By Christopher Hector
If we are looking at hot young dressage stallions, there is no going past the current star of the Schockemöhle stallion selection, Sir Donnerhall.
No other stallion polarizes the breeding community like his sire, Sandro Hit.
You either love him, or you hate him… indeed there are some who rudely add the letter ‘S’ to his suffix, but there is no denying his influence. He has indeed sired more dressage sires than any other stallion of modern times. In 2007, he was the most prolific dressage sire of licensed sons, with 67 – which put him into 4th place on the Sires of Sires rankings. In 2008, he had moved into 2nd with 88, but still the largest group of dressage specialists, and he held that position in 2009 (with 88), 2010 (90) but dropped to 3rd (still the highest dressage stallion) in 2011 adding three more licensed sons for a total of 93.
His fans point to the charisma and presence of his offspring, their fashionable dark colouring and an impressive canter, all exhibited by his many Young Horse class winners – his detractors point to an out–behind trot, a wicked walk and a dubious temperament and the failure of any of his offspring to really establish themselves as top Grand Prix competitors, despite the enormous number of foals and the fact that most of the world’s top trainers has at one time or another tried a Sandro Hit.
Sandro Hit
In the 2011 Breeding News Stallion Directory standings, Sandro Hit provided the second highest tally of young dressage stallions, but this year he was replaced by his son, Sir Donnerhall – another stallion who like his sire, never progressed past the young horse classes. Sir Donnerhall’s competition career comprised four wins, one second, and one fourth at preliminary level for total earnings of €1,960. His 369 competition progeny, according to that splendid publication, the Hanoverian Stallion Year Book 2012, have won €72,621 between them, with just one making it to Advanced level, with the overwhelming majority of their placings at Novice level.
On the 2011 German FN dressage stallion breeding values, Sir Donnerhall is the equal 5th (with Dancing Dynamite and Damon Hill) on the on a score of 164, behind Real Diamond (166), Breitling (167), Don Diamond (168) and Don Schufro (171). With an accuracy estimation of 97%, Sir Donnerhall is equal second in the group with the highest accuracy estimation (90 – 99) behind Don Schufro.
Sir Donnerhall is interestingly bred on his dam line. His dam sire, Donnerhall, needs absolutely no introduction, and he has been without doubt the most successful ‘stallion maker’ of the founding big three of dressage: Donnerhall, Weltmeyer and Rubinstein, although Florestan is currently quietly upstaging the trio.
Farnese
Sir Donnerhall’s dam, Contenance D is out of the Holsteiner mare, Contenance II, whose sire, Feldherr combines two of the famous old style Holsteiners, Farnese and Moltke I, her dam, Contenance is by the Thoroughbred, Grundyman and her dam, Vorr is by another Holsteiner, Ratibor (conventional enough: Raimond, Consul, Ladykiller, Fahnrich) it is the next line that starts to get exotic, with lots of å’s and ø’s, indicating that we have moved even further north to Denmark, and one of the original Danish breeds, the Fredriksborg, a breed of chestnut carriage horses.
Frederiksborg
Contenance D received her States Premium award at Oldenburg’s most prestigious mare show, Rastede, before she arrived at PSI by a somewhat circular route. According to Ulf Möller, the manager of the PSI dressage barn and the rider who partnered Sir Donnerhall throughout his career, it was a deal within a deal. A partnership between a businessman and Paul Schockemöhle’s Jumping Barn manager, was coming to the end: “They did some horse dealing together and then they couldn’t agree about how to finish the deal and then in the end they agreed that Mr Schockemöhle would get an unborn foal out of one of his mares. So they finished the deal and this was Sir Donnerhall.”
“So he grew up in Lewitz (Schockemöhle’s horse raising farm in the Eastern part of Germany) like normal, everyone expected that he would be the winner of the licensing. At that time an Englishman, Mr Pidgley wanted to buy a stallion from Mr Schockemöhle, but because they expected Sir Donnerhall would be the winner of the licensing, they didn’t sell Sir Donnerhall so they sold Don Kennedy to the Pidgley family. Then what happened is that Don Kennedy won the licensing and Sir Donnerhall was third.”
