News

Thursday, January 4

AES Stallion Wins KWPN Stallion Competition

We are delighted that our lovely AES stallion Ortisei (For Final x Chippendale) who is owned and bred by Nathalie Smeets won the KWPN Anemone Horsetrucks Stallion Competition in Groningen. Ridden beautifully by Moisés Jover Azuar this impressive young stallion gained excellent scores, including a dream mark of 9.3 for his ground covering canter and an overall highly convincing impression of 8.7. Huge congratulations to Nathalie and Moisés!

Monday, September 18

AES Delegation to WBFSH SJG Champions Trophy Announced

From September 28th to October 1st, the first edition of the WBFSH Studbook Jumping Global Champions Trophy will take place in Valkenswaard. AES has announced which combinations will be representing them in the studbook competition from September 28th to October 1st in Valkenswaard, hosted by Jan Tops. Robbert Ehrens is the logical team leader, serving as a breeding advisor and studbook inspector. He primarily had to select English combinations. "As AES, we are experiencing significant growth in several countries, and in the coming years, the representation from countries other than the UK will improve. However, for now, I had to mainly choose from English combinations," says Ehrens. "The preparation time was very short, and most owners capable of competing at this level have already made their plans. For example, the World Championships in Lanaken are a primary goal, or another international competition. Lanaken takes place a week earlier, and many people find it too demanding to combine with their young horses." "I am confident that once this studbook competition in Valkenswaard has taken place, there will be more enthusiasm. But for now, I mainly scouted in England for selection, with fantastic assistance from Lucy Simpson of AES in England." The combinations representing the Anglo-European Studbook are: 5-year old: Z7 Pink Panther (Cuik Star Kervec x Obos Quality) with Katie Speller (GB) Moneypenny  (Cristallo x Billy Mexico) with Thomas Dovkants (GB) Espeshilli (Zambesi TN x Karandasj) with Daniele Ryder (GB) Duca Chin DK (Ducati van Schuttershof x Chin Chin) with Liv Huijbregts (NL) 6-year old: Chrysler Key SR (Comme Il Faut x Calido I) with Leo Lamb (GB) Cornet’s Ghost (Cornet Obolensky x Balou du Rouet) with Zoe Potter (GB) Millfield Lottery (Plot Blue x Quinar) with Emily Ward (GB) Be Warnham (Cuik Star Kervec x Andiamo) with Katie Speller (GB) Heart of Cicero (Cicero Z van Paemel x Heartbreaker) with Georgia Wells (GB) 7-year old: Gmail (Cornet Obolensky x Diamant de Semilly) with Leo Lamb (GB) If Evers Girls (Silver Wave x Arko III) with Benjamin Bick (GB) Wild Star HF (Big Star x Oklund) with Emily Ward (GB) Be Alcantara (Colmar x Contact Me) with Katie Speller (GB) Be Qvikly Star (Colmar x Contact Me) with Katie Speller (GB)
Friday, February 3

Snowfire St. Angelo, Most Successful Trakehner Stallion of His Year

  Snowfire St. Angelo , the most successful Trakehner stallion of his year, is now available at stud at Landgestüt Zweibrücken in Germany. Snowfire St.Angelo (by All Inclusive x Munchhausen x Michelangelo) is a 2017 Trakehner stallion born in Germany and has proven in 2022 that he is ready to play in the national competition arena with the big boys. Exceptional Pedigree This young stallion is the last licensed son of All Inclusive, famously sired by Gribaldi, the no 1 dressage sire in WBFSH ranking for many years. All Inclusive himself, successful to Small Tour level, has consistently produced excellent young horses in dressage and eventing. His dam Schneefürstin is a daughter of the famous elite mare Schneeflocke, the most expensive Trakehner mare ever sold. Snowfire St. Angelo's pedigree is uniquely stamped by a consolidation of elite stallions of the Trakehner breed: Gribaldi, Buddenbrock, Sixtus, Münchhausen, Michelangelo as well as elite and state premium mares. A Character like no other What makes this youngster so special is his stunning character. He has what we once used to appreciate the Trakehner so much for: a solid head, gentle interior and his bombproof personality. He is easy to handle and a joy to ride, willing to learn, and very intelligent. Next to that he has three very good gaits, with elasticity, and a great hindleg, impulsion moving through his entire body. He is already showing a natural talent for piaffe and passage. A succesful year in Competition After a very successful year under the saddle with rider Lisa Arcq at Haras de l’Aube in Belgium, where he qualified with grades of over 80% in the Belgian Championships, Snowfire St. Angelo won the 5 year old LEWB championship. He has now been enjoying some time off from sport. This season he will be available for fresh semen only at the Landgestüt Zweibrücken where he will focus on his breeding duties before he continues his already very successful sports career in the 7-year old classes. A Newcomer as a Sire amongst Various Breeds We are excited to see what the future will hold for this very special stallion, as he already has one of his foals qualified for the France Dressage Nationals in Saumur.  He produces big moving foals with lovely heads and of course he passes on his excellent character. He is AES France approved 4* and KWPN registered A. He is approved for Czech Trakehner as a premium stallion. He can produce in all WBFSH studbooks that recognise the AES approval. Stud Info Haras de St Angelo 67160 Wissembourg France   Website:  https://snowfirestangelo.fr
Monday, March 21

