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Gaspari
Born 1949 - died 1975, 163 cm
Breeder - Sten Hummerhielm

 

			Tautropfen
		Humanist (Trak)	Halbe
	Parad		Landgraf (Han)
		Musette	Mandelkrahe (Han)
Gaspari			Sommensanger
		Haffner	Jenta
	Russi		Ruster
		Russette	Irminia

Gaspari was one of the first stallions to come out of the breeding barn and into the competition arena. He represented Sweden in the dressage at both the 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games – and, moving back to the breeding barn, then sired Liselott Linsenhof’s Piaff, an individual gold medalist at the 1972 Olympic Games.
Another son, Elektron also competed successfully in international Grand Prix dressage competition before being sold to Germany and then to the USA in 1982. Elektron’s full brother Herkules was on the Swedish dressage team, and went on to sire five approved stallions, and 70 studbook mares. Gaspari’s son, Gassendi was sold to Germany where he was ridden by Herbert Rehbein, placing 105 times in Grand Prix dressage. Emir with Herbert Kuckluck, was another who spread the fame of the Swedish dressage horse in Germany.
Gaspari is the dam sire of 1988 World Cup Dressage champion, Gauguin de Lully, the sire of current Grand Prix competitor Mr de Lully. He also appears on the dam line of current Swedish Grand Prix star, Briar.
All this leads to the Swedish maxim: "Buy any dressage horse you like, just make sure it has Gaspari in the pedigree."
Gaspari’s sire was Parad, who, like Kokard the sire of the famous Swedish stallion, Drabant, was by the imported Trakhner horse Humanist, Parad’s dam was the Hanoverian Musette. Once again we find Trakehner on the dam line – Russi’s sire Haffner was by the imported Trakehner, Sommensanger – the dam sire of Drabant.
According to the CEO at Flyinge, Bjorn Leander, the Swedes have always relied on imported blood: “The original stock was mainly German and Russian, Trakehners and Arabs and Thoroughbreds from England… We see ourselves as breeding a European Warmblood – the difference, for example, between Holstein and Hanover, is not as big as it used to be. We want to breed an international horse. Of course we have some good old Swedish mare lines but at the very beginning all of these lines come from the Hannoverian and the Trakehner horses that were imported in the 1920’s.”
The Stud at Flyinge was founded in 1658 and when most of Europe was breeding heavy horses for agriculture, Flying was a source of riding horses. From 1100 to the 1940’s the breeding aim was horses for the cavalry and the cavalry were still buying horses in the 1970’s but by then, the main breeding aim had switched to breeding sporthorses…
Gaspari is one of the horses credited with saving the Swedish breed by finding a new market as horses were phased out of the ranks of the military.
The famous trainer at Flyinge, Yngve Viebke came up with the perfect sales strategy – take our top stallion to the Olympic Games and show the world what we can do! Gaspari starred at Rome in 1960 and suddenly riders were coming from all over the world to buy his offspring. Once again mares were being bred, but this time to produce sport horses.
Viebke is remembered for the shows at the yearly Flyinge Days, the annual display where the staff showed the stallions and mares. One year Viebke appeared with three famous Flyinge stallions, riding one horse and having two on long lines in front. He was riding Piaff, having Immer in between and Gaspari in the lead. When he made them all do piaffe and passage, it was sensational!
Now Gaspari rests under his headstone at Flyinge in the Chestnut Courtyard, the famous outdoor ring in front of the executive villa, where he and Yngve Viebke gave their famous performances… and he will be remembered as one of the first – if not the first – of the dressage stallions who made their names as competitors first, sires second.

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