POINT OF VIEW
By Charlene Strickland
Can the U.S. Produce a Valegro or Hello Sanctos?
It’s all about the process of building pipelines.
U
.S. equestrians dream of cheering a homegrown horse with his rider proudly standing at the top step of the championship podium. But lately, producing
champions to carry riders to the highest dressage or jump- ing rankings is only happening elsewhere. No American-bred horse has reached a podium in dres- sage or jumping for decades. Back in 1988, we cheered the U.S.-bred jumper Gem Twist xx (Good Twist x Noble Jay) as he won the silver medal at Seoul. He also won the Best Horse award at the first World Equestrian Games. In dres- sage, the last U.S.-bred medalist was Keen xx (Money Broker x Victory Tower) in 1976, almost 40 years ago. When will we hear our national anthem played for a true
homebred again? A medal-winning horse re-
quires years of planning the breeding, raising the foal, man- aging the care, developing the youngster under saddle, and thoughtful guidance and train- ing to aim at the World Cup, World Championship or Olym- pic Games. Are we “on the back foot” when it comes to produc- ing prospects for medals? Will we witness our own Valegro or Hello Sanctos born here, then raised and competed interna- tionally? It’s a tough question, one we posed to a group of top U.S. judges, trainers and chefs d’equipe.
Gem Twist xx (Good Twist xx x Noble Jay xx) was the last U.S.-bred medal winner in an Olympic Games, 1988. Greg Best competed this Thoroughbred at the first World Equestrian Games in Stockholm, 1990.
Fact: Europe Produces the Top Sport Horses Thousands at the 2015 World Cup Finals applauded Valegro, the dressage superstar (KWPN; Negro x Gershwin). Valegro and rider Charlotte Dujardin are currently number one in the FEI World Individual Dressage Ranking. And Hello Sanc- tos (sBs; Quasimodo van de Molendreef x Nabab de Reve) is with the rider who’s number one in the Longines Jumping
All photos by Charlene Strickland except that of Hello Sanctos
ABOVE LEFT: The world champion Valegro (Negro x Gershwin), KWPN gelding and Charlotte Dujardin at the 2015 World Cup Finals. His an- cestors include legendary sires such as Le Mexico, Voltaire, and Lady- killer. He was the top WBFSH dressage horse for 2014. ABOVE RIGHT: Hello Sanctos, sBs gelding, and British rider Scott Brash where the pair tied for fifth at the London Olympics in 2012. His success contin- ued and is the top WBFSH jumper horse for 2014.
Rankings, Scott Brash. In 2015, they won the Aachen Rolex Grand Prix; in 2012, they were on Great Britain’s gold medal team in the Olympic Games. (U.S. rider Peter Wylde rode the horse in 2010.) What makes these two horses such winners? Lilo Fore, an FEI 5* and USEF “S” dressage judge from Santa Rosa, Califor- nia, comments, “The breeding of horses nowadays is of more athleticism; the horses are more refined and more sensitive. They are in some ways more put together since they are up- hill by nature. They already have a better hind leg. Everything has to come from the engine. The horses being bred now have amazingly good engines. They are able to support the beautiful front leg.” Jayne Ayers, an FEI 4*and USEF “S” judge from Dousman,
Wisconsin, adds, “As in an Olympic athlete of any type, they are special. A lot more is required of an international-quality horse.” So how can we match them? Both horses were bred in
countries outside Great Britain: Valegro in the Netherlands and Hello Sanctos in Belgium. Certainly the “easy”—but ex- pensive—way to acquire a champion prospect has been to shop Europe’s major equine nations of Germany, the Nether- lands and Belgium. Christine Traurig, of Rancho Santa Fe, California, rode on
the U.S. team that won a team bronze medal at the 2000 Olympic Games and is the new USEF Young Horse Coach for dressage. The daughter of a German horse breeder, she says, “Realize that Germany and the Netherlands are not stupid. By
Warmbloods Today 63
Kim MacMillan/MacMillan Photography
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