Ratina Z - sorry, self-indulgent post ....

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no_no_nanette

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Just seen Ratina Z's retirement tribute on Youtube, and am sooo excited, as she's the full sister of the dam of Amiro Z, the stallion that we are using on Beth this year. I've never seen her in action before, and am absolutely knocked out by her speed and precision - and the event itself is quite emotional. (They often are, I remember everyone crying buckets at Olympia when Geoff B retired Its Otto).

Just thinking that if our 2009 foal has 0.005% of that talent, we would be extremely happy bunnies!!
 
I remember seeing Ratina in the flesh for the first time with scabs and scars, capped hocks and being no where as big as you think, in fact rather ordinary but............ what an amazing horse and argueably the greatest showjumper ever, so brave with a big heart.
The best showjumping 'duels' I have seen was when her and Milton competed in the World Cup qualifiers - brilliant.

Why is it we don't have outstanding horses like this anymore with all the technolgy involved? Is it that the models are all the same but you can't reproduce the guts and detemination that makes them an outstanding winner?
 
Could you imagine what such an athletic horse as ratin would be like on a XC course? The speed she moves at along with accurate she is is awesome
 
Its true, there do seem to be fewer really outstanding characters ... or maybe its just old age creeping on that makes me think that! But they are often, like Ratina, the less "obvious" more quirky ones that you possibly wouldn't look at twice in any evaluation. Hmmm - makes it interesting for us breeders. Essentially I guess that you can't plan to breed the real "greats" - they just happen to pop up every now and then. And often its more to do with character and determination - I remember reading about the granddam (?I think?) of King of Diamonds, who was orphaned as a foal, chucked out on a hillside to fend for herself, broken as a farm horse at 3, and then when someone discovered she could jump like a stag she would be taken to local shows in the cattle trailer, which she had to jump in and out of. Oooh, they don't make them like that any more
smirk.gif
 
Are you thinking of Crown Z or Treasure Z, Magic 104?? I like them both and they have some gorgeous stock on the ground - I do personally prefer Crown to Treasure tho.

I was talking to some other breeders a while back who are of the opinion that these two boys don't have the 'it' factor themselves that mum had and thus doubt they will make it 'BIG time' however, they believe that it will skip the generation and it will be the offspring of these two boys and thus the grandchildren of Ratina that we need to watch out for in future.
 
I have a Crown Z x Burggraaf x Heartbreaker x Ramiro Z yearling, who is just stunning. All the movement, power, style and model you'd look for in a horse.

Crown shoudl be small GP this year and then progress. He'll probably make it more than sufficiently to get ranked and then become a super sire.
 
Hi Ken - sorry if I sounded a bit 'derogatory' about the boys, probably worded it wrong. What I meant was that I think they are TOP class stallions and should/will throw amazing foals, even if they themselves do not make it to the upper echelons like their mum. I think their offspring generations such as you yearling are going to be the ones to watch out for....
 
yeah we did didn't we...I had forgtten we'd spoken about then then as well....was actually discussing the same thing with someone else just the other day.
 
Now I like the idea of it skipping a generation! I am keeping my fingers crossed for the yearling, whose grd sire is Coolcorron Cool Diamond. It will be interesting to see how the offspring of Crown & Treasure perform.
 
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