{"id":22870,"date":"2015-04-29T16:00:58","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T06:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=22870"},"modified":"2017-02-10T10:29:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T23:29:33","slug":"world-cup-jumping-of-blood-books-and-daily-standings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2015\/04\/world-cup-jumping-of-blood-books-and-daily-standings\/","title":{"rendered":"2015 World Cup Jumping Final \u2013 Of blood, books and daily standings\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Hector looks at the breeding of the jumpers who made it to the Final\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

It comes as no surprise that Kannan was the dominating sire of the 2015 World Cup final \u2013 siring not only the winner, Albfuehren\u2019s Paille (out of a Dollar du Murier mare) but also the third placed Molly Malone \u2013 this time out of a mare of solid Dutch breeding, Cavalier \/ Pion. Mr Blue also put two horses into the final top ten \u2013 Simon (out of a Polydox mare) and VDL Zirocco Blue NOP (out of a Voltaire mare). For Pleasure had two in the top 25 \u2013 Barron (Nabab de R\u00eave) was 9th and Coral Reef Follow Me (Sandro) 22nd.<\/p>\n

\"Kannan\"<\/p>\n

Kannan<\/em><\/p>\n

The old master, Contender continues to shine, siring Cool and Easy (Riverman), 18th, Carlo (Cascavelle), 13th , while his sons, Contango and Contendro were both represented in the world cup lineup.<\/p>\n

I have always been something of a studbook snob, and looked down on mere registries as money-making exercises and the refuge for horses that couldn\u2019t get papers anywhere else. As I learnt more and more of the imperfections of the Holy Grail of the \u2018proper\u2019 studbooks, the licensing \/ performance test routine I started to wonder. Many (most?) of the world\u2019s very best sires were either failed at their licensing, or scored very badly in their performance tests, while many licensing winners, and for that matter performance test winners, turned out to be forgettable flops. Now the success of horses with the very fancy passports provided by the Anglo European Studbook gives more cause for re-consideration.<\/p>\n

The AES is the studbook of choice for two of the horses at the top of the Hippomundo continuously updated world rankings. As I write: John Whitaker\u2019s star stallion, Argento is 3rd, while Ben Maher\u2019s top liner mare, Diva II (out of a mare by the Zeus son, Berlioz) is 12th. Others in the AES fold include, mare sensation, Bertram Allen\u2019s Molly Malone (23rd on the rankings); Anton (by a second generation AES stallion, Marome MV out of a mare by another AES stallion, Orville ) who with Jaime Azcarraga won the AIG One Million Dollar in California, while Bertram Allen rode the\u00a0 AES approved stallion, Romanov (Heartbreaker) to win the Dortmund Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

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

Argento<\/em><\/p>\n

And before we get the letters from outraged AES members I do know the organization conducts stallion gradings etc, but it is still a private enterprise book with a wide open entry policy\u2026<\/p>\n

The somewhat checkered history of the organization is outlined in Celia Clarke\u2019s recent article in Breeding News April 2015. She writes that the organization has been viewed with suspicion for a number of reasons including the name change from Anglo Dutch Breeders Association, the \u2018capricious\u2019 changes of location from England to Ireland and back again\u2019, the \u2018complete lack of a mare grading procedure\u2019,\u00a0 an absence of a proper membership structure with the organization run as \u2018pretty much a one man band\u2019, and the tendency to run \u2018private\u2019 stallion gradings where the lack of results\u2019 transparency often led to rather public criticism of the level of assessment involved.<\/p>\n

After a series of legal wranglings in 2013, AES had underwent major changes, a new studbook manager, showjumper and breeder, Steve Lamb, was appointed along with a board lead by multi stallion owner, Kees van den Oetelaar, with his nephew, Joris as head of the stallion grading panel. According to Celia the signs of improvement, particularly in the area of stallion gradings, are good, although democracy would still seem fairly remote. \u201cJoris and Steve are keen to stress that from now on anyone who buys a passport or registers a horse with them is a member of the AES, and that shortly all members will be receiving a regularly printed magazine to keep them informed of what is happening alongside the frequently updated website. A members\u2019 meeting and an extensive consultation process with members to ensure that the studbook is fulfilling their needs and going in the right direction is also planned for later in the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does all this miss the point? Perhaps the organization\u2019s great strength, and what has enabled it to flourish, is simply the ease with which papers can be purchased, and this open door has attracted some super talented horses that may have fallen between the cracks of the more rigid rules of the established books.<\/p>\n

