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woodlander

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I have just returned from the Private Stallion Show in Verden, a long time arranged trip as a birthday present for a friend. As you may or may not know, we shall be putting around 30 mares in foal this year for both ourselves and clients and we ALWAYS use outside stallions as well as the Woodlander boys. We are also now in the happy position that we can do "swaps" with other friendly studs and they use our stallions and we use theirs for one mare or the other.
Over Saturday and Sunday we spent about 10 hours looking at stallions in Germany both at the show (5 hours) and at private studs and while we came away with plans to use 6 of the stallions we saw (out of 70!), I just wanted to say that for both the top jumping stallions that are available from UK stations and the dressage selection, we are easily on a par when the horses have serious performance pedigree. There are an awful lot of "not quite" stallions over there, and of course they do have more very special ones because they have more, overall. I can only say that we should be super proud of the progress that we have made and the access that British Breeders have to the best sports lines for dressage and jumping and the Stallion Showcase and the British Stallion Event at Hartpury, apart from numbers attending, compare well with their German counterparts.

The numbers are very different. I think, largely thanks to the men (sexist) the German events feel much more like a party with plenty of beer and sausage. 2500 people sat in the seats at Verden plus standing. Let's go girls!!!!
 
What a lovely post, thank you very much for being so positive regarding the very hard work british stallion owners are putting in to improve sports horse breeding in the UK.

There were indeed some simply stunning boys on show this weekend at the Stallion Showcase GB, unfortunately I didn't manage to get to Hartpury but glowing reports have come from there too.

Onwards and Upwards for 2012 :D
 
It was a really lovely post to open : ). When I read the title I thought it was going to be a happy end to an awful, adventure of some sort so really nice to read such positive thoughts instead.
What a fab birthday present too lucky you : )
 
oh woodlander, i thought it was just me, i've looked at hundreds over there in the last 20 years, and found very few i really wanted to actually use, 'almost' describes it very well!

i ended up buying a colt to get the blood and physical type i'd set my heart on, so i could go straight to what i wanted in the first generation mating.
 
Great to hear of your experience at Verden, Woodlander, and it seems as though the feedback coming from Hartpury and Addington this year endorses the fact that we have real quality over here now. When we went to several of the German stallion shows last year we also thought that there were some fairly mediocre stallions on display.

The exciting thing also that seemed to be evident at the SSGB (I didn't get to Hartpury) was how many 3 and 4 year old stallions were present who really wowed the spectators - which has to be fantastic for the future of British breeding. Onwards and upwards! And interesting that you mention the beer and partying (not that there wasn't a bit of that going on at Addington!) - the "spectacle" that the Germans put on certainly struck us last year .... Whether if we tried to do the same at our stallion shows over here it would attract a bigger audience I don't know ..... Hopefully audiences will build over here once the general horse-owning public realises that these aren't just specialist events for a small group of elite breeders, but they offer a real education to all of us, and knowing more about your horse's parentage, and maybe seeing the sire in the flesh, is good fun! You don't have to be a breeder yourself. I also think that the colleges should be far, far more active in bringing groups of students to view stallion shows as part of their education. I know that this happens at Hartpury with the students that are on site, but I think that other colleges with equestrian courses that include a module on breeding should be doing the same.
 
I think the colleges offering courses without a breeding module should bring students but then I don't think they should offer courses without a breeding module either. If everybody was armed with just a little bit of knowledge and more was easily accessible and available then those who were interested would pick up on it and take it further and those who weren't would at least have to have a minimum requirement knowledge which might equate to a wholesale improvement.
I think people will start to attend stallion shows in the UK more and more I think and the shows themselves will get sparklier and possibly beerier which would encourage non horsey husbands/ Dads/possibly wives etc along and help them view these events as a social occasion and a good weekend away. Of course if everyone goes then it will have to be the non interested college students who stay home and look after the horses ; )
It does surprise me still though how little people are aware of what is available and what is going on, we finally got to the SPSS grading last year to spectate and sat in front of a group of youngsters who worked and liveried at the center. They had not the slightest clue what was going on or why although they knew everything about how much it cost to hire the venue.....
 
Fantastic thread :)

It's people like you that have bought our breeding to compete with the best. I like to think in another 10 years the Dutch/German, etc will be coming over here to see our stallions!
 
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