Dressage at Devon that year. In 2013, her winning continued. At the prestigious Warrenton Horse Show, she won the two- year-old hunter breeding class and was also named the two- year-old 2013 Sallie B. Wheeler East Coast Hunter Breeding Champion. As we will see, Jessie’s success “on the line” did translate to sport horse performance excellence. Balou Moon BHF, aka Lucy (Balou du Rouet x Coquette
BHF/Coconut Grove/Wanderkoenig) was also bred by a dedicated American breeder of Hanoverian horses: Rick Toering, who with his wife Jayne (and assisted by daughters Hanna and Jordan), owns Bent Hickory Farm in Waterford, Virginia. (Te Toering’s small breeding operation recently relocated when they acquired the Hedgeland Equestrian Center.) Lucy is the product of an American Hanoverian breeder’s use of imported frozen semen in order to obtain the genetic benefits of one of the best producers of jumping talent in the world. Balou du Rouet received 9.5 and 10 (out of 10) marks for his jumping technique and scope at his stallion performance test. More than 120 of his offspring have competed suc- cessfully at the advanced levels in jumping competitions, more than 40 of his sons have been licensed as breeding stallions and his 2014 ranking by the World Breeding Fed- eration for Sport Horses places him as the fourth best producing jumper stallion breeding today. Lucy’s dam, Coquette, also was bred by the Toerings, is
propriate size for the girls—both are about 15.3 hands tall and are quite refined. When their training began, Hanna’s Lucy was three and a half, while Jordan’s Jessie was only two and a half. Jordan explains that after befriending their new young
mares, she and her sister began by teaching them to be com- fortable in a saddle and bridle, then how to walk and trot on a lunge line. Te training was done during the wintertime, when the girls were not showing ponies and other more expe- rienced horses in the hunter/jumper discipline in which both girls compete at the regional level. After a few sessions on the lunge line, the girls first mounted their young mares in their stalls. When neither seemed to object, they went straight into the arena on the lunge line for the first mounted training sessions. Although their parents supervised the training activity (and Dad held the lunge line), no parent, friend, breaker or trainer has ever been on the back of either of these young mares. Not only are Hanna and Jordan Toering very young, they also are very slender, with each weighing in at well under 100 pounds. So obvi- ously brute force had nothing to do with starting and training these young mares. Jordan says that Jessie’s best gait is
Francheska AH with her rider Jordan Toering scor- ing 7 for the trot at the Mare Performance Test.
the trot, which she describes as “floating and smooth to ride... like a ballerina.” Hanna says that what she likes best about Lucy is how athletic and playful she is, calling her mare a tomboy who
the daughter of Coconut Grove, the first Toroughbred stal- lion in the United States to be granted a breeding license by the American Hanoverian Society and American Holsteiner Horse Association. He has 100 percent positive approval status with nine European registries, nine U.S. registries and one Canadian registry, the only Toroughbred in U.S. history to accomplish this feat. Coquette and her mother Windbraut, who was the Toerings’ first Hanoverian, are both selected for the Hanoverian Jumper Breeding Program (JBP). Jumper blood has the reputation for producing “spicy” horses. How- ever, Lucy is an example of how careful breeding can produce a wonderful horse that a young rider can love and train.
Starting the Young Mares Here’s how these young teenagers managed to start and train
their new babies. As Hanna explains, “My Dad let my sister and me each choose a horse that we could call our own.” Jor- dan fell in love with Jessie while Hanna says she chose Lucy “because I had competed her mother and her grandmother in the [children’s] jumpers.” Both young mares were an ap-
54 March/April 2015 SPECIAL HANOVERIAN SECTION
is bossy with other horses, but not with people. According to Hanna, Lucy’s best gait is her canter, which she says is like being atop a big rocking horse. As those of us who have started young horses know,
unplanned dismounts can occur. And Hanna and Jordan were not immune. However, the girls swear that it was only athletic playfulness, not any nappiness or mean spiritedness, that caused them to be unseated and then only once or twice. Jordan claims that in each of the only two occasions that she came off Jessie, she managed to hold onto the reins -- and that Jessie stayed with her, wondering what Jordan was doing down there off her back.
Aiming for the Mare Performance Test Since Hanna’s and Jordan’s young mares are registered Ha-
noverians, both girls chose as their training goal the successful participation in and completion of the Hanoverian Mare Per- formance Test (MPT). Te purpose of the MPT in Hanove- rian breeding is to evaluate a mare’s innate athletic aptitudes in three categories: gaits, rideability and free jumping. So in addition to having a Hanoverian mare inspected to evaluate her conformation and movement without a rider (akin to a
American Hanoverian Society
picsofyou.com
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 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100