2005 Bay 169
Breeder – Jürgen Dittmer

The Hanoverian stallion, Lissaro van de Helle made history when he followed up wins in both the three and four year old stallion classes at the Bundeschampionate, with a win in the Five Year old dressage championship. Along the way, he was also crowned Reserve Champion Five year old at the World Young Dressage Horse championships… Yet, if things had gone according to plan, Lissaro would never have even been entered in a dressage class!

Lissaro was purchased at a two and a half year old colt at the Verden Stallion licensing to stand at the well-known Belgian stud, Stoeterij van de Helle. Edith de Reys is one of the stud’s principals along with her husband, Paul Mais, and she told me that right from the start, the horse was bought to jump, which is not surprising if you look at his pedigree. In the fourth line we find a line up of jumping greats: Lord, Ahorn Z, Contender, Nithard, Grande and Diskant.

Lissaro’s sire, Lissabon competed in jumping classes and was promoted as a jumping sire and with good reason – on the 2010 German FN standings, Lissabon makes the top 1% of jumping stallions, in 23^rd place with a breeding value of 154, which ranks him higher than such jumping greats as Galoubet, Caretino, Indoctro, Contender and For Pleasure. Lissabon is out of a mare by the Dutch import, Sion – sire of German dressage team horse, Sterntaler – but there is more ‘jump’ on the bottom line: Contender and Grannus.

Lissabon

Lissaro’s dam’s sire, Matcho was a French Anglo Arab, imported to stand in Hanover by Celle director at the time, Burchard Bade. Although Dr Bade was very proud of the handsome black stallion, he did not really produce any performers of note, although the spread of the fashionable black was appreciated. On the dam line, Lissaro breeds to consolidated if somewhat old fashioned Hanoverian lines: Grande, Diskant, Abhang II.

According to Edith: “We saw him jumping and thought that he jumped very well, moved very well and he looked very nice. We went to the stables and we spoke to the owner who was also the breeder. They were very nice people and they had prepared the horse completely themselves for Stallion Approval. Lissaro was very natural, he was very kind so he wasn’t the typical crazy stallion, he was just standing there relaxed. As he had been prepared by someone who was an amateur, it meant he would only get better if we bought him. They lunged the horses on the day of the auction and we liked how he moved, he was very electric and had three good paces. We like showjumpers that can move a bit with a nice character too.”

Given how tough it is for a stallion to be approved in Belgium on veterinary grounds, Edith and Paul first checked his health status:

“ The vets told us that he was perfect, so we decided we wanted him. Luckily for us, he has a lot of white on his legs and face, and people prefer dark brown or bay or black colouring and there weren’t so many people bidding on him. We bought him for a total cost of thirty thousand euros.”

“We registered him for approval as a Belgium Warmblood – sBs. My husband called him Leopold –  there are a lot of kings in Belgium called Leopold.”

“Fourteen days before the sBs approval we had a phone call from the German stallion station, Rüscher-Konermann. We knew this guy because he stood Pavarotti van de Helle for us. He said that the owner of his sire, Lissabon, had suddenly sold him to South Africa just when the breeding season was about to start. He said ‘I don’t have any jumping stallions anymore, I know you bought his son, so can I lease him as I liked the father so much.’ My husband and I considered it, he wouldn’t cover many mares in the first year as he would not be competing as a three year old in Belgium. We said okay, but the German said I need him in two days for the Westfalien licensing. They also said we need to change his name from Leopold, it’s too crazy a name, they chose the name Lissaro which we liked.”

“We had already started riding him at home, a little, but not much. When he was in Germany, he first did a competition in loose jumping, which he won. Later the stallion keeper said, ‘can my daughter ride him?’. He has two daughters. More or less by accident she participated in a riding horse show and won. They said ‘why don’t you try to go to the Bundeschampionate?’ At that moment there was only one qualification left but the rider had a vacation, so the other sister rode him and qualified for Warendorf and at the Bundeschampionate, they switched sisters again and she won the three year old championship.”

“We started jumping him in Winter and got very good scores, then a year later he won the Four Year old riding stallion title. Then he did some jumping again, won some classes and also covered a lot of mares, so they didn’t show him much. For the five year old dressage class, he did two competitions before the Bundeschampionate. He did one competition for selection for the World Champs and placed 2^nd and went to the Bundeschampionate, and won. Now we have a dressage champion and we always wanted him to be a showjumper!”