AES Stallions Convince at the Belgian Stallion Competition

This year’s Belgian Stallion Competition attracted an impressive line up of talented young horses, culminating in a busy Final at Sentower Park. The quality of the stallions was extremely high, providing the knowledgeable audience with an enjoyable opportunity to get to meet the most exciting up-and-coming stallions of their generation.  AES Stallions had a particularly strong event in the 6yo and 7yo classes. In a class of 31 Finalists, 23 stallions jumped clear into the second phase, which was won by Calief Topfok. Calief Topfok (Lavallion x Toulon) who was presented under the saddle of Jordy Oostvogels. The very attractive bay stallion was bred by BVBA Topfok. Not only did he win the final competition, thanks to a jumping clear again in a particularly fast jump-off, he also topped the overall rankings of the 6yo stallions, which takes into account the results across the entire range of competitions.  He is not the biggest stallion, but he showed great attitude and fighting spirit, as well as plenty of scope to tackle the fences. We very much hope to see him again at Lanaken later this year.  Another section that saw outstanding results was the 7yo class, where in the final rankings across the entire competition, all top 3 positions were occupied by AES approved stallions. Again the standard was incredibly high, and viewers were treated to an exciting final. The British rider Joe Clee had the pleasure of piloting two of them, Bullseye 111 Z (Bamako de Muze x Der Senaat 111) who was bred at Stud 111) showed fantastic performances at every round of the Stallion Competition, including a win at Lier in February, and Dollars For Ever 111 Z (De Flor 111 Z x Carthago Z) who was bred by Stal Harrie Theeuwes & Marc Hoesels and who came overall in third place. The second place in the overall rankings went Jazzy Des Dames (Emerald van t Ruytershof x Calvaro Z) who was ridden by the Brazilian Thiago Ribas da Costa. The stallion was bred by Haras des Dames. We would like to congratulate all the stallions who took part and helped to make the event a great success and very enjoyable to watch. We look forward to seeing how these young stallion get on in the Future.   Photo credit Dirk Caremans
Saturday, July 3

A Great Week for AES Horses at the NAF Five Star Winter Championships

AES horses had a fabulous week at the BD Winter Nationals this week. It is a great pleasure to bring you a few of the highlights: On the first day of the championships, we celebrated a fantastic win for Andrew Gould with his up-and-coming talent, the AES graded stallion Genie I (Zhivago x Sandro Hit), in the Magic Prix St Georges Gold Winter Championship. The stallion, who was bred in Holland by S. van Dellen and is owned by Tatiana Skillman, was presented for grading last year, and it has been a great pleasure to see him going from strength to strength.  Jezz Palmer and Tiny Dancer , a six-year-old Uthopia x T Movistar mare owned and bred by Anni MacDonald-Hall, achieved an excellent second place in the Baileys Horse Feeds Novice Freestyle Gold Championship. In the Equi-Trek Elementary Silver Winter Championship it was lovely to see some old favourites with Lauren Williams competing the AES graded Vancouver LG (Connaisseur x Montechristo) who was bred by G H Zanten. The combination secured second place in a very strong class.  The second day of the competition saw Angela Gladding in third place on her own bred Parisienne Jupiter by Johnson in the Petplan Equine Intermediate I Bronze Area Festival Championship Andrew Gould and Genie continued their extremely exciting season and came second in the Magic Prix St Georges Freestyle Gold Championship The penultimate day of the championships saw lovely results for Luis Vilhena with the recently AES graded stallion Loves Black STH , “Malegro” to his friends, who won the KBIS Prelim Silver class. The pair also came third in the Prestige Italia Novice Silver The last day saw again some lovely results for AES bred horses. A big well done to Kate Smith who came third in the Nupafeed Advanced Medium Freestyle Gold with her own bred Last Love (by Last Minute out of a Warkant mare). The British Dressage Medium Gold class was won by Amy Woodhead on Anne Seifert-Cohn’s AES graded Ivan Carlos (Ampere x Jazz). To finish off a great week, in the Petplan Equine Advanced Medium Bronze Annabel Abell rode to victory with Sheepcote Lets Go (Lord Loxley x Rubinstein), bred at Sheepcote Equestrian Services.  Congratulations to all the breeders, riders and owner on a fantastic BD Winter Championships. 
Tuesday, April 13

Exclusive Offer from Al Shira’aa Farms for Top AES Mares

  We are very excited about a very special and exclusive opportunity for our AES breeders:   Al Shira’aa farms are offering for one time only 3 FREE coverings of Chacco Bay to owners of mares registered or graded with the Anglo European Studbook.   All nominations must be received by 30th April and sent to eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk.   To be eligible, the mares have to either have been competitive at Grand Prix level themselves, or produced a Grand Prix horse, or have 1.45m showjumping progeny from the close motherline.   Mare not graded yet? No problem! Simply get in touch, and take advantage of our physical or virtual grading opportunities this year, starting from just £40 per mare.   Chacco Bay is a son of the exceptional stallion Chaccato who carries the important blood of the great Chacco Blue and out of a Heops mare. His direct motherline is absolutely packed with performance progeny with three licensed and internationally successful stallions in Locadeur, Casino Berlin and Casirus and further internationally competitive offspring in Queen Carola, Infinity 24 and Pokerface.   In his short career thus far, Chacco Bay did not disappoint, having earned a silver medal at Zangersheide in 2019 in the 5yo World Breeding Championships Final at Lanaken with Mickey Pender (IRE). He produced 4 clears from 4 rounds over testing and challenging tracks built at 130m with a jump off of 135m for a 5yo.   Last summer, he emerged from the first Covid 19 lockdown in full form, and we were thrilled to see him under the saddle of none other than William Funnel taking the title at the 6-year-olds Championship at Bolesworth.   Says Samantha Kettle, who is in charge of Stallion Nominations for Al Shira’aa Farms:   “Chacco is everything you look for in the modern day jumping horse, he is, to put it quite simply, just incredible. “The public were watching him warm up at Lanaken in awe, he has such a presence about him, he carries himself like a true professional at such a young age, he is definitely one of the most interesting young horses on the circuit! “He’s a tall and athletic type, I can see him being very versatile as a stallion. He is extremely fertile which is great because I can always guarantee clients a pregnancy!”   HH Sheikha Fatima Bint Hazza Al Nahyan who the owns Al Shira’aa Stables has a strong vision, as she wants to see British breeding at the very top globally, competing on equal terms with all the other top showjumping studbooks.   Her extremely generous offer of 3 free coverings to top AES mares is a true testament to this, and we are very much looking forward to seeing some fantastic applications coming forward!   Please note the shipping costs of semen to the successful winners will be at the owner's expense.   To find out more about how to apply, email eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk
Wednesday, March 24