“I started riding him as a four-year-old, he won the Oldenburg Championships and qualified for the Bundeschampionate, the German Young Horse Championships in Warendorf, but for him to be accepted by the Hanoverians, without doing 70-day test, he had to be placed 1, 2 or 3. Mr Schockemöhle asked me, can you guarantee that he will be 1, 2 or 3? And I said, hey, I cannot guarantee with a stallion, as a four-year-old, in this ring, I cannot give you the guarantee. So we didn’t go to the Young Horse Championship and he did his 70-day test and he was at this time the highest score ever, so he was accepted by the Hanoverian breeding society.”
“Then I got him back for the five-year-old Young Horse World Championships. He won his qualifier and then he went to Verden and unfortunately we all know what happened in Verden… so I was second.”
(What happened was that after winning the first round, Sir Donnerhall was very disobedient in the canter work in the second round, but still managed to finish in second place thanks in large part to a 9.5 for general impression, a mark that provoked a noisy and antagonistic reaction from the spectators – like his father, this is a horse that attracts strong polarizing opinions.)
Ulf is not one to give up:
“To repair this I really trained for the German Championships and he won the five year old dressage title, so in the end it was a good success.”
From then on, the stallion has only been ridden in stallion shows, although Ulf says he is handling the Prix St Georges work: “Now he’s doing a good Prix St Georges, but we only get him to ride three/four weeks of the year to prepare him for the stallion shows…”
Competing at the Bundeschampionate, Sergio Rossi by Sir Donnerhall out of a Rosenkavalier mare.
What do you see as Sir Donnerhall’s qualities?
“As you know, I rode a lot of Sandro Hit offspring and there are some really good ones. You see now some of his offspring winning the Grand Prix but there was always a little bit the concern that some offspring from Sandro Hit do not have enough energy. I think Sir Donnerhall is really the one with the perfect mix of being nice, of being rideable, of having a good brain, but also of being fresh enough, forward enough and smart enough and trainable enough. I think that’s the things that get more and more important, not only the gaits, but also the willingness, the trainability, the right brain. I think he’s the perfect example of this.”
Are there any particular mares that you think he’s been working better with?
“What is well known is that Weltmeyer mares fit very good.”
Because they’re good behind?
“Yes, they have good hind legs. Weltmeyer himself has a, let’s say a ‘forward-pushing hind leg’ and not such a ‘carrying’ hind leg but Weltmeyer on the mother line is a very positive thing. I think also Londonderry is a very good mix; we just had a very beautiful mare from Sir Donnerhall/Londonderry.”
“I think it is a good thing if the stallion survives the first years, if they get old enough then you really find out the right fit. I think this is the advantage with older stallions like Sir Donnerhall, like Sandro Hit, like Don Frederico. All these stallions, which are still en vogue in an older age, you, the breeder, can know what is the perfect mix.”
Sir Hawk by Sir Donnerhall, out of a Hill Hawk xx mare at the Bundeschampionate.
“I cannot say in particular which mares fit. Most breeders look at the stallion and think they will get a copy of the stallion – they have to look at the mares, and they have to look at the weak point of their mares and where the weak point is in the stallion, because every stallion has a weak point – so that maybe you don’t mix two weak points together. If you have a horse with little bit of a slow hind leg you need a stallion with a very active hind leg. So this is what people need to think about.”
Sir Donnerhall is a little bit slow behind?
“Okay he is a little bit, he’s built a little bit like this. His croup is a little bit flat, we all know this, but because he’s so rideable you can activate the hind leg, he takes it, and that’s the good thing, and it gets even better with the age, with the right muscles… Okay, from his construction it’s a little bit flat, but let’s say one of 100 foals have it, most of them have a very nice hind leg, and a very nice construction from the croup. This is what I mean, if you have a mare with a flat croup, you would not use this stallion because then you mix two negative things together, then you cannot hope that it gets better. That’s how it should work.”
But he’s not going to compete in Prix St Georges? He’s just going to do the stallion shows?
“Yes, but I think you could bring him tomorrow to Prix St Georges and he could win it. The nice thing with Sir Donnerhall, is that he has this special presence. He’s never standing there with the neck down, always with the neck up and proud. You cannot pass him without noticing him, he has unbelievable presence, and this is also what he has under saddle, he’s always ‘there’ and that’s what makes him a really good horse in my opinion.”
And I guess all those breeders with Sir Donnerhall foals on the ground, or on the way, hope that Ulf has got it right, not to mention studbook administrators all around the world who will have a major problem if the Sandro Hit boom proves a genetic disaster…