Christopher Hector looks at which dressage stallions are also successful competitors…
We must approach this list with care, since it is based on the actual performances of the stallions, not the performance of their progeny, which if you are a mare owner you might be more interested in.
There have been many great stallions that were not great performers and for that matter, many great performers who were not great sires…
Glamourdale
This year the BN list is once again headed by Glamourdale, and it might be noted that he is second on the WBFSH dressage competition standings. We know he is a great performer, even if some of us are not enamoured with the way he is shown, but will he be a great sire?
There Dutch breeding authorities seem to have decided that he will be, since they have already licensed 29 of his sons.
So far Glamourdale is the sire of five small tour competitors, a group that is headed up by the approved stallion, Kuvasz RS2. The handsome black is out of Dyor de Hus by De Niro, and the daughter of La Traviata, who is by Sandro Song out of Loretta, which makes her a full-sister to Sandro Hit. (For the trivia buffs, Kuvasz is a Hungarian breed of guardian dogs, indeed they look a little like the sheep they are bred to protect. Don’t ask why a horse is named after a breed of dog…)
Kuvasz RS2.
Kuvasz was second reserve on the Dutch team for the 2021 World Young Horse Championships but his last FEI results were a couple of placings in September 2022, and currently there is a note on his stallion entry on the Van Uytert page, ‘unfortunately we no longer offer Kuvasz RS2 for breeding’.
By merest happen chance, Kuvasz RS2 was listed to open the proceedings in the Prix St Georges at Jumping Amsterdam when I was there in January 2024. Perhaps the mystery would be unravelled. The ever-so-helpful team on the press desk at Amsterdam had found an article which heralded Kuvasz’s international debut, that records that he was out of the sport in 2023 for ‘health reasons’ unspecified.
Seemingly the stallion had recovered, since Mariek van der Putten rode him to victory on a score of 72.794. Mariek says that the problem was with the horse’s digestive system and he is fine now and that she has him home to train for Grand Prix.
Glamourdale is something of an exception to the current trend of breeding to young, untested stallions that produce pretty foals for immediate sale. He tends to throw his dam sire Negro’s short neck, but thankfully there are mare owners who care more about the black stallion’s international performance career, rather than following the whims of fashion.
My friend Jens Meyer who I met up with at Amsterdam, is one stern critic of the trend to fashion breeding, and he likes Glamourdale with his German / Dutch fusion. “I like the mix, we have the good back from the German horse, from the Dutch horses, we get the front technique and the canter. I use Glamourdale, he is a young top Grand Prix stallion and how many stallions do we have in the sport? Not many. People say he does not produce, type, he is not a refiner for sure, but he throws healthy conformation. His foals are uphill, and with power in the body. Okay sometimes with the Negros they have a bit of a short neck but what is important in the end ,is that they are rideable. I hate it at the moment, people just talk about problems with the stallions, not what they get from the stallion…”
Hermès
The second highest BN dressage stallion, Hermès is another with a less than fashionable pedigree. He is by the Trakehner, Easy Game who was largely ignored by the breeders, indeed he was missing from the breeding barn for several seasons, chemically castrated and sent to Belgium in the hope of a Grand Prix career. It didn’t happen and he returned to the van Uytert Stud. He died in July 2023 but not before he gifted the world two of the great Grand Prix competitors, World number one, Dalera, while Hermès is currently 10th on the WBFSH dressage rankings even though he has not competed since attending the World Cup final in Omaha in April 2023 – a victim of the travel it seems.(This piece, which was written for the BN Stallion Directory, composed in January 2024. Since then Hermès came back to win the Grand Prix from a star studded field at the Aachen Festival 4 Dressage on a score of 75.533 in March 2024)
Franziskus
This year’s number three is another who suffered from the trip to Omaha, Ingrid Klimke’s frontliner, Franziskus (Fidertanz / Alabaster) currently 11th in the dressage competition standings. At the age of sixteen, Franziskus is the sire of three Grand Prix horses, none of them stars. The most successful has been Brazilian team member, Feel Good VO (Dimension) ridden by Joao Oliva. Franziskus is, however, the sire of 34 stallion sons.
Dante Weltino
In fourth, Dante Weltino reminds us that once the W line ruled the dressage world. The stallion is by the De Niro son, Danone I who is out of a Weltmeyer mare, while Dante Weltino is out of Rihanna by the most successful son of Weltmeyer, Welt Hit II. Once again while he is the sire of 27 approved sons, his seven Grand Prix competitors have not set the world ablaze.
Fame (Bordeaux / Rhodium) in fifth, his first shot to… fame, in 2021, was when he won a British regional Grand Prix on his first outing with Fiona Bigwood. But it was not until the ride went to Carl Hester in 2023 that he became truly famous, with Grand Prix wins at Tolbert and Hickstead, before the pair finished fifth at the European Championships as part of the Gold Medal winning British team.
The fourteen-year-old does not seem to have been used as a breeding stallion.
Blue Hors St Schufro
Sixth placed Blue Hors St Schufro is another who has shot to the top, winning his first Grand Prix with Nanna Skodborg Merrald at Falsterbo in 2022, more recently the pair were first in the Grand Prix of Herning in 2023. The dressage world really sat up and took notice when his daughter Lynbergs St Paris shone at the World Young Horse Championships in Ermelo in 2021.
Jens Meyer who worked as a special advisor to Blue Hors is pleased that the breeders are now taking notice:
“We are very proud last year (2023) he covered the most mares in his life. Before that people talked that his family was not good enough but the stallion himself has to produce, and he does it. Look at the World Championship at Ermelo, see what he produced. He is also not a foal maker, but look at his breeding, it is from the past (Jens is referring to St Schufro’s dam, Dorina, born in 2000 by Don Schufro born in 1992, out of Asta, 2000, by Atateurk born in 1977) but we do not change the horse, we have to produce good horses, that is very important to me.”
Jovian
Seventh to Jovian (Apache / Tango) born in 2014 and the youngest of the top ten stallions. Indeed there was considerable controversy as to whether it was right that an eight-year-old should be competing in international Grand Prix competition. Jovian’s pedigree is rich in the blood that made Dutch dressage breeding great, two crosses of Jazz, and one of Krack C. His sire Apache was a wonderful horse whose breeding career was shattered when he proved WFFS positive, initially he had been cleared, but when Jovian proved positive, Apache was tested again… Apache died in 2019 when he was put down after developing laminitis.
Jovian has so far sired eleven stallion sons, but I can find no competing progeny.
Everdale
Eighth to Everdale, the first stallion to be declared a WFFS carrier. He is by Lord Leatherdale out of a Negro mare. The black stallion is a controversial horse, there are some, like me, who hate the way he is shown, while the judges disagree and keep giving him winning scores. He is the sire of 13 approved sons, and 23 Grand Prix competitors, the most spectacularly successful being Charlotte Dujardin’s Imhotep (Vivaldi) currently ranked second in the world.
The grey stallion, Hexagon’s Ich Weiss is in ninth. He is by the Rubinstein son, Hexagon’s Rubiquil, out of a Negro mare from the Utopia line.
Hexagon’s Ich Weiss
Rounding out our top ten, we have Total Hope, by Totilas out of Isabell Werth’s great mare, Weihegold (Don Schufro / Sandro Hit).
Total Hope
Weihegold has produced at least 14 foals, but of the five to compete, only Total Hope has impressed, winning the prestigious Nürnberger Burg Pokal, before commencing a successful Grand Prix career. As a sire, he has already produced one foal that went on to compete at the World Young Horse championships.