AES Select Studbook and Premium Programme

As part of our continued investment in people and technologies, we are proud and delighted to launch our brand-new AES Select Studbook and Premium Programme aimed at providing an exceptional service and recognition to those breeders who go above and beyond in aiming to breed the very highest quality horses for the future.    Who is eligible?   To participate in the Premium Programme, horses and foals must be entered in the AES Select Studbook. This special section of the main studbook is reserved for horses who not only fulfil the criteria of having full three generation pedigrees and being by fully WBFSH licensed stallion. Beyond that, they need to be out of AES graded mares, and submit DNA samples for full parentage verification.    The programme is open foals born from 2021 and to older horses who can apply for an upgrade.    The cost of entry into the select studbook for foals in £70, which includes their passport and full DNA test.    The cost of upgrading your already registered AES horse or youngster into the select studbook is £50.   How can I grade my mare with the AES?   To be eligible for grading for the purpose of her offspring being eligible for the Select Studbook, your mare needs to have main studbook, full pedigree papers with the AES or another WBFSH member studbooks.   She needs to be inspected on hard and soft ground by our evaluation team. On the hard, we assess conformation, soundness and correctness, and on the soft we assess walk, trot and canter, with jump optional, if it is safe to do so and does not conflict with the welfare interest of the mare.    During ongoing Covid restrictions, we will continue to offer virtual evaluations for mares, although we are very much hoping to offer physical options later on in the season.    Virtual mare gradings cost £40 per mare, physical mare gradings start at £50 plus travel costs, which can be shared.    What is the AES Select Premium Programme   The AES Select Premium Programme offers special recognition and rewards for its very best and highest achieving foals and horses.  To participate in the premium programme, your foal or horse needs to be entered in the select studbook and needs to be inspected on hard and soft ground by our evaluators, undergoing the same stages as a mare grading. Jump will only be assessed in horses aged 2 or older.    The AES Select Type Premium   This Premium is awarded to foals and horses who particularly impress with exceptional conformation and movement and have gained an average mark of 8 or higher for this element of their inspection.   The AES Select Health Premium   This Premium is awarded to foals and horses whose soundness and conformation has been evaluated by a veterinarian, and who have gained a mark of 8 or higher or this element of their inspection. In addition, to gain this premium, a DNA sample must be submitted for a WFFS test, which will be recorded on the AES Database.   The cost of achieving the Health Premium is £50, which includes the WFFS test.    The AES Select Performance Premium   This Premium is available to the older horses in the Select Studbook, and it will be awarded based on national and international performance records. If you would like to check if your horse is eligible, please submit their full performance record for review.    The AES Select Legacy Premium   This Premium recognises to achievements and contributions of horses in breeding exceptional offspring. It is awarded at the discretion of the evaluation panel for achievements of a horse’s offspring, including their studbook evaluations, gradings, shows and affiliated competitions.    How can my horse participate in the Premium Programme?   As with the mare gradings, we will offer a virtual option this year in response to the covid situation. We are planning physical inspection events, as soon as we are permitted to hold public events and travel across the UK.    Virtual mare gradings cost £40 per mare, physical mare gradings start at £50 plus travel costs, which can be shared.    To find out more, do not hesitate to get in touch and email  eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk  or  lucy@angloeuroeanstudbook.co.uk . We look forward to hearing from you!  
Friday, March 12

FEI extends shutdown of international events in mainland Europe due to EHV-1 outbreak

The FEI has imposed a further two-week extension of the shutdown of all international events in mainland Europe until 11 April 2021 due to the ongoing outbreak of the neurological form of Equine Herpes Virus (EHV-1). The FEI had previously announced a  28-day shutdown  on 1 March 2021.   The move, which aims to minimise the further spread of the very aggressive strain of the virus, was unanimously approved at an emergency FEI Executive Board meeting today. The extended lockdown applies to all FEI disciplines.   The decision is based on detailed scientific risk assessment conducted by world leading epidemiologist Dr Richard Newton and the FEI Veterinary Department.    The extended lockdown applies to all countries that have international scheduled events in the period to 11 April – Austria, Belgium, Spain, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Sweden. However, the FEI again strongly recommends that all National Federations in mainland Europe cancel their national events in order to minimise horse movement.   The shutdown will mean the cancellation of the FEI World Cup™ Finals for the second consecutive year following the loss of the  2020 Finals  in Las Vegas (USA) to the Covid-19 pandemic.    The Longines FEI Jumping World Cup™ Final and the FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final were scheduled to be held in Gothenburg (SWE) from 31 March to 4 April 2021.   “The extension of the lockdown is difficult for everyone, and the loss of the FEI World Cup Finals for a second year is particularly devastating, especially for the qualified athletes and for our loyal Top Partner Longines,” FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibáñez said. “We know how much work Tomas Torgersen and his incredible team in Gothenburg have put into organising the 2021 Finals, which would have been part of the 400 th  birthday anniversary celebrations for the city, so this is a desperately bitter blow.   “We cannot eradicate EHV as it is endemic in many countries, but we need to work together to minimise the transmission of this particular strain, which has already caused the death of 12 horses in Europe. All of the original in-contact horses from Valencia, Vejer de la Frontera and Doha are already blocked on the FEI Database, but the whole community needs to be on the alert and monitoring their horses. We strongly urge all European-based FEI athletes to avoid travel with their horses during this prolonged shutdown, as travel is a very clear risk factor.   “Sadly this additional lockdown is crucial to slow down the spread of the virus so that we can preserve the rest of the season, get our athletes and horses back competing safely and allow as long a period as possible for those aiming for Tokyo to earn their Minimum Eligibility Requirements and confirmation results, and of course to prepare their horses for the Games.    “Nobody wants to see an outbreak like this ever again. There will be a comprehensive and fully transparent investigation into every aspect of this outbreak and the way it has been handled, and the findings will be published so that, together with our community, we can all learn from this.   “We will be putting in place enhanced protocols to allow for a safe return to play once this outbreak is under control, and we will advise our community on those well in advance of the resumption of international events, but the priority right now has to be the treatment of sick horses and getting healthy horses back to their home countries in a safe and biosecure way. We all need to focus on safeguarding not just FEI horses, but the wider European horse community.”   Work on identifying the gene sequencing of this strain of the virus is already underway, and the FEI is continuing to monitor the evolution of the virus through the FEI Veterinary Epidemiology Working Group, which was formalised this week. The Group is composed of world-leading EHV specialists, the FEI Veterinary Director and FEI Senior Veterinary Advisor, supported by the Chair of the FEI Veterinary Committee. Reports and recommendations from this Group will be published on a weekly basis.    The FEI is also publishing daily updates on the dedicated  EHV-1 hub .
Tuesday, March 2

