{"id":19827,"date":"2015-01-03T16:44:04","date_gmt":"2015-01-03T05:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=19827"},"modified":"2018-05-07T17:11:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T07:11:20","slug":"andrew-nicholson-and-the-horses-of-the-asociacion-national-de-criadores-del-caballo-de-deporte-espanol-cde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2015\/01\/andrew-nicholson-and-the-horses-of-the-asociacion-national-de-criadores-del-caballo-de-deporte-espanol-cde\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Nicholson and the horses of Ramon and Ana Beca"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TilkumAvernerNicholson\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Andrew Nicholson and Tilikum at Lion d’Angers\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

British based Kiwi eventer, Andrew Nicholson, has had enormous success with the products of one of the world\u2019s most obscure studbooks, that of the Asociaci\u00f3n National de Criadores del Caballo de Deporte Espanol (CDE).<\/p>\n

The horses tend to be a wild old mix of Thoroughbred, Holsteiner and Hannoverian, on the base of Spanish bred mares. At the 2013 World Championships for Young Eventing Horses, Andrew\u00a0rode Tilikum, bred by Ana Beca, in the Seven-Year-Old championship. The gelding is by Averner, Oldenburg branded, but Holsteiner bred (Acord II \/ Landadel) out of Nefertiti, who is by the Landgraf son, Lacros (sire of Nicholson\u2019s 2013 Lexington winner, Quimbo) out of a mare by Florian xx \u2013 then it gets into uncharted territory, and Horse Telex ends up with a 40.04% TB, followed by a question mark\u2026\u00a0 Tilikum is a bit wild in his test and ends up 41st on 53.1.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Quimbo, another product, competing at Pau in 2013<\/em><\/p>\n

Since the CDE Stud Book commenced in 1993, the number of foals registered has gradually increased to the stage where it has been registering an average of 1000 births per year, although numbers have decreased in the past years due to the economic situation. Success has come with the eventers and the CDE ranked in the top ten for eventing on the WBFSH studbook list for 2012, thanks largely to Andrew Nicholson. I asked him how came lucked upon this book that seems to exist for the purpose of providing Andrew with wonderful horses\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Mitsubishi<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Andrew and Nereo…<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI met one of the Spanish riders, Ramon Beca, he\u2019s the breeder of Nereo, Armada, all those ones, when he was eventing in England. I started keeping his horse for him because he is a serious businessman. The last horse he rode, the one he rode at the WEG and the Olympics, I used to keep it at my home and work it during the week, and he would fly over to compete on it. He told me he had a Thoroughbred stallion, Fines, and he was trying to breed showjumpers. The first one I had was Fenicio, he\u2019d been tried as a showjumper, got to a metre thirty five, Ramon bought him back and sent him to me to train as an eventer for him to ride. That\u2019s pretty much how it started, by the time Fenicio got to the top level, Ramon had retired, so I rode him \u2013 and immediately went over to Spain and started picking up all the brothers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen came Armada, who has done an awful lot of four stars, Nereo, Oplitas, all full brothers, there was a filly as well, she never evented, she is more valuable as a brood mare. Then Ramon introduced me to his sister, Ana Beca, who is breeding more pure Warmbloods \u2013 that\u2019s the breeding of Quimbo, and the one I have here, Tilikum. She is supplying me too now, I go and see all her youngsters. No-one seems to want to buy them, so I buy them when they are three years old and take it from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

They have been extraordinarily successful\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mares from Ramon and Anna Beca are all related but the fathers are very different. I\u2019ve got a new supplier now, Luis Alverez Cevera, he bred Jet Set, the horse I rode in the six year old class. He is no relation to the Beca clan, but he was bred in Spain, Luis jumped the father, Nordica. The mother is an Argentinian Thoroughbred that went to Spain. Luis bred Jet Set for a showjumper, he jumped him last year as a five year old, and he said I should have it as an event horse, it is not a top showjumper. He has only been eventing this year, but he is good, very good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there a type or are they all different?<\/p>\n

\u201cRamon\u2019s horses are all similar in their type and their behavior, they are quite tough horses. Tough in their minds and tough in their bodies. Ana Beca\u2019s horses are very soft and gentle, but good performers. She is using very good stallions, proven stallions. Ramon\u2019s Fines was a hardened racehorse, he raced a lot. He has a new stallion now, a French horse, he raced in Spain but he raced a lot, they are hardy sorts. Ana uses a lot of frozen semen, I\u2019ve got one at home by Clinton. She uses good bloodlines.\u201d<\/p>\n

You are not worried about getting too much Warmblood\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Rolex<\/a><\/p>\n

Andrew and Quimbo…<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cQuimbo has won a four star already, Nereo is probably one of the most consistent horses in the world. For sure they are not like Thoroughbreds, you\u2019ve got to gallop them a lot more, you\u2019ve got to gallop them a lot harder than a Thoroughbred. I think that\u2019s where a lot of riders get a little disheartened, they try to do the same preparation that you would with a Thoroughbred and they haven\u2019t got the engine for that. That\u2019s why I like to buy them when they are young, so I can start galloping them when they are relatively young, stretching their lungs, getting them hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you have to teach them to gallop?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not so much teaching them, it\u2019s more just changing the engine from a Mini-Minor into something a bit bigger. You can\u2019t get them to a Ferrari but it\u2019s like a mechanic tinkering with the engine and squeezing a bit more juice out of it. But you can\u2019t just rock up and think you can whiz around a four-star on them if they have missed some serious work. They don\u2019t work like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dressage is good?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dressage is very easy, very good. They\u2019ve got serious minds on them, they are bred to be competition horses, whereas a Thoroughbred is bred to be a racehorse. The modern Warmbloods have a lot of blood in them, they are a little more sensitive in some ways, a bit hotter than a lot of Thoroughbreds but if you can channel it right, they are willing to work for you in the right way in the dressage arena and the showjumping, cross country is the same. They are definitely not like a full Thoroughbred but they do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

When everyone is hunting everywhere to find horses\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a never-ending supply. The one I\u2019m riding, Jet Set, I tried to get half a dozen riders to buy it last year. I\u2019d liked him as a three year old but then he was going to be a showjumper and too expensive, then when Luis told me he wasn\u2019t going to be a showjumper, and this is jumping a metre thirty as a five year old, not Mickey Mouse stuff, I tried to get riders to look at him, and they wouldn\u2019t. I\u2019ve got lots at home, they are all related, a lot of the riders probably think they are in-bred, but I\u2019ve got brothers to most of them, Jet Set\u2019s full-brother is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JetSetNicholson\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jet Set at the World Young Horse champs…<\/em><\/p>\n

Do you think that is where riders have to go now, to get involved in the production side of their horses?<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure. A lot of the riders are too fussy, when they look at a young horse they want it to look like their four star horse, they don\u2019t have the idea of looking at raw talent. You only get that with experience, I\u2019ve made a lot of mistakes but now I am getting good ones and most of them as three year olds. Often unbroken but they loose jump them, you see them move and I know their pedigrees.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eventing rider, Andrew Nicholson talks about the Spanish breeding program that keeps producing top horses for him to ride…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,722],"tags":[522,1021,1020,1022],"class_list":["post-19827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eventing","category-the-breeders","tag-andrew-nicholson","tag-asociacion-national-de-criadores-del-caballo-de-deporte-espanol-cde","tag-breeding-eventers","tag-ramon-beca"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19827"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40989,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19827\/revisions\/40989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}