Right now AES sits at the top of the Hippomundo top ten studbook rankings, followed by Westfalia, SWB, sBs, Hannover, Holstein, Selle Fran\u00e7ais, Oldenburg and Oldenburg\u00a0Jumping.<\/p>\n

The other surprise in the studbook stakes has been the emergence of the traditionally smaller and less influential Belgian book, the sBs, currently in 4th place on the World standings, with Hello Sanctos (Quasimodo vd Molendreef \/ Quidam de Revel) In Las Vegas, the sBs was home to Penelope Leprevost\u2019s Vagabond de la Pomme (Vigo d\u2019Arsouilles \/ For Pleasure) in 2nd, as well as Lucy Davis\u2019\u00a0 Barron, 9th, and McLain Ward\u2019s Rothchild (Artos \/ Elegant), 20th in the final standings. Currently the sBs stands in fourth place on the Hippomundo standings, with their rivals, and traditionally the dominating stud book of Belgium, the BWP, ranked 14th. However it might be noted that the sBs earnings of \u20ac2,055,737 come from 265 horses for an average of \u20ac7,757 \u2013 while the BWP\u2019s 1186 horses, have earned \u20ac4,993,593 at an average of \u20ac4,210.<\/p>\n

\"HelloSanctos\"<\/a>Hello Sanctos<\/em><\/p>\n

The sBs was founded in 1920 and is the oldest Belgian studbook. According to its rather smart website (www.sbsnet.be)<\/i>: \u201cIt aimed to encourage the breeding of horses mainly destined for the mounted Belgian Army\u2026 As of 1930, army and transportation are motorised, which reduces the outlets. At the same time, the Association changes name and becomes \u2018the Belgian Half-Blood\u2019, which promoted the breeding of a lighter saddle horse, which was more elegant by using sires closer to Thoroughbreds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second world war slows down and reduces the Society\u2019s activities, although it continued to register foals… Adapting to the new circumstances, the requirements of the invader and the needs of the Belgian customers, the breeders start breeding carriage horses. The requisitions of the German army impoverishes the number and quality of the Belgian half-blood horses, and at the end of the second world war, only a few mares and some trotter stallions are left: it is therefore necessary to rebuild breeding farms and to improve the remaining ones, by stimulating the breeders to breed half-blood horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interest in equestrian sports, as well in Belgium as abroad, pushes the breeders to improve their breeding (or to create new ones) by importing mares and stallions of quality, often of prominent origin (mainly French but also English, Irish, German…) and they finally formed the kernel of the breeding of the modern sports horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a reward for the accomplished efforts and the obtained results after half a century of existence, our Association becomes \u2018Royal Society\u2019 in 1967.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sBs registers about 1000 foals a year. Like the BWP, and for that matter, the neighbouring \u2018giant\u2019, the KWPN, the sBs has a relatively open book, registering foals by stallions approved in other WBFSH recognized books. The sBs stallion ranks include Kannan, Nabab de R\u00eave, Kashmir van Schuttershof and Vigo d\u2019Arsouilles. Indeed, the sBs proudly note that it was the first studbook to recognize these outstanding stallions, later other studbooks followed the sBs\u00a0lead\u2026<\/p>\n

The results in Las Vegas produced no surprises in the sires stakes, but the new minute-by-minute standings, seem to be giving some of the lesser known studbooks their chance to shine with some rather surprising\u00a0results.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the June 2015 issue of The Horse Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher Hector analyses the winning bloodlines at the 2015 World Cup Jumping final…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22874,"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":[715],"tags":[402,780,85],"class_list":["post-22870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-big-issues","tag-christopher-hector","tag-jumping-breeding","tag-warmblood-breeding"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22870","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22870"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32415,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22870\/revisions\/32415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}