your own champion, go to: www.ihb.com.au
Sezuans Donnerhall