{"id":48004,"date":"2019-12-06T10:30:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T23:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=48004"},"modified":"2019-12-06T10:35:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T23:35:02","slug":"wbfsh-eventing-sires-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2019\/12\/wbfsh-eventing-sires-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"WBFSH Eventing Sires 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words and analysis – Gemma Alexander and Christopher Hector<\/h1>\n

The top ten list of eventing sires is no longer the almost random motley collection it once was. More and more breeders are looking to the eventing market and in the process finding sires likely to succeed, although as we will see, success as an eventing sire doesn’t require anything like the depth of performance and progeny that it takes to head the jumping or dressage standings…<\/p>\n

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The Anglo Arab, Ramzes, with the great breeder,\u00a0\u00a0Baron von Nagel<\/em><\/p>\n

For the fifth year running, Contendro I (Contender \/ Reichsgraf) comes out on top, and looking at the pedigree it is not so surprising. Contendro is strongly inbred to the Anglo Arab foundation sire, Ramzes AA through Ramiro with two crosses on his dam line, and then Ramiro again as Contender\u2019s dam sire. There is also a heady dose of Thoroughbred, with Tin Rod xx, Rantzau xx, and two crosses of Ladykiller xx.<\/p>\n

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fischerChipmunk FRH and Michael Jung at Aachen (Photo – Libby Law)<\/em><\/p>\n

His success rides largely on German eventing ace, Michael Jung’s fischerChipmunk FRH, out of a mare by the long time number one eventing sire, Heraldik xx, who heads the world standings. His second best performer, another Hanoverian, FRH Corrida (Espri) ranks 23rd, the next best, the Oldenburger, Chatwin (Oldtimer) is ranked 47th, then we have to go all the way down the list to 276th spot for his next representative, Cato 60 (Heraldik xx again).<\/p>\n

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Granfenstolz, and you guessed it, Michael Jung<\/em><\/p>\n

The second highest ranking goes to the Trakehner, Grafenstolz (Polarion \/ Camelot), a rare instance of a stallion deliberately promoted as an eventing sire. Contendro is still largely a showjumping producer, ranked 25th on this year’s WBFSH rankings. Grafenstolz won the six-year-old World Young Eventing horse championship, won at two-star, level and made it to three-star with Michi Jung in the saddle.<\/p>\n

While Contendro’s success has largely been over Hanoverian mares from his breeding career there, before he moved to France in 2013, Grafenstolz has had his success with mares from multiple studbooks. His most successful product has been with the 50th ranked Absolut Gold HDC, branded SF but out of the Thoroughbred mare, Belle Meralaise xx (Verglas xx). His top-ten includes two from Anglo-Arab mares, one from an Oldenburger, two Trakehners, one Danish (largely Trakehner bred), and two from the Sport Horse Breeding of Great Britain book.<\/p>\n

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Jaguar Mail<\/em><\/p>\n

Jaguar Mail (Hand in Glove xx \/ Laudanum xx) made it into the Swedish Olympic Showjumping team, but he has been more successful as an eventing sire. He too has had success with a variety of mares.<\/p>\n

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Vassily de Lassos and Andrew Hoy at Tryon (Photo – DigiShots)<\/em><\/p>\n

His most successful product is Ferreolus Lat (out of a mare by the Oldenburg stallion, Royal Dance out of a KWPN mare by Octaaf) a four-star eventer with Czech, Miloslave Prihoda (59th in the world) while his most exciting product is Andrew Hoy’s Anglo-Arab Vassily de Lassos (Jalienny) ranked 203rd in the world but who came achingly close to a bronze medal at the Tryon WEG.<\/p>\n

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Quite Easy<\/em><\/p>\n

It is somewhat ironic that Bernard le Courtois’ Haras de Brullemail, for so long a centre piece of French showjumping breeding, standing amongst others, the stallions Laudanum xx and Alm\u00e9, should have morphed into something of an eventing powerhouse. \u00a0Quite Easy was imported from Sweden to join Jaguar Mail on the stallion roster, and slots into fourth on the eventing sires ranking. Quite Easy was bred by one of Holstein’s master breeders, Harm Thormahlen. His sire is the great Selle Fran\u00e7ais, Quidam de Revel, but his dam, Birte II, is Holstein royalty. She is by the great Landgraf, out of the full-sister to Capitol.<\/p>\n

All ten of Quite Easy’s top eventers are branded Selle Fran\u00e7ais, with his most success product Sarah d’Argouges (Count Ivor xx) ranked 89th in the world. His next most successful, California Mail (Kalaska de S\u00e9milly) is ranked 428th). Sarah is a five-star eventer with S\u00e9bastien Cavaillon.<\/p>\n

