Story Chris Hector
Photos Roz Neave
I guess I am a sucker for people who know about, and want to talk about horses. When we apologized for taking Jens Meyer away from running his busy stallion station, he was kind enough to tell us, that this was a little holiday for him, talking to people from other countries who were also interested in horses.
Jens is only a young man, but he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of performance horse breeding – particularly Hanoverian breeding. He is the sort of guy you could listen to for hours and hours and learn so much of the art of horse breeding.
He was, no surprise, bred to breed.

"My great grand-father was a horse breeder, where we live everyone breeds horses. My father was the breeder of Damnatz, who was the winner of the stallion licensing in 1978 – this is something a breeder has once in his life."
To learn more about the art of breeding, Jens went to the State Stud Celle where he spent twelve years before he came home to take over the running of the family farm:
"For the first couple of years, I had dairy cows but it became hard to earn money with the cows and I went to horses and the stallion breeding station."
That doesn’t sound so radical today when even the most hidebound Hanoverian breeders can be found using private stallions, but back then private stallions were almost unknown in the breeding area – that was something that happened in Oldenburg, not in Hanover!
"In the beginning it was just a joke. This is a very conservative area, the breeders are very traditional, and they went to the State Station – there was no chance for a private stallion. The breeders who used my stallions, they were outcasts!"
"I started with Grömitz, a son of Gimpel – I had ridden Gimpel a lot at the State Stud, and I liked him. I competed with him at 1.50 classes but you could also ride him passage. I liked him. Later I sold Grömitz to a jumping rider, Reiner Schmerglatt, and in the first year he rode him, he won the Hanoverian Championship, and went on to be a very good jumper."
"Then I bought Cashman. When he was five years old – he was fifth in the World Championships in Zangersheide, at seven he won his first 1.50 class. I rode him for one year myself, but now I give him to the better riders, I don’t have the time to train."
"He is a perfect cross with Thoroughbred mares, we have tried it a few times here in Germany - and one of those foals has already placed in international competition in Denmark. He had his first start in 1.50 classes in January – he is only seven years old – and he was fourth and sixth! He is out of a mare of the Persian Gulf line, a very successful Thoroughbred line in Germany."
"Cashman produces very scopey horses, you can see it in the Hanoverian Stallion Year Book, he has a ranking of over 150 for jumping and he has a lot of mares who have scored 8 or better for jumping in the mares performance test."
"When you have seen one foal from him you have seen them all, they are all brown, with a little bit of white on their face, like him. He is now ranked one of the 40 top jumping stallions in the official German FN rankings."
"In South Africa, he is the sire of the South African champion, and in Ireland he has good horses. I am happy to have had him at my station for the past 9 seasons – this season he covered 63 mares, and that is not usual. In these days it is usual for a stallion to have only three years on the top and then he disappears, and for a jumping stallion it is very difficult to get mares. The problem now is all the breeders want a dressage stallions so we bought Dacaprio."

Dacaprio (pictured above with Jens' wife, Susanna) qualified for the Bundeschampionate – a great kick along for a stallion that seems to combine some of the ideal modern characteristics. He is by Davignon, that sensational moving son of Donnerhall, and out of a mare by Caprimond, a Trakehner stallion who competed Grand Prix himself, and regularly tops the rideability scores with his progeny.
"My idea was to find a stallion that could breed foals that looked great. When I was at the State Stud, we had Absatz, and it was always easy to sell his foals because they were so pretty – and this was my idea with Dacaprio, and it works the same. We have a lot of W line blood here in our area and it is a very good combination with Dacaprio."
"He is very useful to get the modern riding type. I think this comes from Caprimond – he is the sire with the best ranking for type. The children of Dacaprio all seem to get his neck and his pretty face. He is very good with the W bloodlines; you get the very good gaits from the W line but most of the time it is difficult to get the type. Most breeders here use him to get the modern type."
But the private stallion owner cannot sit still – it is a hugely competitive market out there and the breeders expect the latest and greatest for their mares. Florestan has been setting the world alight in Westfalia for almost a decade now, and his son Fidermark, has proven an exceptional talent, competing at Grand Prix level with Marlies van Baalen. Jens hit gold when he found a colt, Falsterbo (pic below) by Fidermark, but with those super sires of Hanover – Brentano II and Akzent II on his dam side. And of course, Fidermark is out of a mare by the first Hanoverian stallion of the year, Werther!

"We were getting more and more mares, so I bought Falsterbo. He was bred in Hanover. Herbert Meyer, the breeder of Weltmeyer, had him at the licensing, and I bought him. I wanted to get those good Westfalien bloodlines for Hanover."
"With the mares that are not good with Dacaprio, I hope I can use Falsterbo. Very very good movement – he is also good in jumping, he is only four but you can ride a 1.30 metre course with him no problem. It is not difficult to find the right mare for him, most of his foals are liver chestnuts, and with white but not too much white. His foals all seem to have exceptional movement. He has what we call the ‘new movement’, with the knee and with the extension, and I think that is good for the highest-level dressage classes, it makes collection easier for them. I also like his brilliant canter – he is only four but he does the changes so easily. You find four times in his pedigree, Hanoverian state premium mares, and that makes it very sure to get the type and the correct conformation, as well as this very exciting modern movement."

The Stud Farm of Jens Mayer is very much a family business. His wife Susanna has to finish processing the morning’s semen collection in her little laboratory, before she rides Dacaprio and Falsterbo for us – and all of her own initiative, their daughter, Suea saddles up her four year old pony stallion, Scampolo and joins mum in the arena to give a demonstration of her own (it is some measure of just how quiet Dacaprio is, that while we are talking inside, Suea has got Dacaprio out of his box for the final photo shoot and is quietly giving him a pick of grass…)
You meet lots of wonderful people travelling the world talking about horses – people like Jens, his family – and not forgetting, his wonderful horses. And you get to call it ‘work’!

This article first appeared in the December 2002 edition of The Horse Magazine