Important Announcement from British Equestrian Regarding the EHV-1 Outbreak

****IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM BRITISH EQUESTRIAN****** EHV-1 outbreak in Valencia and several other EU countries Tuesday, 02 March 2021 Many will have read updates via  the FEI  and other channels of an outbreak of Equine Herpes Virus (EHV-1 - neurological form) which originated at the CES Valencia Spring Tour (ESP) and some horses that participated at the event and left the venue have since tested positive for EHV-1 at their home stables in other European countries. The number of horses affected indicates a major outbreak. British Showjumping has been in contact with any riders who competed horses at Valencia and all have been given the necessary advice and guidance directly, none of them have returned to the UK as yet. Yesterday, the FEI announced the cancellation of international events in ten countries on the European mainland until 28 March 2021 in a bid to contain the outbreak. The decision applies to all FEI disciplines however some of the specific jumping tours will be allowed to continue but no new horses may enter the venues and no positive cases of EHV-1 are confirmed. Members of the Equine Infectious Diseases Advisory Group in conjunction with the British Equine Veterinary Association have been assisting British Equestrian and in turn our member bodies. The BEF will now work with member bodies to provide guidance for any British riders impacted by the outbreak and to prevent any further spread of the virus. EHV-1 is an air-borne disease that can be transmitted up to five metres via coughing, but also through direct contact, via people and shared equipment. It can cause respiratory and neurological signs, abortion in pregnant mares and death of young foals. Please see the British Equestrian  web page  or below information sheets for further information: DOWNLOAD BEF EHV INFO SHEET.PDF DOWNLOAD FEI EHV INFO SHEET.PDF EHV is found routinely in the UK and is a non-notifiable disease but it is not to be taken lightly. The risk to the general horse population here is no higher than usual as any British horses who were on the show ground in Valencia are being managed in Europe and will not travel home until they are passed fit by a veterinarian. In the interests of equine welfare, and to protect your horses and those of others, there are biosecurity measures you should implement for your horses as regular practice but particularly any yards who have travelled horses to/from Europe recently. These measures are to prevent the virus being transmitted at future events you attend. Please see the information sheets below for further guidance: DOWNLOAD BEF BIOSECURITY INFO SHEET.PDF DOWNLOAD FEI BIOSECURITY INFO SHEET.PDF
Tuesday, February 23

Supporting Breeding for beautiful, athletic and manageable dressage horses

Over the course of this winter the Anglo European Studbook has approved a special collection of highly talented Spanish and Portuguese stallions. These stallions will be available for crossbreeding to warmblood mares, and their offspring can be registered in the AES main studbook for full studbook papers. The aim is to facilitate the crossbreeding of warmbloods, aimed at producing beautiful, athletic and manageable dressage horses for a wide range of riders in recognition of the positives the Iberian horses  can bring to modern dressage breeding, such as their natural ability to collect and their excellent temperaments and trainability. The first generation of these crossbred horses will be invited to carry the suffix CDN in the Netherlands, in the same vein as the registration suffixes in Spain, Caballo de Deporte Espanol (CDE) and France, where these crossbreeds are registered as Cheval de Dressage Francais (CDF). The purpose of the  CDN (Crossbred Dressage horses of the Netherlands) suffix is to highlight and recognize the crossbreeds in competition settings and on pedigrees. Breeders in the United Kingdom are equally encouraged to register crossbred Iberian-warmblood horses, with some excellent PRE stallions already on the books. The suffix CDU (Crossbred Dressage horses of the United Kingdom) will be available. In Spain, Portugal and France crossbreeding has been practiced for years and riders are enthusiastic about the offspring. The AES is proud to register these crossbred CDN’s /CDU’s and anticipates a bright future for these horses. The AES is delighted to welcome three exceptional new stallions to the studbook in the PRE Poeta de Susaeta and the Lusitanos Gallito and H-trovas do Penedo . They are approved stallions for the ANCCE and APSL, members of the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses. They are all active at FEI level and have been clinically and radiographically examined. Information about the stallions can be found on the AES database. More Information on crossbreeding can be found at www.crossbreedinghorses.com , a website created in collaboration between the owners of Iberian stallions. In the summer of 2022, the AES will organise CDN/CDU foal shows, so that one can get a first impression of the quality of the offspring.
Tuesday, October 13

Joint Nominations from AES and KWPN for WBFSH seats

The Anglo European Studbook AES and the KWPN have written a joint letter to the WBFSH, the world organization of studbooks. They will hold the general members meeting online on Wednesday. The AES nominates Dr. Eva-Maria Broomer as vice-chairman of the WBFSH, the KWPN Ralph van Venrooij as board member. They have to compete against the re-election of Frenchman Paul Hubert, the American Sonja K. Lowenfish and the Irishman Jim Flanagan. In total two positions are available. Whether the English / Dutch input will succeed despite the mutual support depends mainly on the traditionally tuned German studbooks. Eva-Maria Broomer, originally German, organizes all activities for AES in England. The Futurity inspections have now proven to be a huge success, also in the online version of the past months. However, Eva-Maria is progressive, driven as she is to do well for the breeders and to face future developments. 'I think we have two major challenges. In the first place, the aspect of welfare, which can no longer be addressed by individual studbooks. And secondly, the rapid development of reproduction techniques, in which studbooks will have to cooperate. On the one hand because it can change the economic values ​​surrounding breeding and providing stud for stallions enormously, on the other hand because it can have quite a few consequences from a breeding point of view if the gender determination leaves the choice to breeders. For such matters you have to draw up regulations that apply to all studbooks, as well as for the alignment of breeding values ​​of stallions. That all benefits the breeders and therefore the breeding. ' Eva-Maria Broomer also sees opportunities: 'I have already had very good discussions with Ralph van Venrooij, who is also passionate about developments and possibilities in breeding, and is open to new ideas. Those ideas include biomechanics. If we can breed horses that live longer and last longer in the sport, then we will do well for the entire breeding. That is not only nice for the breeders and owners, it is also an important wellfare issue. ' Source: AES/Sporthorse Data
Friday, August 21

