Breitling, a triumph for horsemanship over fashion, for integrity over pandering to the market, for a breeder who is also a rider: Wolfram Wittig.
1991 – 2015 172 cm Chestnut
Breeder: Wolfram Wittig
Breitling (Bismark / Maat 1) is the highest rated German stallion on the 2021 FN breeding values in the catagory ‘highest level achieved’ with a score of 203 – in second behind the Dutch star, Jazz with a value of 233. Breitling was number one on the 2018 AND the 2019 German FN list of sires of open competition dressage horses.
Breitling a triumph for horsemanship over fashion, for integrity over pandering to the market, for a breeder who is also a rider: Wolfram Wittig. Breitling W was a respectable Grand Prix competitor with Wolfram Wittig with 22 wins at S level and earnings of €132,818. Never the most popular of stallions, he is the sire of 107 competitors, and of these 44(!) have competed at S level – 17 at three star, 11 at four, and two at five star level.
He is the sire of eleven horses that have won more than €10,000, including Burlington FRH with €112,418 and Blind Date with €89,928.
The Team – Breitling and Wolfram…
Wolfram Wittig was swimming against the tide when he decided to breed his own competition horses – traditionally breeders breed, and riders ride and never the twain shall meet…
“I started because I had always been interested in young horses, and especially the gaits and the movement,” Wolfgang told me, “Then everyone was saying to me, if you try to breed, you will not have success, because it is not possible to breed your own sporthorses. And I asked myself, why not? Why shouldn’t it be possible – and now we are doing it.”
Duellant
“What was very important to me was Bismark. Bismark was Bolero / Duellant, and the most important bloodline for me in dressage was Duellant. But it is very difficult to find stallions with Duellant. Bismark was a very old fashioned stallion, but the movement was unbelievable and he was totally balanced in all three gaits, so I used him for my breeding program.”
Breitling was a moderately successful Grand Prix horse with Wolfram, retiring early because he had a tendency to colic at competitions, but as a sire, he has been a sensation – even though he was a far from fashionable type, and largely covered just Wolfram’s mares. When he was named Hanoverian Stallion of the Year in 2014, he had 79 registered progeny with 28 successful at S level or higher. Breitling did produce numerous Bundeschampionate finalists, but they always looked like the best was yet to come, and it did.
The story began in 1990, when top German dressage trainer and rider, Wolfram Wittig bred his mare Maya, to the Hanoverian stallion, Bismark. Bismark was one of the first products of Bolero, and the only son out of a mare by Duellant. The result was Breitling W.
The stallion, Bismark
The same cross also produced Breitling’s sister, Biagotti W, an advanced dressage horse with Makus Gribbe. Bred to Woodstock, Maja produced the mare, Watussi W, another international dressage horse. Maya’s full-sister, bred to Bismark, produced the Grand Prix competitor, Barnsby W.
Wolfram and Breitling – even when mares walk past, the stallion stands…
“Breitling W was not very striking as a foal,” Wolfram Wittig told Julia Hansen (The Hannoverian, 12/2014). “I did, however, realize right away that he was special and that, one day, he would secure my retirement. He always showed off his magnificent movement while in the field without exerting himself. His canter was exceptional.”
The stallion was carefully guided in his performance career by Wolfram. Starting at the Bundeschampionate for five- and six-year old dressage horses. As a seven year old, competitions at the S-level were the next step. One year later, the pair completed the final of the Nürnberger Burgpokal in fourth place.
In 2001, the pair won the Grand Prix and the freestyle in Hickstead, Great Britain and were members of the victorious German Nations Cup team. They won a bronze medal at the German Championship in the same year. Breitling W and Wolfram Wittig became regular participants at top competitions like Aachen, Stuttgart and Frankfurt. They showed brilliant performances at the World Cup Qualifiers in Neumünster, Aarhaus, Denmark and in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, in the Netherlands.
The pair had more than 170 top results up to 2007 and accumulated €132,818.00 in life-earnings. The special strengths of Breitling W are his excellent temperament combined with very good basic gaits, his enormous rideability and his willingness to perform.
The rider realizes though, “When I compete a breeding stallion, then I have to reckon with finishing third or fourth at times. Every victory that slipped away, costs us mares, even though so many other producers never enter into competitions at all.”
