{"id":34881,"date":"2021-08-24T13:21:55","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T03:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=34881"},"modified":"2022-03-27T10:08:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-26T23:08:29","slug":"volker-steinkraus-carrying-on-the-butts-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2021\/08\/volker-steinkraus-carrying-on-the-butts-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Volker Steinkraus – carrying on the Butts’ legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Butt’s Lemontree (Photo – Marianne Schw\u00f6bel)<\/em><\/p>\n

The 2021 Herwart von der Decken show\u00a0<\/strong>in Verden was a triumph for Hamburg doctor, Professor Volker Steinkraus, who is carrying on the legacy of one of the pioneers of eventing horse breedings, the late Friedrich Butt. Volker’s mare, Butt’s Lemontree took the prize for the champion half-blood mare.<\/p>\n

Lemontree is by Asagao xx out of an Heraldik mare \u00a0who not only goes back to the foundation mare Liebeslust like Andreas Dibowski\u2019s Olympic horses Leonas Dancer and FRH Butts Leon but also Charlotte Dujardin\u2019s ride, Mount St John Freestyle.<\/p>\n

Lemontree is the classic Butts formula, Thoroughbred over more Thoroughbred. When you analyse the pedigrees of stars like Butts Abraxxas, you find that they are nearly all\u00a0Thoroughbred. Friedrich Butt proved you CAN breed eventers if you find the right blood.<\/p>\n

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Butts Abraxxas, 63\/64ths Thoroughbred, competing at London Games\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Like Mr Butt, Professor Steinkraus, discovered breeding eventers may bring fame, but it is unlikely to make you rich:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know anyone else who breeds just for eventing because there is not enough money in eventing horses. They breed dressage or jumping horses, and every now and then an eventer is just their by-product.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually it turns out that Mr Butt’s original intention was to breed horses to race on the beach!<\/p>\n

Where did Mr Butt get the ambition to breed eventers?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI never got to know him personally because he passed away six or seven years ago. He himself was a very passionate rider of races on the beach of the North Sea at Cuxhaven. When the tide is away, they race along the beach, and he was very active in racing his half Thoroughbred horses. He rode all his mares himself, and starting with a Hanoverian half bred \u2013 a half Thoroughbred horse \u2013 and then he always brought blood to blood. Normally in the German breeder\u2019s opinion, you don\u2019t want too much blood, because they think the horses don\u2019t get enough fundament, and they are crazy in the head. They try to combine Thoroughbred horses with Warmblood. Friedrich Butt really followed his own opinion to bring blood to blood. So he put a Thoroughbred stallion to his half bred mare \u2013 so you get 75% Thoroughbred, and if the foal was a filly, he would breed her to a full Thoroughbred horse, so he raised percentage until he ends up with horses, that out of eight ancestors, seven are Thoroughbreds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe raised and raised the blood, and happened to produce horses that are very clear in the head, and they all can jump. Butt only selected Thoroughbreds that were very good jumpers. He would never select Lauries Crusador, Butt\u2019s Thoroughbreds were always superb jumpers and he rode all his mares, himself. He could really tell \u2013 is this the kind of mare I want to breed with?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0(To read more about Fredrich Butt go to: http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2014\/12\/friedrich-butt-breeding-eventers<\/a>\/)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Butts Leoness, one of the L line mares, and sister to Leon<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe probably had four or five mares. When the mares were three he would breed them, then he would put them into the sport \u2013 and he had a very good strategy. He would give the young mare to an unknown rider, like Andreas Dibowski was then, and he would say, \u2018I\u2019m going to give you 10% of the horse, and with each month you work the horse, you get 1%. It\u2019s a great idea, I do the same thing. I give a young rider, 10% of the horse, and he takes the horse and from day one, this is your horse, and 10% of the horse is yours as a present. With each month you work the horse, you own one percent more. After three years, you own 36% in addition to the 10% I gave you at the start, so we are approximately even after three years. Then we can decide what we are going to do with the horse. Are we going to sell the horse? Or are you going to buy the horse \u2013 you can get it for little money, the price we agreed at the start.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Andreas Dibowski and Butts Leon at the WEG in 2010<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem for the breeder is that you start to sit on all these horses and you end up with not enough stables. So you have to get rid of some horses and the horses are best sold at four or five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

story continues below the advertisement<\/em><\/p>\n

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It was more or less by chance, that Professor Steinkraus ended up carrying on the Butt\u2019s legacy:<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to buy a horse for myself and I went to the Butt\u2019s yard and I got to know his widow. He\u2019d only passed away half a year before, and we were talking about the horses, and I said \u2018what are you going to do with the horses?\u2019 She said \u2018I don\u2019t really know, probably sell them to different people\u2019. I had one older breeder with me, and he said, \u2018Ann-Kathrin, why don\u2019t you sell all the horses to Volker Steinkraus, because he has a yard, and he has the fields and we keep the pack together. I found that a very charming idea, we agreed, so I bought ten horses from Mr Butt\u2019s widow\u2026 and I only went there to buy one horse!\u201d<\/p>\n

