2009 Oldenburg Stallion Licensing

Day 1: The Road to Vechta is Filled with Memories

November 20, 2009

The road to Vechta is one filled with memories. After a brief one-day visit last year to the 2008 Oldenburg stallion licensing and skipping the 2007 when due to other obligations, the time was right to return to Vechta this year to check out the latest crop of promising young stallions as well as meet up with my Danish breeder friends, whom I met through ridehesten journalist Thomas Bach Jensen back in 2003.

On the first day of the licensing on Thursday 19 November 2009, I wanted to be at the Oldenburg equestrian centre by 16h to see the lunging, which has become a fixed part of the stallion approval for the Oldenburg breed. I left home (which is Belgium) at 1PM only to get stuck behind a caravan of lorries in The Netherlands 10 minutes later. The time lost on the Dutch road I hoped to catch up in Germany on the "Autobahn" but I faced the first of six major road constructions already at the German border in Wachtendonk. Amazing, but I've never seen an exit being closed off with two white party tents installed on the motorway. As if someone had hired off the freeway for a wedding. I guess they were more likely digging something up in there.

Despite this road work, the drive went smoothly and as everybody knows, people drive fast there! At a certain point on the right line, which in Belgium is reserved for fearful drivers who don't dare to go any faster than the grandma-speed of 70 km/h, there was traffic flying by at a minimum of 130 km/h, so you can imagine the speed in the middle and left lane. If your car actually shakes when someone comes rushing by, you know they are racing at terminal velocity.

In the old days Thomas and I would carpool and we'd stop over at the same gas station as always to get some Prince cookies and let dog Lola out, but this I just passed that Hohe Mark station on the A43 reminiscing. My musical partner on the way to Vechta is usually my ipod, but more recently I listen to the fascinating military radio station BFBS1. This time I had to flip channels because the presenter has such a dumb and annoying voice. He certainly did not sound as the sharpest tool in the shed.

I arrived late in Vechta and missed the first twelve horses being lunged. Dang. Fortunately I still caught a glimpse of one of this year's highlights, Blue Hors' catalogue number 16, a bay Hotline out of Elite Mare Merethe (by Florestan x Donnerhall x Classiker).

Watching the lunging is quite special as the horses are tied in side reins and their gaits come close to being a representation of how they would appear under saddle. They don't move on a straight line in freedom in hand, but they move on the circle with their head at the vertical. Some handlers were tricky by either strapping the horses in too tight or too long in order to mask the "natural" quality of the gaits. One horse was deliberately not shown in trot and the handler acted as if he didn't have his horse under control, but you constantly saw him encouraging the horse to canter. As soon as this black horse did a few trot steps who was very clearly irregular!

The two horses that appealed me the most on the lunge line was Blue Hors' Hotline x Florestan as well as the Danish bred Lauries Crusador x Robin x Schwadroneur, which would be very interesting new blood for the Oldenburg breeders.

After the lunging I caught up with a few friends from Germany and America and drank hot chocolate in the lounge downstairs. The plan was to come together with the Danish gang at a hotel in Dinklage for dinner. The company was golden, but the food was so-so, at least my dish. I ordered typical German pork schnitzel, which tasted more like wild boar, and it had no sauce to conceal the greasy taste of it all. Fortunately the baked potatoes were good and I drank some delicious Chilean chardonnay to flush everything down!

A Danish gathering can not be complete without the tradition Irish Coffee moment. After dinner we assembled in one hotel room and made Irish coffee. I brought some Belgian chocolates as treat while the others had whiskey, coffee, mugs, sugar and even whipped cream with them to throw a small party. This Irish Coffee moments are all about catching up with each other, discussing the stallions we saw in Vechta and talk about breeding plans for the next year. It was a lovely evening, though I went to bed somewhere between 1 and 2 am because I was knackered.

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