His daughter Blind Date is now a top international performer with rider Victoria Max-Theurer from Austria. In 2007, Brigitte Wittig and Blind Date won the qualification at the World Championships for young horses in Verden. Due to an injury, Blind Date was unable to participate in the final. Two years later, she obtained the so far second highest score in the final of the Nürnberger Burgpokal and won this prestigious event.
Blind Date knew her fellow competitors at the time all too well. They were half-sisters on the sire side, Bertoli W and Biagiotto W. The W behind the name gives it away: they were bred on the farm of Family Wittig.
Blind Date competing at the 2015 Europeans at Aachen
Burlington and Charlott-Maria Schürmann and Burlington, image Dressage-News
Burlington FRH is one of Breitling W’s most striking sons. Charlott-Maria Schürmann rode him in the European Championships for young riders in 2012 and won team gold and individual silver. In the same year, Burington took out the final of the Nürnberger Burgpokal, the unofficial German Championship for seven- to nine-year old dressage horses.
Five sons of Breitling W are registered in the Stallion Book I of the Hannoveraner Verband; six daughters were awarded the State’s Premium.
Breitling died in 2015 but before that enjoyed a happy retirement – turned out on the fields for several hours each day. “I am always filled with enthusiasm when I watch him move with such suppleness and lightness,” says Wolfram.
Breitling W was the star of the 2014 Hanoverian Stallion Licensing when he was crowned Stallion of the Year. Wolfram Wittig received the award, an oil painting by the artist Manfred Busemann and a well-endowed cheque, on behalf of his deceased father-in-law, breeder Hermann Niehus from Rahden.
It was not the first time Breitling had starred at Verden.
In 2007, he performed his Grand Prix-freestyle during the gala show of the International Dressage and Jumper Festival. Ursula von der Leyen, now Germany’s defence minister, then the minister for family affairs, was his rider. The spectators honoured the performance with thunderous applause, and Ursula von den Leyen summed it up:
“This stallion is such a gentleman.”
Balmoral W and Brigitte Wittig competing in the Nürnberger Burg Pokal
I sat down with Wolfram Wittig after it had been announced that Breitling had once again topped the rankings…
“We are delighted that his children has been so successful. And now Kira (Wolfram’s long term, coming up to 20 years, pupil, Kira Wulferding)has another very good one, five years old, it is owned by Victoria Max-Theurer, and it is an up-and-coming young horse.”
Do you know how many mares he covered – he must have the highest ratio of foals to Grand Prix competitors of any stallion…
“I think so, but we don’t have all the information, but I know his average must be very very high. The most mares he ever covered in one year was about 80 when he was placed at Schockemöhle’s, that was the maximum…”
And some stallions covered 800 in one year…
“What is important is not to sell the semen, what is important are the products, and what is so good about him is that he produced useful horses.”
For a long time people would say, oh, the Breitling progeny are successful because they are ridden by Wolfram and Brigitte, but now there are more and more horses that are being successful, with riders whose surname is not ‘Wittig’…
“We have very very good mares in breeding at my place. At the moment it looks to me as if our German breeding system just produces modern horses, not power, not potential, just modern horses, and for me, a horse is really modern if there is a blue ribbon on its head.”
When we look at the top horses in the sport – like Valegro, he’s not such a ‘modern’ type – like your Breitlings…
“No, but they are useful with a strong character, very good temperament, a very high level of rideability, this is what we are looking for. The next thing is that it takes a long time, the horse is seven or eight when you ask, is he good enough for Prix St Georges or Grand Prix, but at the moment in Germany, we are producing the foals to sell as foals. They need the dark colour, that is important…”
Flick their front legs with nice little tight backs…
“And breeders are not asking for good haunches for a good canter, and that is what is most important, canter quality.”
Who bred Breitling, you or your father in law, I see different versions…
“He took the mare to be covered so his name is written on the paper, but at the time, I was sending all our mares to Bismark (Bolero / Duellant). This year we have a seven-year-old who is by Boston (Jazz / Flemmingh) out of a Bismark mare, the Bismark mare was born in 1991. Brigitte competed the Boston in three competitions, Prix St Georges for two victories, and one second place. She has also been successful at Prix St Georges with another Boston, this time out of a Breitling mare. At the moment we are breeding with five Breitling mares.”
Breitling has a 2021 Hanoverian dressage value of 113. He is not highly ranked for type, just 79, and the assessment is particularly harsh on the heads he throws – 55. Forget all that, he was a Grand Prix maker – perhaps the best we have seen.
Burlington II, standing at Celle…
