From Hanover, from Westfalia, from Oldenburg and from France (!) the black colt sensation at the Verden Auction is a heady cocktail of bloodlines….
Energy, now christened Glock’s Energy, easily topped the auction with a bid of €700,000 but for all his eye-watering price tag, he is by a relative unknown in the stallion ranks – Escamillo. However, as we will find, Energy’s pedigree is more or less a history of dressage breeding over the past decade…
Escamillo at the World Young Dressage Horse Breeding Championships,
ridden by Manuel Dominquez Bernal © FEI / Leanjo de Koster
Escamillo is only six years old, indeed he was the Reserve Champion Six Year old at the recent World Championships in Verden, and he is by another relative newcomer to the stallion ranks, Escolar, although the big bay has gone from being a young stallion class winner with an extraordinary canter and trot (10s, 10s), to being an accomplished Grand Prix competitor, under the careful guidance of a master – Hubertus Schmidt.
Escolar
In truth the sporthorse world is very lucky the line he comes from, did not disappear. Escolar and his sire Estoban, have gone a long way to saving the Westfalen ‘E’ line from extinction. My friend and colleague, Thomas Hartwig tells the story of the rescue of the E line by a master breeder, Norbert Borgmann:
“In the last two or three years, we have seen a very interesting comeback of the famous E line. The founder of the E line in Westfalia was Ehrenschild (Eindruck II / Adlerschild), a stallion from the Hanoverian State Stud in Celle. He came to the town of Melle in 1960, which is right on the border of Westfalia and Hanover, and so the Westfalian breeders used him. He was a big, heavy horse, but typical of his time – remember he was born in 1956, and came to Melle in 1960 – for this time, his type was typical.”
more on this exciting stallion’s bloodlines follows
“He sired the Westfalian stallion, Ehrensold (Fronvogt), whose son was the very famous Ehrentusch (Rheingold). We saw a lot of very good progeny of Ehrentusch, and a lot of them have the same characteristics, they all want to work, they had all very good hind legs. They were not beauty queens – or kings – but perfectly usable, and not only dressage horses but also showjumpers. In the 80s and early 90s, Ehrentusch was very favoured, but then a lot of people said, oh Ehrentusch’s progeny, they are not beautiful enough, and his popularity slipped down.”
Ehrentusch
“Then one of the most famous breeders, Norbert Borgmann, the father of Stephan who runs the family stud today, used Ehrentusch with his very perfect mare, Florence (Ferragamo / Florestan). They produced Estobar, later Estobar NRW. He sold at the auction is 2006 for the unbelievable price of over half a million euros.”
Stephan Borgmann and Florence
Estobar is the grandsire of Energy
But there is more ‘E’ blood to the mix since Florence’s sire, Ferragamo is out of an Ehrensold mare. Perhaps more importantly Florence had two crosses of that most influential founding father of the modern Sporthorse, Furioso II. Ferragamo is a grandson of Furioso II, while Florence’s dam, Florabelle is a grand-daughter of Furioso II through her sire, Florestan.
Furioso II
Escolar has more Furioso II through his dam sire, Fürst Piccolo, thanks once again to Florestan via Fidermark.
Escamillo, who is owned by the American, Kimberley Davies-Sious, was the premium stallion at the 2017 Hanoverian Stallion Licensing, and after a starry performance test, attracted quite a few mares to stallion station of Tobias Schult. While there he was trained at Isabell Werth’s barn and was ridden by Isabell’s assistant trainer, Lisa Wernitznig at the 2019 Oldenburg Stallion show. However it was announced in January 2020, that the young stallion was going to Helen Langehanenberg and withdrawn from stud to concentrate on competition.
Rohdiamant
Let’s look a bit more deeply at the pedigree of Escamillo. Okay he is by Escolar, but on the dam side we have a smorgasbord of studbooks. His dam, Cassila is by the best son of Rubinstein, Rohdiamant, out of Chantal, who combines the blood of the great De Niro with a mare that features a good dash of Holsteiner, she is by Landadel, out of a mare with more Selle Français blood, by Zeus. So we are not only getting our outcross but we are picking up some ‘jump’ along the way.
Prince Thatch
Energy is out of the Hanoverian mare, Darina, by De Niro out of a mare by the elegant Thoroughbred who stood for many years in Verden, Prince Thatch.
Once again, we see how modern breeding happily ignores studbook borders and takes from wherever it chooses… the future now is up to the team at Glock!
