Cottage Son xx,
Born 1944, died 1963, 16.3 hands Brown
Breeder - M. H. Moxon (IRE)

 

In the fifties, the breeders of Holstein turned to the Thoroughbred fount once again - and in Cottage Son, they found a sire whose influence on the modern day showjumper is second to none. His great grandson, Capitol alone would secure his place in breeding history (although it should be noted that Capitol actually descends from Cottage Son via a rather different route than the one in the official studbooks. They would have Capitol's sire Capitano being by the Cottage Son son, Corporal - but Capitano is grey, Corporal is brown, so he is not the sire of Capitano. However the real sire, the unlicensed grey Grand Vikar was also by a Cottage Son stallion, Colonel.)

Interestingly, Cottage Son fulfilled none of the usual German qualifications required of a Thoroughbred sire - he had neither raced successfully or competed in the sport. He broke down in his only race, but had been a successful sire of hunters and eventers in his native England, before being imported to Germany at the age of 15.

In England he was the sire of Cottage Romance, ridden in the British Olympic team, in 1960 by Michael Bullen, and (I am indebted for this information to my British colleague, Carole Mortimer, a breeding expert and journalist with Horse & Hound) several other elite eventers: Dapper was 5th at Badminton with Lt Colonel Frank Weldon, and Anzac was 7th in 1962 at Little Badminton.

He was however royally bred to be a sire of jumping horses - descending on his sire line from the great Bay Ronald. On the dam's sire we find the great steeplechase sire, Cottage. Cottage's offspring dominated English and Irish steeplechasing for two decades, during which time he produced three Grand National winners.Cottage was considerably line bred, with four crosses to Rock Sand and five to St Simon.His great grand-dam, Clonken is by Red Prince II, another successful steeplechaser and producer of steeplechasers. Red Prince II later stood in Trakehnen where he sired 24 approved stallions and 30 approved broodmares. Red Prince II was out of the Grand National winner, Empress.

A fatal accident in 1963 meant Cottage Son spent a mere four seasons at stud in Schleswig-Holstein, but in that time he managed to produce 14 stallion sons, and 42 approved daughters. He also produced the jumpers, Carlos, Colibri, Colorado, Conte, Cocacabana, Corsar, Cortina, Cottan, Cottage Incident and Georgie Girl; the dressage competitors, Cohinor and Coriolan, and the eventers, Arrarat and Comtur.

As a broodmare sire, Cottage Son has been a sensation, siring the dams of two of the all time greats of modern jumping breeding: Lord and Ramiro. His son, Consul was the sire of the world champion dressage horse, Granat.

According to Jasper Nissen in his excellent article on the Holstein Upgraders (Z Magazine, August/September 2004) he was "a tall powerful stallion with long lines, a great deal of expression, slight under-neck, moderate trot... His products featured best as breeding stock, especially dams, but also a good number of licensed sons that laid the basis for successful upgrading in Holstein. All his porducts made pleasant riding horses, were easy to ride, willing workers, with a very good, honest temperament."