AES Foals Achieve Top Prices at Bolesworth Elite Foal Auction

We are delighted and so proud of all our AES breeders' achievements at yesterday's Bolesworth Elite Foal Auction. With 10 of the 12 sold foals registered with the AES foals and achieving the highest prices, it really was a fantastic night for British breeders! The breeder of the night, without a shadow of a doubt, was Di Lampard, who bred the most expensive foal, Casalljack (Casall Ask x Ruby VIII), who sold for £33,000, followed by the second most expensive foal, Conthargo (Conthargos x Ruby VIII) who sold for £30,000. Out of of the wonderful Tinka's Serenade, Sue Davies bred Starlight Serenade (by Big Star) who achieved the third highest price at £27,000. She was the first of three very successful Big Star offspring, including Wild Child HF (Big Star x Wild Rose) bred by Nick Ward and Ashdale Direct Star (Big Star x Ashdale Luxara) bred by Dave Quick. There was a super result for Jonny Durham who bred the last of the foal lots, Con Amora HD (Conthargos x Concordia) who sold for £20,000.  Another outstanding result was achieved by Steve Pullan who bred Aredis Corrida (Cornet Obolensky x Jonka van Maarle) who sold for £18,000. As always, there was strong representation from Millfield Stud with Millfield Social Isolation (Cardento x Millfied Pollyanna) who sold for £10,000 and Millfield Divinity (Diarado x Millfield Tina) who sold for £11,500. Jay Halim's JTH Cromwell (Derby x Martha 55) sold for £8500 and Khaleesi (Plot Blue x La Quigley) who had the difficult Lot 1 slot, sold for £7000. She is bred by Charlotte Jones. Congratulations to you all, and thank you very much to Nina Barbour and her team who truly rose to the challenge of Covid 19 to deliver a successful and inspiring auction!
Wednesday, August 12

Ashdale Direct Star

Lot 5 of the Bolesworth Elite Foal Auction is AES foal Ashdale Direct Star. Ashdale Direct Star is by the world famous stallion Big Star. Big Star (ridden by Nick Skelton) led the British team to gold at the 2012 Olympic Games in London/GBR at just nine years of age (and an individual fifth place) and won individual Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro/BRA four years later. Big Star, who always jumps with a perfect style, has also won the Grand Prix in Aachen/GER, Antwerp/BEL, Hamburg/GER, Wellington/USA and Rome/ITA, the Prize of Europe in Aachen and the Nations' Cup in Dublin/IRL. In Nations Cup competitions, he delivered eleven consecutive clear rounds. Nick Skelton described Big Star as the best horse he had ever ridden, and when Big Star retired from sport, he also ended his long and successful career in show-jumping.   Ashdale Direct Star is out of Ashdale luxara. Ashdale luxara competed successfully at 160m Jumping many many international Grand Prix all over the world. Ashdale Luxara, with exceptional breeding is from a fabulous mother line she  Maternal sister to Ashdale Luxon who has competed internationally up to 1.45m and 7 yr old stallion Ashdale Legend who is currently competing successfully at 1.40m Ashdale Direct star is full sister Ashdale Allstar jumping age classes as a 4yr old looking a serious one for the future. His yearling half brother, mr tuxara, was entered in the bolesworth foal auction in 2019 and was very successful and made the highest priced colt. He was also graded Elite with British Breeding achieving an overall score of 9.31and was Uk reserve champion at 2019 Elite Foals. With a pedigree this impressive and proven results from all his siblings at a young age this colt will surely be an international superstar.      
Friday, August 7

Glasgow's Prince HD

Lot Number 2 of The Bolesworth Elite Foal Auction is the Beautiful Black Colt Glasgows Prince HD. Glagow's Prince is by the 1.60 superstar Glasgow V H Merelsnest.  Glasgow van ’t Merelsnest is by  Nabab de Rêve and his grand sire Darco have both had successful careers in Grand Prix competitions to include World Cups and World Championships. Glasgow van ’t Merelsnest has a superlative dam line. Mother Wendelina competed herself at international Grand Prix level with Marc van Dijk, and she is the full sister of the phenomenal Sapphire who won Olympic Gold twice with the American team and many Grand Prix wins at Calgary and Wellington. Wendelina also brought two approved stallions, Edjaz and Koblenz van’t Merelsnest. Grand dam Idjaz C foaled international jumpers Lapino, Qarco van ’t Merelsnest and Vincenzo van ’t Merelsnest. ri dden by Jur Vrieling, Glasgow van’t Merelsnest is among the top show jumpers in the Netherlands. Winning at Grand Prix and World Cup level, he has also competed for the Dutch Team at the European Championship in Gothenburg,  the World Equestrian Games in Tryon and winning the Nation’s Cup Final in Barcelona. Besides that he won the prestigious Grand Prix of Rome and he won several Nations Cups. Glasgow's Prince HD has also a very exciting and proven mother line. WYA Balia RS is by the 1.50m Stallion Germus R  and has herself produced some very  successful progeny in the sport including the Emerald daughter Installera Balia RS who is competing up to 1.40m and the Berlin son Dublin RS who is also competing at similar level.  With a lovely Mother line combined with  the talent and class Glasgow V H merelsnest will have contributed. this young colt will undoubtedly go very far in the showjumping ring. ​
Thursday, July 2

AES Yearling Flamenco's Serenade Secures Top Price at Bolesworth Elite Yearling Auction

Bolesworth’s inaugural Online Elite Yearling Auction came to an exciting close on Tuesday night. The final bidding frenzy came late in the day as the pressure to secure a future Grand Prix or medal winning horse mounted. It was lot number 12,  Flamenco's Serenade which came out on top reaching an impressive £32,000. The chestnut colt is by Je T'aime Flamenco out of Tinka's Serenade (Tinkas Boy). Both parents had multiple Grand Prix wins around the globe with Tinka's Serenade competing at Olympic and World Championship level. Said Janette Chinn & Sue Davies of Pewit Stud, breeders and vendors of Tinka's Serenade, “I’d like to thank Nina and the team at Bolesworth for allowing British breeders to showcase their quality youngstock to such an elite audience. We are pleased to have secured top lot again with our homebred colt and hope he can go on to emulate his parent's success. We will watch his career with interest!” The average hammer price of the collection as a whole was £12,500, with AES yearlings strongly represented, including Lelita HF by Diamant de Semilly out of the successful 1.45m mare Lexie III who was bred by Nick Ward. Said Nina Barbour, Bolesworth Managing Director: “This truly was one of our most spectacular Collections to date. Our targeted global campaign to the prevalent showjumping nations has proven hugely successful in attracting a real global audience for this year's auction. Several of the lots been sold to overseas buyers which is testament that we are selecting the right calibre of horses with the best breeding.” Congratulations to Nina and her team at Bolesworth, and of course to the breeders!
Tuesday, February 25

