Trakehner Factor Trakehner Influence on the 2010 World Equestrian Games
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t the beginning of the 20th century, the East Prussian Trakehner horse was a force to be reckoned with in the Olympic Games, represented in the 1936 Olympics by dressage horses Kronos, Absinth and Gimpel, the gold medal team winners for Germany, and three-day event
horse Nurmi, winner of the individual gold for Germany. The breed also had prior good showings, especially in the 1912 and 1924 Olympics. Bred since the 1700s to be a cavalry horse in the Northeastern European region of East Prussia,
the Trakehner was nearly wiped out in World War II, but it narrowly escaped obliteration and was reorganized in West Germany after the war. By the 1980s, the breed was flourishing in North America, as well as in Europe and Australia, and produced such Olympic horses as Abdullah *Pg*E* (winner of team gold and individual silver in show jumping in 1984), Peron *Pg* (winner of team bronze in dressage in 1996) and Windfall *Pg* (winner of Pan Am gold in 2003 and Olympic team bronze in eventing in 2004). Through the melting pot of Warmblood breeding today both in Europe and in North America,
the Trakehner breed continues to heavily influence other breeds and horses in international competition. When one analyzes the pedigrees from the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG), Trakehner enthusiasts find much to be excited about. Of the eight FEI disciplines represented at the WEG, Trakehners or part Trakehners competed in
five. There were six horses identified as being full or half Trakehner in dressage, six in para dressage, two in eventing, one in show jumping and one in vaulting. There were a number of others with one quarter or less Trakehner blood (e.g. dressage silver medal winner Mistral Hojris’ paternal grandsire was E.H. Michelangelo and Austrian dressage horse Cointreau’s paternal grandsire was E.H. Caprimond), but the focus of this article is on those horses with at least 50 percent Trakehner blood. To help identify the Trakehners and half Trakehners, the first mention of a purebred Trakehner’s
name (even if registered with another breed) is listed in bold all caps, e.g., HALBGOTT. Half Trakehners are first designated in bold with lower case letters, e.g., Moorlands Totilas. Trakehner sires are printed in bold italics, e.g., E.H. Caprimond.
DRESSAGE Dressage competition took place the first week in the Kentucky Horse Park’s new outdoor stadium, which had seats for nearly 30,000 people. On the dressage freestyle night the horses and riders performed to a sold-out venue. They came to see the best in the world compete for top honors and to see the dressage “wonder-horse” Moorlands Totilas, a 10-year-old black Dutch Warmblood stallion by the recently deceased Trakehner stallion E.H. Gribaldi and out of Lominka by Glendale (bred and owned at that time by Moorlands Stables in the Netherlands). Totilas and his rider Edward Gal dazzled the crowds and judges earning 84.043% in the Grand Prix, 85.708% in the Grand Prix Special and 91.8% in the Grand Prix Freestyle, to place first in all three tests. Gal and Totilas were also the 2009 and 2010 Dutch Champions, the
By Kim MacMillan
Moorlands Totilas © Shannon Brearton/ MacMillan Photography
2010 European Champions and won the 2010 World Cup Finals. Gal recalled his first meeting with Totilas, stating, “The first time I sat on him, I was on for one second and I jumped off, because I felt so much energy and that was so impressive, because I had never felt it like that.” In a press
44 July/August 2011
American Trakehner Association
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