“The nice thing about the horse is that he really wants to do everything for the rider, he doesn’t want to make mistakes. He is very easy, but Claudia, the rider says, ‘he has enough blood to ride’. He is very very straight in his head. It was terrible weather at Bundeschampionate for the four year old class – windy, umbrellas everywhere but he didn’t care, he just does the work.”

Would he breed good eventers?

“He has a little Holstein blood, then Anglo blood from Matcho, then Garibaldi, one of the best sons of Grande – so good mix of different blood to breed any kind of horse, depending on the mother you bring to him.  Most of the mares he bred in the first year were showjumping mares as we announced him as a showjumping stallion. It was a surprise he went to dressage, so the next year he got some more dressage mares. I think he is one of those stallions that you can use in any direction.”

At this time the  German bred, Belgian owned stallion was sent  to Holland to be ridden by Edward Gal. Before he took on the ride, Edward tried the horse, and was well pleased with what he found:

“I’ve only had him for four weeks, but he is a very nice horse. He looks good, he feels good – okay he is still young so it will take a while but the basic is there, and now we’ve got to work on the exercises. We are busy now, learning the changes, but it looks good.”

He has been very good in young horse classes but do you think he will make it into FEI competition?

“You never know for sure. When Totilas was six years old, I didn’t know it either, but the feeling is good and that is the most important because when the feeling is good, then you are already half way…”

It seems that Lissaro and Edward did not work because the horse then surfaced at Celle in Celle in 2013 where Wolfhard Witte showed him for a while in S level classes.

The German FN astounded the world in 2015 when Lissaro topped their dressage sires breeding values!!! Seemingly the mare owners remained unconvinced because Lissaro’s next career was with Junior rider, Valentina Pistner. They are currently ranked 254 on the FEI Youth rankings.

The 2018 Hanoverian Stallion book tells us that Lissaro finished his dressage career with 15 ‘S’ level wins and €11,291 in prizemoney. He has sired 169 competitors with €61,379 in winnings, two have competed S level dressage, one S level jumping. He has a Hanoverian dressage value of 123, and 114 for jumping. He scores 101 for type and 130 for limbs.

On the 2017 German FN rankings, he scores 160 as a young horse sire (which puts him in the top ten, just), and 159 for open competition. His jumping rankings are 124 and 120. My personal opinion is that Lissaro might have made a very good sire of eventers. The progeny of his that I’ve seen in young dressage horse classes just lack that extra look at me quality, but they look well worth a try over the three phases of eventing.

When I suggested that given that he had been sent off to be an honest competition dressage horse for a young rider, Lissaro had been a flop as a dressage sire, my friend Ludwig Christmann of the Hanoverian Verband came to his defence:

“He has not been such a failure as a stallion, although he is definitely not the typical flashy foal producer. The first horses were produced in Westfalia, now we are getting the first horses Lissaro produced in Hanover and I have talked to many people who have ridden Lissaro offspring, or who bred Lissaro horses, and they are all very positive. Celle stands his son Labbadio (Dancier) who was 3^rd at the Bundeschampionate for four-year-old stallions last year and he recently had the top mare in a mare performance test in Verden, from 40 mares, to mention just two positive examples.”

Labbadio, standing at Celle

In the 2019 Hanvoerian stallion book we find he has 187 progeny out competing for winnings of €83,410, six of them competing at S level. His Hanoverian jumping value is 114, dressage, 120. On the 2019 FN values, he has a young horse value of 158, and an open competition value of 161, which takes him into 4th place on the FN list for dressage sires of open competition horses. Really?!

In the 2021 book, he is credited with 219 competitors with winnings of €117,247 with ten competing at S level. On the FN breeding values for sires of young dressage horse classes he has a value of 154, for highest level achieved, 133. He also ranks quite highly as a sire of young jumpers, with a value of 120.

On the 2021 Hanoverian values, he scores a disappointing 86 for type but scores well for limbs, 121, and a 67 for the new value, height. His dressage value is 125 with a jumping value of 111.