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For all the Irish might like to romanticise about going back to their traditional breeding roots, the truth is nearly all their top performers have benefitted from an infusion of European blood. Fifth ranked Courage II (Capitol \/ Cor de la Bry\u00e8re) stood just two seasons in Ireland before his death, but produced a clutch of top eventers, none more successful than Ollie Townend’s Ballaghmor Class (out of a mare of unknown breeding), the number three-ranked eventer in the world. Courage II also led the Irish book into first place on the Eventing rankings.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, Casantos, the sire of Bayro, the number two-ranked eventer in the world, sits in the 39th spot on the eventing sires rankings. Ridden by Holland’s Tim Lips, Bayro is KWPN branded, Casantos is solidly Holsteiner (Cantos \/ Cassini I) while the dam is an interesting mix, by Corland out of a Gribaldi mare.<\/p>\n

After that the standings become less interesting. The sixth ranked stallion is the much-hyped Diarado (Diamant de S\u00e9milly \/ Corrado I), his most successful eventer is Dacapo (Canturo \/ Loutano), 117th in the world. Seventh is the Holsteiner, Ars Vivendi (Accord II \/ Aloube) his most successful competitor is the ‘Irish’ Santiago Bay, out of a mare by the Oldenburger, Aldatus. Santiago Bay is competed by Laura Collett and ranked 49th in the world.<\/p>\n

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The Hanoverian VIP Vinnie is ranked 280th in the world but that is enough to put his sire, Valentino into eighth on the sires standings. The Dutch bred Valentino (Belisar) is by Now or Never M by Voltaire, and both father and son brought that Voltaire blood back to Hanover. Vinnie is out of a mare by Grosso Z (Goliath \/ Furioso II). Valentino’s next highest ranked competitor is Victoria (Earl) in 509th.<\/p>\n

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Limmerick<\/em>\u00a0(Photo credit – Longherne Stud)<\/em><\/p>\n

Limmerick is ranked ninth, and despite the Irish name, he is solidly Holsteiner, by Lancer II out of a Caletto II mare, but he has been a valuable sire of eventers in the Emerald Isle. His best is the 93rd ranked Graf Liberty, out of a mare by another Holsteiner import to Ireland, Cavalier Royale (Cor de la Bry\u00e8re \/ Liguster).<\/p>\n

Rounding out the top ten we have another import to Ireland, the Oldenburger Obos Quality (by the Selle Fran\u00e7ais, Quick Star out of a mare by the Hanoverian, Domino). His most successful performer is Brookfield Quality, out of a Cavalier Royale mare, ranked 228th in the world.<\/p>\n

Notable among the top 10 eventing sires is the huge variance in the number of progeny of each: two of the stallions have in the vicinity of 2,000 offspring, while another two have less than 100 each.<\/p>\n

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This vast spread in offspring numbers makes the strike rate analysis of particular use for the eventers. Based on strike rate, the stand-out leader of the top 10 becomes Limmerick, with 7.5% of offspring having made it to 5* level (the old 4*), and 35.8% competing to at least 3* \/ old 2* level. Another stand out performer is Courage II, with 5.2% reaching 5* and 14.4% 3* or above. Interestingly, three of the top 10 eventing sires do not have a single competitor at the 5* level? One would assume this would be a fairly obvious prerequisite for inclusion? Things are clearly a little different in the eventing world\u2026<\/p>\n

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Surprisingly, the average blood level of the top 10 eventing sires is actually lower than that of the showjumpers, coming in at 46.8% to the jumpers\u2019 49.7%. There is, however, a much greater variance in the blood percentages of these stallions, as you would expect. The highest blood percentage is carried by Jaguar Mail (81.8%), while the lowest of the top 10 is OBOS Quality at 27.5%. This tells us one of two things: a) blood percentage is not as accurate an indicator of high-level performance as in showjumpers, or b) eventing breeding is a decade or so behind jumping breeding, in terms of still attempting to find the optimal blood concentration.<\/p>\n

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Eventing breeding still has a way to go…<\/p>\n

Want to breed your own eventer? Check out the great selection of stallions available through frozen semen at International Horse Breeders<\/a>…<\/h1>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World Breeding Federation rankings of Eventing Sires has been released. Gemma Alexander and Christopher Hector analyse the state of play…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48009,"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":[81,714,5,715],"tags":[402,1805,394,2006],"class_list":["post-48004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-breeders-club","category-eventing","category-the-big-issues","tag-christopher-hector","tag-gemma-alexander","tag-sporthorse-breeding","tag-wbfsh-eventing-sires"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48004","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=48004"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48047,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48004\/revisions\/48047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}