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A line mares – the line Abbraxxas is from, as you can tell…<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone, all my family, thought I\u2019m crazy, because I\u2019m a dermatologist, I work full time in medicine \u2013 but my passion is horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I came home with all these horses, but this yard as you can see is ideal to breed horses. From every window you can look into the fields and see the horses. Then I got to know Dr Schade, and he said: \u2018you know in Hanover we have one problem, we don\u2019t have enough blood especially Thoroughbreds that are good jumpers. Why don\u2019t we treat this as a little microcosm to produce Hanoverian Thoroughbreds for the Hanoverian breeding system\u2019, and I thought this was a very charming idea. I am very interested in Eventing, I\u2019ve ridden at the German championships myself, I was never very successful, but I was at the European championship for the Rural Riders and one time won the bronze individual medal, so all my life I have been passionate about eventing. I thought, you have to pick up on the idea when it comes, even if it wasn\u2019t the original plan. This was five or six years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

more follows<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cSo I had all these mares and young horses \u2013 and one was Avedon who was the eventing champion at the Bundeschampionate in 2008 as a five year old. I raised him, and my interest is that the horses go into the sport. I\u2019ve sold two to Andreas Dibowski, one was Avedon, and the other I bred myself, with one of Butt\u2019s mares with Sunlight as the father. I tried to follow Butt\u2019s idea to really bring blood to blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just once, Professor Steinkraus, ignored the master breeder\u2019s dictum:<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried an experiment three years ago, I brought half-blood stallions to Butt\u2019s mares. It worked fine, but the years we had blood to blood was better. When I go to shows with the foals, and the breeders say to me, how can you be so courageous to bring blood to blood? I say, it\u2019s not mine, I just follow Butt\u2019s idea and he was a great man \u2013 it is an homage to Butt. I\u2019m very sad I never got to meet him. He must have been a very sensitive man who was really a very brave horsemen just to follow his idea and not listen to anybody, just breed blood to blood. That\u2019s all I do, and Dr Schade from the Hanoverian Verband gives me great support. Schade says \u2018this is a wonderful idea, and why don\u2019t you follow it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe horses that come out of these mares are strong horses, even if you breed to Thoroughbreds, they have enough fundament, they are solid horses.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I have two four year olds from my own breeding program. Butt\u2019s Ashton with Dibrowski, he is by Sunlight from an Heraldik mare out of a Star Regent \/ Shostakovich mare. The other is also a Sunlight out of an Heraldik mare from the Kronenkranich \/ Wiesenbaum, that\u2019s one of the most successful lines in Butt\u2019s breeding system. I bought from Mrs Butt, four progeny from Andora.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Professor Steinkraus and Butts Alida – a representative of the A line<\/em><\/p>\n

But when you bought the Butt\u2019s horses, they were not famous as half of an Olympic gold medal team?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, no, I bought them six years ago, we were far away from being so successful. Butt just did everything in a very natural way, not with a lot of money and big stables. His farm was in a playful manner almost, riding his own horses, the system he had was in his head \u2013 ride the mares and find out if they were good to ride, and then take Thoroughbred stallions that were good jumpers \u2013 every once in a while there are Thoroughbreds that are good jumpers. He did a lot with Star Regent, Wiesenbaum and Kronenkranich. In the last years, he was very heavy on Heraldik, almost all the pedigrees of the horses feature Heraldik. He made some experiments with the Hungarian Thoroughbred, Markus Deak, this year we will bring two mares to Markus Deak, and two to Sunlight. We have the full-sister to Butts Leon, Butts Leoness, she belongs to my sister-in-law, and this year we will breed her to Markus Deak. We have some very nice Sunlight foals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy with the results of the first couple of years. As you know, in breeding, things don\u2019t come easy. The year before last, we lost two foals out of four, that threw us back, but I think the system works well. The horses are very clear in the head, and we are very proud to be able to continue this Butt\u2019s idea \u2013 he has really revolutionised the Hanoverian system for breeding eventing horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Another successful eventer bred by Volker Steinkraus is Lennox (Sunlight xx \/ Heraldik xx), a three star winner with Michael Jung.<\/p>\n

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Michael Jung and Lennox – bred by Volker Steinkraus, carrying on the Butts legacy and 99.86% Thoroughbred…\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lennox’s sire, Sunlight xx and to find more about the dam sire, Heraldik click<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Interested in breeding sporthorses? \u00a0– you’ll love our breeders’ club<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a victory for Volker Steinkraus in the great mare show at Verden with his half-blood mare – but it was also a triumph for one of the first, and most successful, breeders of eventers, Friedrich Butt…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":60306,"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":[81,715,722],"tags":[810,2237,787,2238],"class_list":["post-34881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-the-big-issues","category-the-breeders","tag-eventing-breeding","tag-friedrich-butt","tag-hanoverian-breeding","tag-volker-steinkraus"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34881","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=34881"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62765,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34881\/revisions\/62765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}