2008 Danish Warmblood Stallion Licensing

Danish Warmblood Stallion Licensing Begins With a Record

January 22, 2007

When Danish Warmblood opens its doors to the 29th stallion licensing at Herning on 13th-16th March, the audience can expect an exciting collection of young stallions with international bloodlines. The breeding committee has pre-selected 50 colts, to which will be added the 17 colts that have qualified through their approvals at foreign stallion licensings.

The most notable sires this year

Head of breeding committee Poul Graugaard reports that the sensational feature of this year’s collection of young stallions is that Blue Hors Romanov has sired ten of them -- or in others words 20% of the collection of three year olds! Nine of these have been pre-selected by the breeding committee and the son Red Rebel has already been approved in Oldenburg.

The Elite stallion Blue Hors Don Schufro, currently competing in international Grand Prix dressage under Andreas Helgstrand, is represented by four sons and these also demand some attention in the light of their sire’s success. This is because Don Schufro has already sired 13 approved sons, whilst four of his daughters and at least four of his grand-daughters have been awarded gold medals at mare grading.

The incredibly beautiful, expressive and good-moving stallions Milan and De Noir are also once again amongst the most well-represented producers for the stallion licensing with, respectively, four and three sons pre-selected. Reflecting the breakdown of disciplines within Danish Warmblood breeding, almost 75 % of all the colts forward are of dressage bloodlines with the remaining 25 % having jumping pedigrees.

In the jumping division, the breeding committee will have before them sons of such internationally renowned stallions as Diamant de Semilly, For Pleasure, Argentinus, Lordanus, Embassy I and Graf Top, bloodlines that have not been available directly to Danish breeders through Danish-based stallions before. This year’s collection of young stallions thus represents a wide range of options for breeding top quality horses and because of this ‘The breeding committee has extremely positive expectations for the crop of colts forward this year’ says Poul Graugaard.

A multi event

Every single exhibition hall of the trade centre in Herning is now taken up at The Danish Warmblood stallion licensing, which had 53,000 visitors last year. The programme also includes the world famous Gala Shows on both the Friday and Saturday evenings as well as three different world class special events.

Thursday evening: The Devil’s Horsemen

In 2007 The Devil’s Horsemen played to fully packed houses in their first appearance at Herning. Their world class stunt show was so breathtaking that we just had to see them again. The Devil’s Horsemen are based in England where they train their 200 stunt horses to perform in films worldwide. In Herning they will show a selection of 20 horses performing in a variety of exciting roles.

Friday evening: Anky van Grunsven

Winner of the WEG Freestyle in Aachen in 2006, Anky also recently won the World Cup Qualifier at Olympia Horseshow in London with her new freestyle. Anky has been at the top of international dressage for two decades and together with her trainer/husband Sjef Janssen she has developed some of the most controversial but successful training methods in the world. At this clinic the audience will be able to see for themselves what is involved and then make up their own minds.

Saturday evening: Jean-François Pignon

The incredible horseman Jean-François Pignon is now almost a regular at Herning where his magical performances are always received with the greatest applause. Pignon will show his own horses in freestyle dressage and he will also attempt to train an unschooled horse that is unknown to him. The busy Frenchman will also take part in both of the Gala Shows.

Furthermore, the Danish Young Horse Championship, which is the final for the best five year old riding horses, will also be held at Herning and a further highlight of the programme will be the auction of three year old colts and young riding horses. Alongside all these exciting activities there are, as always, the new products and special sale offers to be found in the Horse & Rider trade show and tack fair where 175 booths occupy 18,000 square metres of trade stand space.