AES Elite Stallion

New kid on the block  Now standing in the UK  graded ELITE with AES  Milton Des Cresles is a Selle Francais bred stallion out of the famous French breeding family GAEC Des Cresles. He has recently arrived in the UK and will stand at BDA Equestrian Sport Horses & Stud. Milton is a real beauty, with a big character, loads of charisma and lots of blood. He has three very nice gaits, especially an exceptional canter which displays balance and power. Milton Des Cresles has showjumped all over the world including San Patrigano 5* Grand Prix, 4* Invitational Sunshine Tour Grand Prix and the big 3* Grand Prix at Munich where he gained Olympic Qualification for London 2012 with Bermudian International Showjumper Patrick Nisbett. Unfortunately missing out due to an injury. Milton Dres Cresles is by none other than one of the most famous French stallions of the last decade in both breeding and sport, Flipper D’Elle. Flipper D’Elle has won in his career to name a few, the Grand Prix of Chantilly, Saint Lo, Franconville and the Nations Cup of Rotterdam, Dublin and St. Gallen. As well as being part of the Fench teams in the World Equestrian Games and European Championships. A recent production of Flipper D’Elle that has come to the forefront in the Showjuping ring on home soil in the UK is Flipper Darco UK, which recently won a class with British Rider Holly Smith at 5* show London, Olympia. Milton Des Cresles’ damline is responsible for breeding the former World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) number 1 and 2019 number 2 ranked showjumping stallion DIAMANT DE SEMILLY, who was also very successful at 5* level in sport. Also jumping at the same level from the damline were Milliard des Cresles, Jolita des Cresles (by Diamant de Semilly), Kama de Cresles, and Noble Sire. Milton Des Cresles will be available as a walk in stallion at the reputable stallion station Brackenspa Stud Farm in Lincolnshire. He will be available through NATURAL, FRESH and CHILLED semen. BDA Equestrian are very proud to be able to offer Milton Des Cresles to the public and really believe he will be an asset to any breeders program, whether it be a professional or first time breeder.  What an exciting stallion to be offering for the first time to British Breeders!
Thursday, December 12

Stallion Gradings

This years winter stallion gradings tour brought us some truly exceptional young stallions. Despite the awful weather most of the stallions were able to attend out public gradings tour. The first of the stallions to receive the "licensed award" was the Young Stallion Future Hepsilon. This striking grey colt is owned and bred by Julia Hodkin of Future Sports Horses. Future Hepsilon,  son of Upsilon, out of a Heraldik x Palermo Mare impressed the judges with an incredible soundness score of 9 and very impressive 8.75's for all of his gates showing  that this young stallion has a lot to offer breeders in the uk. Congratulations to Julia for adding yet another young horse to her increasing list of talented AES Licensed Stallions.  Later in the day the judges has the pleasure of assessing a Young colt owned by Tina and Eddie of Foxisle stud. Fortunato VH Beeckhof Z, an exciting young showjumping colt with exceptional breeding ( Futurore Di Villagana X Numero Uno x Latano I) put on quite a show for the judges. With an exceptional canter (9) and an impressive jumping technique (8.75) we very much look forward to seeing the first crop of this young stallions foals.   The Next of the stallions presented for licensing was the Freeman VDL son King Albert. This Young Black Stallion Owned by Jill Williams  and bred by The Swaanen  gained a score of 9 for his expressive trot and a 9 for his careful/correct jump. This young stallion will be one to watch for the future and congratulations to his owners and breeders. Next To be presented for evaluation was Emily Ivins beautiful young dressage stallion Ketcher B, Son of the world renowned Negro. This young stallion did not disappoint. With a fantastic score of 9 for his huge walk and a 9.25 for his (near perfect) frame. This Exquisite young horse will be a great addition to British dressage breeding. Congratulations To Emily and her team. Well deserved. Lastly on this Gradings tour was The young Colt Argenteus.  Bred By Jeanette Lewis and Owned by Aileen Stormonth. This Beautiful young stallion achieved a  fabulous score of 9 for his frame ,his canter and his soundness assessment. Also achieving an incredible 9.5 for his walk. This Argento x Baloubet Du Rouet son is a modern talented young horse and his first crop of foals will undoubtedly  be special. Many congratulations to all at Xandstorm. Due to the Flooding we missed out on visiting many of the stallions so we will be finishing our stallions gradings tour in Feb of 2020. If you would Like to add your stallion to the list of stallions to be assessed please call Lucy on 07772572461          
Tuesday, August 20

AES Elite Dressage Auction Returns to the BD Nationals

Following a successful and enjoyable experience last year, the Anglo European Studbook is delighted to return to the Le Mieux British Dressage National Championships at Stoneleigh on 14th September 2019 with another superb selection of 20 handpicked foals from world class bloodlines.   Says studbook directors Joris van den Oetelaar:   "Our priority as a performance studbook is to forge strong connections between breeding and the sport. Our auctions have become an important showcase for the very best of British bred young stock to knowledgeable national and international audiences from where they will go on to succeed in the sport. We are looking forward to returning to the BD Nationals at Stoneleigh, which provides a wonderful atmosphere and experience for all riders and owners."   For 2019, the AES is implementing a new selection process through the British Breeding Futurity and the Elite Foals Tour.    AES evaluator Dr Eva-Maria Broomer explains:   "Working with the British Breeding Futurity and the Elite Foals Tour has been an exciting development. All selected foals will have been through a thorough assessment process with a panel of independent evaluators and industry experts from the UK and Europe to create a collection of the very best of the best."   With another week of Elite Foal Tour and Futurity selections ahead, the team has already identified some outstanding foals, with more to come.    Says Dr Broomer:   "We are delighted with the quality of foals presented to us this year, with very exciting new prospects coming forward, some of whom have already been awarded the incredible accolade of Elite Premium status by a team of international evaluators."   To gain an Elite Premium with the Futurity, foals have to score an average of over 9, with equally weighted marks for soundness and limbs - awarded by a senior veterinarian - ,  and conformation, walk, trot and canter.   As in the previous year, the auction will take place on the Saturday night of the BD Nationals, with stables open throughout the day for interested buyers to come and meet the foals and their breeders. Stoneleigh is the ideal venue, with riders and owners from across the UK coming together for a fantastic competition and celebration of the sport, and being able to meet the next generation of future dressage stars provides very much the icing on the cake.    The Anglo European Studbook and British Dressage are looking forward to welcoming prospective riders and owners to come and find their future partner in the sport from a range of especially selected foals.    Photograph: Ginleys Gunpoweder (Myspires Fider Hit x Johnson), bred by Ginleys Stud, receiving the highly regarded accolade of a Futurity Elite Premium 
Sunday, August 18

