In the high powered world of European jumping horse breeding, Arnaud Evain is a force to be reckoned with. Creative, visionary and always bubbling with new ideas, Arnaud has been a major player in the establishment of FENCES, France's premier young jumping horse auction. He is a recognized as an authority on breeding, and is the author of a marvellous book - The Matrilineal Lines of the French Jumping horse. The first edition was a huge thing that required its own stand - and a whooping great stack of Francs to purchase it. But ever the lateral thinker, Arnaud produced another edition, made up of all the pages, folded in quarters and neatly boxed. Smart huh? Arnaud also stands the stallion Cabdula de Tillard and is the agent in France for the semen of top sires like Voltaire. He has judged young horse classes at many major competitions in Europe, and luckily for us he has agreed to travel to Australia to judge at our Dressage and Jumping with the Stars show in November. Here are some of Arnaud's views on jumping breeding right now...
Where is breeding in France now - is it more of the same?
"Like in the soccer, we are the champions. But breeding is not a fashion every year; it is a longterm effort. Our recent victory with four stallions in the World Championships is very encouraging. It means that we still have very scopey horses, very careful horses with blood enough but breeding is a permanent effort, where you receive the results of your efforts, ten, twelve years after you produce foals. France stays one of the three top studbooks in Europe, that we knew before Jerez." The four stallions atierez were traditional French blood, not from the influx of new blood over the post few years...
"But that is because it is a long term effort. We started to introduce new blood in the French studbook, twelve years ago, for the first six or seven years, the breeders were suspicious, we only really started to use the best stallions of the other European studbooks with significant numbers of mares, five years ago. So let's talk about it in seven years time."
So in three WEGs time there will be more genetic diversity in the French team?
"Yes, and if you can get a bet on the French team for the WEG in 12 years time - I don't know where the WEG will be in 2014, but if you can find a good English bookmaker, bet on the French for then."
At the moment if you look at the German, Dutch, Belgian, even American teams, and they are riding horses with blood from all over Europe mixed together and the French are the only ones riding with a real national flavour?
"I think we will keep our chauvinist dimension, and I don't say that negatively. We will keep some pure bloodlines like a painter needs to keep some black and some white on his palette but already we have the finger in the mixing machine. If you take the top 25 stallions in France, you will find Cabdula, who is the son of a German stallion with a French mare. You will find Concorde, a Dutch stallion, you will find Hastings, the son of a Thoroughbred..."

"The mixing procedure is a long story, the Selle Fran�ais is a mix between Thoroughbred, Trotters, old Warmblood horses, and we just add a new colour to the palette of the painter. I think the studbook is made by the people - of course by the genes of the stallion - but also by the breeders. Our breeders might not like the same qualities as the Dutch breeders and might use Concorde for a different purpose from the Dutch, but they make the mix in the end." Have the outside stallions that have worked in France, been the bloodlines coming home - like Car de Ia Bry�re who was born Selle Fran cais? 'It is too early to say that. I think the clever use of foreign blood is to try to improve our average population while keeping our particularity. The strong point of our French horses is their natural ability in jumping, and the way they can do what they did the day before - you don't have to teach them every morning how to do it, once they learn, they can do it. We have the power; we have scopey horses, that is also important. What we need to do is improve the rideability, the quality of the mares, and the quality of the gaits. So we should use the stallions in the other books who have proven they can pass on their jumping ability and improve the mouth and the movement. Just to find a new colour in the palette, not to change our blue for their blue, but if they have a pink that doesn't exist in our palette, then we should use it." You've been to Australia and New Zealand several times, there has been quite a lot of resistance to French blood in Australasia what do you think the French stallions have to offer us?
"I think it is more a question of marketing. Where French blood is known it is like French food, once you have eaten it, you are addicted."
But we have many French restaurants and few French stallions in Australia?
"That's why we have to work on it. I really think they will work with your mares. We can see the first results of our breeding program in New Zealand and they are very encouraging. We started with Thoroughbred mares, and now we have our second generation. Like I said, it takes 10 to 12 years at least to start to realise what you do with breeding. We only started in New Zealand six years ago, but we are very confident. We started with quite a number of French stallions, but we are focussing on some I Love You fillies with stallions like Fetiche du Pas (by Le Tot de Semilly out of an AlmŽ mare, and Cabdula de Tillard (the son of Abdullah from the full sister of Jalisco), Oberon du Moulin (who is by Laudanum and is the sire of Canute), those have been the three stallions we have been using in the past two years. This year we have 24 pregnancies..."
