talent to produce top dressage horses. In 1982, Jean and her family moved Valhalla Farm to
Wellborn, Florida. They obtained 460 acres of a hog, corn and tobacco farm which lacked the necessary pastures, fences, barns and arenas. More land and no boarders gave Jean the opportunity to delve further into her breeding program, but converting this to a working breeding and sales farm was a huge undertaking. In the early years, Roy maintained his small animal
veterinary practice near Jacksonville and worked tirelessly on weekends at home. He developed a true breeding and training facility, designing and building the barns, indoor arena, round pen and all the various pastures. He planted all the hay fields and continues to harvest them every year. He is the “unseen” hero of Jean’s breeding operation. His backbone efforts gave her the freedom to concentrate on the training, showing, breeding and selling aspects. Roy also assisted with the horse shows which helped
finance the breeding operation. For 16 years, their Valhalla Farm hosted two dressage shows and two horse trials annually. “It was very difficult in the beginning doing most of the grunt work ourselves. I studied bloodlines every moment I could,” Jean recalls. Although the workload was heavy, the opportunity to raise her foals on huge pastures and the slow addition of Martini daughters was paying off.
The Business Matures Jean credits much of her success to her philosophy of breeding for the mind of the horse. “When assessing inheritance for riding qualities, bloodlines vary. Conformation is important and relatively easy to understand. Anyone can learn to judge body parts. What is very difficult is to find the ‘heart’ of the horse—a talented, willing partner to bring both success and enjoyment to the owner.”
Jean continues, “For the last 35 years when customers
called, over and over I heard the same complaints. One was that the horse terrified the rider with injury or misconduct. Another was that the horse was too large in gaits or too strong in acceptance of the bit for the rider. Often, somehow, nothing in the horse brought the joy the rider/ owner wanted to have—that daily connection to their horse that made them want to come out day after day to ride. Rarely has the complaint been that the legs were crooked or the face was ugly. It was all about the emotional connection they could make with their horses which also led to success in competition. Therefore breeding ‘friendly’ horses, ones that actually liked humans and had that ‘want to please attitude’ was a huge part of my research. Mares must be ridden and tested. Stallions should be trained to the highest level of their sport if possible.” In Germany in the mid-1980s Jean found the Swedish stallion, Johanniter. He fit Jean’s requirements for riding,
Jean trained and showed Martini to Grand Prix. Photo courtesy Jean Brinkman
conformation and gaits. Shipped semen was still not allowed with the ATA, so Jean’s business acumen kicked in. She added Johanniter to her breeding program and began shipping his semen as well as crossing him very successfully with some Martini lines. People who wanted nothing to do with Trakehners came to her farm to see Swedish horses and often went home with her Trakehners. In 1986 Jean needed a second stallion to back up Martini.
After learning about one prospect called Hailo, Jean went to Germany to see him. When she arrived, Hailo’s owners had decided to keep him. However, it was not long before the weanling Hailo joined the ever-persistent and smiling Jean as her next stallion. (Hailo eventually earned his *Pg*E* status like Martini which designates Grand Prix dressage accomplishments.) By the mid 1990s, the sport horse market had started
to change. The quality of the eventing horse improved and began to bring enough money to make them a viable breeding goal. In hunters, the Thoroughbred was being replaced by Warmbloods. Dressage took a different turn, adding a rounder trot to the mix, a way of moving that was not natural to the Trakehner with their long, low economical and ground-covering movement developed for use as cavalry remounts. Luck smiled on Jean again. Martini was different and
exactly right for his era. He moved with an impressive lift to his trot, extending naturally and offered a truly superior canter. That made his development to Grand Prix amazingly easy, thus earning him his *Pg*E* status. Two more stallions that eventually added to her roster
were Stiletto *Ps* and Imminence both bred at Valhalla. Stiletto has proven himself very successful in competition both in eventing to the Intermediate level and more recently
SPECIAL TRAKEHNER SECTION Warmbloods Today 41
American Trakehner Association
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