AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Breeder Günter Seitter S
am’s breeder Günter Seitter was more than just his breeder. Günter stayed heavily involved in Sam’s training
and development during his early years. Horses are his great passion, but his nightshift job at a factory barely pays enough to keep his one broodmare, which is Sam’s dam Halla (TB x HAN), whom he had also bred. When he announced that he would be covering her with Stan the Man xx, most breeding experts were skeptical, because in sport horse breeding it is not considered ideal to have thoroughbred on top of a mare with that much thoroughbred already. But in his opinion he was breeding for top performance, and he had a feeling that this particular cross would prove him right. Sam was Halla’s
first foal when she was four years old. “I remember the time when I took Sam and his dam for an evening walk around my farm,” he recounts. “I witnessed Sam effortlessly jump over a fence to take a little shortcut. It was then that I knew that Sam was a special little guy.”
Since Günter has only this one broodmare, he’s been able
to fully focus on her foals. He says that for him it is important that foals have good turnout from the very first day. “I put a halter on and start leading them right away. I also start picking up their feet and try to expose them to as many ‘scary’ things as possible,” says Günter. After they are weaned off he sends them to the foal pastures of the Marbach stud (in Southern Germany), because the rough climate and hilly landscape there seem to be ideal to toughen up the little ones. When Sabine Kreuter purchased Sam at the Marbach
auction, she wanted him for fox hunting, because she saw that he never had any trouble clearing fences in the free jumping. Plus she noticed that he corrected himself if he came up to a fence at the wrong distance. But when Sabine started Sam under saddle, she quickly learned that this horse had a lot more talent than she had thought originally, and felt that he also needed a much more skilled rider. That was the point when Günter recommended Michael Jung as a trainer for young Sam. Since Michael’s stable was only about 20 miles from Günter’s farm, it allowed him to become more involved again with Sam’s development. “In the
beginning Michael had not enough turnout for his horses, and so I would take Sam for long walks and let him hand-graze four times a week, because Sam becomes grumpy when he is kept in a stable for too long!” he remarks. After Michael finished building more turnout, the leisure walks ended, but Günter accompanied Sam and Michael to all of their shows for the next four years. Sam clearly loved to jump—no matter where he was. At his
very first show Sam demonstrated his athleticism by jumping out the window of the horse van in the parking lot without getting even as much as a scratch! Günter chuckles, “I can still hear the announcer on the loud speaker: ‘Could the Jung family please come to their truck—there seems to be a problem with a horse . . .’ I remember Michael just turning pale and he started running.” The 2010 World Equestrian Games in Kentucky was the first show that Günter could not attend since sadly he could not afford the travel expenses. Günter explains that today he still breeds his mare Halla, but only if he already has a buyer for the foal. “I have two conditions. One is that the breeding is live cover, and the other is that the foal is brought up at the Marbach pastures.” Günter is quite particular about his philosophy, which makes him a bit of a “character” within the Baden-Württemberg breed registry. When asked if he is at all bitter that he sold the world’s best
event horse for almost a song, surprisingly, Günter’s reply is “no, because at the time of the auction $10,000 seemed to be a good price for young Sam.” Günter admits that Sam, barely standing at 16 hands at that time, looked quite unfinished compared to the other young sport horses that were presented that weekend at the approvals and auction. However, Günter remembers vividly that there was an old
woman who was sitting next to his wife during the auction who remarked that his horse Sam would go far, and that she had never been wrong with her predictions. “Many years later when I tried to look her up after Sam’s victory at the WEG in Kentucky, I learned that she had already died. Unfortunately, she was never able to learn that once more another one of her predictions was right,” he says. Günter feels fortunate that he has been around to watch Sam as he has risen to the top of the eventing world. Not bad for a hobby breeder with a single mare from a small breed registry. v
Photo. Left, top: Sam’s sire, Stan the Man XX in 1994 at the Marbach Stud. Left bottom: Sam as a foal. Above: Sam’s breeder, Günter Seitter with a half-brother to Sam.
Warmbloods Today 33
Mutschler
Gűnter Seitter
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84