2004 A Visit at Mathieu Beckmann's

Laudabilis, Nomen est Omen

I must confess I had never heard of Laudabilis. I recollect to have seen his name on a German discussion forum, but I didn't really know the horse. Thomas has a vision to create a very nice pedigree, using Laudabilis on his three year old Schwadroneur mare. "This way I can get a very nice combination of halfblood and Trakehner on the dam side in the future," Thomas explained.

Laudabilis is a 4-year old Hanoverian bred Lauries Crusador xx out of Wassia (Warkant x Eiger I). He scored the highest mark for canter (9.36) of all stallions in his stallion performance test in Munster Handorf in 2003. He also received a 9 on conformation, 8 for walk, 8.63 for trot and 9.25 for rideability and in general scoring much better marks than the 2002 Westfalian Licensing Champion Rosencharmeur.

Elisabeth took Laudabilis to the indoor arena where she schooled him for us. It was no show, just a normal presentation of a young dressage stallion in training. And, in fact, there was no need for show, because Laudabilis really impressed with the naturalness of his superb gaits.

His walk is very large and ground covering, his trot is super with unbelievably strong engagement and his canter is supple, uphill and rhythmically jumped. The stallion has three basic gaits of top quality.

The only two negative marks were that he had a little bit of underneck in freedom despite the fact that he has a very nice big topline, and in the extended trot he tends to go wide behind, but younger horses do this more often. We'll just wait and see how that develops.

Beckmann took us to the outdoor ring where one of the grooms stood with a chestnut mare and a filly by Laudabilis out of a normal Davignon mare.

Laudabilis definitely gave refinement and more legs to the filly making him a good improver of quality and passing on his fortés. The poor groom, who was running the mare around, got all red because of the cold weather. The footing was rock hard and frozen and she was still wearing her riding boots, which crippled her run.

Furthermore, the mare felt like staying in her stall was a bit disappointment each time she approached the in-gate. The filly looked like a little doll.

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