Looking to France at the moment, which do you think are the most important stallions? "Quidam de Revel is naturally the number one in the world today but there are many young horses coming. We are very pleased with the jumping ability of the Fetiche du Pas youngsters. Back to my own interests, I am also very pleased with the results of Cabdula, he was the leading French stallion last year for the percentage of horses participating on the Young Horse circuit to qualify for Fontainebleau. The normal qualifying rate is 15¡/a, his qualifying rate was 56% one of the highest in France, at least he is producing careful horses, the eldest are six, so we will see how they go in the future in the big competitions. There are others, Fermaguy, Flipadel from the National Stud, 8, 9 year old stallions that are very promising. They may not become great sires, but we have stallions to come behind Papillon Rouge, Le Tot de Semilly, Narcos and the younger generation of Dollar du MŸrier, Diamant de Semilly, Dollar de la Pierre, we have a third group pushing up, so the health of the French Studbook is good." Is the Thoroughbred still a big influence in French breeding?
"Now you have put your finger on it. It is a big problem. We need to use Thoroughbreds, and it is hard to find the right ones. The use of the Thoroughbred was an absolute must 30 years ago, so every Thoroughbred had his chance - so we got Laudanum, we get to Rantzau, we discover which bloodlines match with the French mares. It is much more difficult today as a stallion owner, to start with a Thoroughbred, when the breeders haven't seen the progeny out in the sport. So it is a vicious cycle to start with, and we have to break this vicious cycle, we need another Laudanum; we need one every ten or fifteen years. And not every Thoroughbred is a Laudanum so we need to try a few to find the right one."
Throughout Europe there is a lament that the traditional breeder is dying out and the new breeder is the hobby breeder who just takes notice of which stallion has the most colourful advertisements. Is that the case in France? Is the knowledge being lost?
"I'm not sure how much knowledge is being lost with the change. Just because some of the traditional breeders who knew the horses very well are disappearing, it doesn't mean the knowledge is disappearing. Sure we have the same change in France, but the knowledge is still there, the new breeders need to get the knowledge, but the knowledge does not disappear. A lot of the newcomers in the breeding come with a lot of passion, more passion than the farmers used to have, so there is no danger there."
Is the market still good - prices good?
"Prices are very very bad for the normal horses and very very good for the top horses. It is still a game where there are more losers than winners, but as long as the good winners can win well, people will continue to play the game. The problem is that most of the breeders like to sell foals and most of the final buyers want a horse where they can press the button and go into the class. The problem of the economics of horse breeding is between those two extremes, and that is where everyone in Europe has to find solutions, the bridge between the two."
"Only the top one and a half percent go to the Sales at Fences and if you have bred one of those horses you don't have a problem, but for the rest making that transformation to the stage when the horse is ready for the buyer is too expensive, that's the problem." And if I come to France to buy a jumping horse, is it the some as in Germany where the minute they hear English being spoken, they think 'oho, American' and the price goes up five, six, ten times?
"Probably in some places in France it is the same but since I've been in the business it has got better. It was the case in 95% of the places, twenty years ago but the market is getting more and more transparent, even if it is not completely transparent. It is quite safe really, you should come and try."
So if I come to France wanting to buy a nice young stallion to take home to compete and use as a breeding horse in Australia, what will I pay?
"Depends on the age and level of preparation. If you want a nice stallion for the future, you will have to pay from eight to fifteen thousand Euros for a foal. From 2050,000 Euros as a three year old, and from 30-100,000 Euros for a five year old. Then you will get something that looks as if he deserves to go on the plane."
And mares?
"That is where the difference can be made the technology of freezing semen makes it the case that male genetics can travel world wide where we are not able to fly embryos. The difference between the breeders in the world will depend on their knowledge and the quality of their female genes because everyone in the world can buy a straw from Quidam de Revel but not everyone in the world can breed the fullsister to Quidam de Revel. Apologies to the ladies but fillies are less expensive than stallions, the females are 30 to 50% less."
Do you go to an auction, or private breeders or UNIC?
"Go to the auction where your accent doesn't make any difference. When you put your finger up, as long as you don't wear your hat no-one will know you are Australian, or you go to an organization like UNIC who will help you get into touch with the right people - or you can just come and visit me."

This article first appeared in the August 2003 Horse Magazine