Bolesworth Elite Auctions Celebrates Best of British Breeding

Celebrating British Breeding in true Bolesworth style, the World Class Bolesworth AES Elite Foal Auction in the heart of the Equitop Bolesworth Young Horse Championships delivered on all levels. Situated in Club Boles, guests enjoyed an up close and personal viewing experience as the Lots were showcased in the new auction arena.    With a strong emphasis on ‘Black Type’ dam lines, coupled with prolific sires, the highly desirable Lots pushed British Breeding to the forefront of sports horse progeny. Hand-picked by the Bolesworth Elite Auctions Team, all Lots met a very exacting criteria based on breeding with strength in the dam-line, conformation, paces and attitude.    With a serious amount of ‘wow factor’ the auction Lots were welcomed to the new auction ring by a record number of guests and interested buyers both on site and via pre-arranged telephone bidding. Fast and furious bids secured two sales toppers both reaching £40,000.  ASK Tinka,a blue blooded, super athletic filly by the legendary Casall ASK and out of the one and only Tinka’s Serenade – Billy Twomey’s top ride for many years. Plus, Cavalier HF a stunning model of a colt by the famous Diamant De Semilly and directly out of top 1.50m performer Remi Cavalleri – a Bronze medallist at the Junior European Championships. The toppers were closely followed by popular colt Mr Tuxara, an outstanding model by top sire Taloubet Z, directly out of consistent 1.60m performer Ashdale Luxara and Lot 15 - Superstar by Olympic Gold Medallist Big Star out of Ruby VIII currently ridden by Holly Smith. With such strength in pedigree the auctioneers hammer firmly dropped against a strong selection of world class progeny with notable sires including Big Star, Escape Z, Quintero La Silla, Tangelo Van De Zuuthoeve and influenced by the strength of the dam line.    Managing Director of the Equitop Bolesworth Young Horse Championships, Nina Barbour said: “The atmosphere tonight was truly exceptional, we were delighted to present a world class selection of foals handpicked by our team. This auction highlights the strength of British breeding and marks the beginning of a new era for buyers searching for British Bred Elite Sport Horses, capable of competing on a global stage.”     Bolesworth AES Elite Foal Auction   Lot 1: Armani EM (Arko III x Harmony) Sold £5,000 Lot 2: Kinessa (Escape Z x Kynesse) Sold £8,000 Lot 3: Millfield Tarzan (Tangelo VD Zuuthoeve x Zazou HE) Sold £11,000  Lot 4: Diamond Star (Big Star x Quite Feeling) Sold £17,000 Lot 5: JTH Jones (Derby x Martha 55) Not Sold Lot 6: ASK Tinka (Casall ASK x Tinka’s Serenade) Sold £40,000 Lot 8:   Millfield Tangible (Tangelo VD Zuuthoeve x Pretty Woman) Sold £9,000 Lot 10: Mr Tuxara (Taloubet Z x Ashdale Luxara) Sold £38,000 Lot 11: Crown Archie (Cicero Z Van Paemel x Flavour Of Fame) Sold £ 12,000 Lot 12: ESH Mamma Mia (Casall ASK x F Palma) Sold £21,000 Lot 13: SFS Breakout (Escape Z x SFS Arla) Sold £17,000 Lot 14: Millfield Digress (Diamant De Semilly x Quitania) Not sold Lot 15: Superstar (Big Star x Ruby VIII) Sold £32,000 Lot 16: Unbelievable HD (Untouchable x Concordia) Sold £27,000 Lot 17: Spinning Top OS (Quintero La Silla x Tinka’s Showtime) Sold £12,500 Lot 18: Tinka’s Lady (Big Star x Tinka’s Serenade) Sold £30,000 Lot 19: Millfield Casallina (Casall ASK x Millfield Tina) Sold £28,000 Lot 20: Cavalier HF (Diamant De Semilly x Remi Cavalerri) Sold £40,000     Following a year’s planning, the very first Bolesworth AES Elite Foal Auction has been deemed an unrivalled success for British Breeding by both the buyers and breeders alike. The Bolesworth Auction team are very much looking forward to following the future progress of each and every graduate, homeward bound and throughout their future careers. 
Thursday, July 11

AES Foal Auctions Selections

We are very much looking forward to the 2019 AES Auctions, offering the biggest choice of opportunities for AES breeders to date! Selections for our brand new Bolesworth AES Elite Foal Auction are now nearing completion, which a very exciting line up of world class foals from some of the very best motherlines there are! But this is not where it ends. We are excited about two more excellent opportunities for British breeders planned for September: On  16th September  we will hold a showjumping and eventing foals auction at  Arena UK , with up to 40 spaces for both disciplines. The Arena UK show is extremely vibrant and busy, with competitors and owners attending from all over the UK, providing an excellent platform for this sale and an opportunity to connect with some of the UK's top riders who want to be able to see a great range of quality foals in one convenient location.  We are also talking to British Dressage abut another Dressage Foal Auction at the  National Championships  in September, which is planned again for the Saturday evening ( 14th September ). Being able to take our foals to the Nationals is a truly unique opportunity, helping us to place the very best of British dressage breeding in knowledgeable homes where they will be able to fulfil their potential.  This year, ALL foals that are put forward for selection must be presented at EITHER the  British Breeding Futurity  OR the  Elite Foals Tour , both of which have dates and venues available across the country.  From the Futurity, foals scoring an Elite will automatically qualify for the auction, those scoring a Gold (the old "First and Higher First" classification, requiring a mark of 8 and above) will be shortlisted.  From the Elite Foals Tour, Regional Champions and Vice Champions will automatically qualify, Finalists (winners of their group section at the regional show), provided they score a mark of 8 or above, will be shortlisted.  Entry Fee for the Futurity is £75, which includes a free foal grading with the AES. To book, go to: british-breeding.com Entry Fee for the Elite Foals Tour is £75 + £20 discounted grading fee with the AES. To book, go to: elitefoals.co.uk .   Biosecurity Announcement: Please note that all mares must have been boosted for equine influenza within 6 months of attending the auction and selection events.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch, you can call Eva on 07834194821. Here is a full list of dates and venues where you can take your foal: 27th July 2019 - Pencoed College (South Wales), Futurity: british-breeding.com 28th July 2019 - Fosshey Stud and Stables (Cheshire), Futurity: british-breeding.com 30th July 2019 - Richmond Equestrian Centre (Yorkshire), Futurity: british-breeding.com 31st July 2019 - Vale View (Melton Mowbray), Futurity: british-breeding.com 1st August 2019 - Writtle College (Essex), Futurity: british-breeding.com 2nd August 2019 - Bilsington Priory (Kent), Futurity: british-breeding.com 11th August 2019 - Newton Stud (Devon), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 12th August 2019 - Catherston Stud (Hampshire), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 14th August 2019 - Active Equestrian (Bucks), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 15th August 2019 - Clements Equine (Bury St Edmunds), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 16th August 2019 - Springfern Sporthorses (Doncaster), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 17th August 2019 - Bolesworth (Cheshire), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 19th August 2019 - Stanley Grange (Middlesborough), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 20th August 2019 - Barkeldy Equestrian (Fife), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 21st August 2019 - Millfield Stud (Yorkshire), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 22nd August 2019 - Twemlows Stud (Shropshire), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 23rd August 2019 - Castle Farm (Monmouthshire), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 24th August 2019 - Wrestow Stud (Warwickshire), Elite Foals Tour: elitefoals.co.uk 26th August 2019 - The Grange, Okehampton (Devon), Futurity: british-breeding.com 27th August 2019 - Catherston Stud (Hampshire), Futurity: british-breeding.com 29th August 2019 - Addington Manor EC (Buckinghamshire), Futurity: british-breeding.com 30th August 2019 - Swallowfield EC (Midlands), Futurity: british-breeding.com 31st August 2019 - Newton Rigg (Cumbria), Futurity: british-breeding.com 1st September 2019 - Drumcarrow (St Andrews), Futurity: british-breeding.com
Sunday, July 7

AES Mare Gradings Available at the British Breeding Futurity

We are delighted to announce that we will be sending AES evaluators to all British Breeding Futurity events to offer mare gradings to Futurity participants. This option will be available to unridden mares that attend either with a foal at foot or the 3-5 year old assessments, as well as ridden mares attending the 3-5yo assessments.  The Futurity is a world leading evaluation series of young sport horses and ponies, providing breeders with excellent feedback and opportunities, including qualification for the newly relaunched Equine Bridge, and is available to British bred youngster from 4 weeks old. Entrants will receive feedback from a panel of 4 expert evaluators and a senior veterinarian, as well as photographs and videos to use for marketing and promotions. Highly scoring entries qualify for an end-of-season Finale, and the top horses and ponies in each discipline and age category receive awards at a special Celebration Ball in November.  At AES gradings, all mares receive a full and detailed linear profile and a grading level, and will enter the main graded section of the studbook. All grading results are published on our database, enhancing not only the value of and information about your mare, but also of her present and future offspring.  Contact Eva, eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk  to find out more and to check if your mare is eligible for entry into the main graded section.  To find out more about the AES mare grading levels and procedure, go to  https://angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk/information/mare-and-youngstock-gradings To book your Futurity entry, go to:  https://british-breeding.com/futurity/2019-events
Sunday, May 5

AES Foal Auctions 2019

We hope you are all enjoying the new breeding season, with exciting new arrivals on their way and stallion choices to make for next year! We have a busy year ahead for our studbook, which is continuing to grow and go from strength to strength. Thank you for your support and for being a vital part of that journey!   AES Foal Auctions The foal auctions have become a great way for breeders from across the UK to showcase their foals to wider audiences, and we are committed to continuing to offer you this opportunity.  For 2019, we are delighted to announce an amazing new development for British bred showjumping foals in the Bolesworth AES Elite Foal Auction: This sale will take place on Friday, 16 th August alongside the new Bolesworth Young Horse Championship, which includes the Official British Showjumping Young Horse Championships & WBFSH Qualifiers.  AES registered foals from all over the UK are eligible for pre-selection on the basis of their pedigrees. You are invited to submit full details of the foals they would like to be considered. Our vision for this auction is to provide a truly exquisite and unique selection of foals not only by the very best proven showjumping sires, but with outstanding damline provenance to match. The Bolesworth AES Elite Foal Auction will be bringing the very best of British breeding to a wide audience of riders and owners to ensure the very best British bred horses are given the opportunity to succeed in the sport. To find out more about the Bolesworth Young Horse Championships and the new Bolesworth AES Elite Foal Auction visit www.bolesworthyounghorse.com . To submit your foal’s details for pre-selection, please email  eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk ). Please get in touch no later than 15 May (if you foal is not born yet by that point, just put in a due date). We will then get back to you to advise you of the next steps.  The Bolesworth auction will run alongside our other auction activities, which includes plans for another AES Elite Dressage Foal Auction and a further showjumping and eventing auction. The latter will take place at Arena UK during their busy September show on 16 th September.  Selection for those sales will take place at the British Breeding Futurity Series and the Elite Foals Tour. Breeders wishing to be considered for those auctions are invited to send our selections application form  to  eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk .   British Breeding Futurity and Mare Gradings We are extremely proud to be supporters of the British Breeding Futurity. Last year, AES breeders excelled at every level. The Award for the highest placed foal of the entire Futurity series in 2018 went to Esme X (Goodyear VDL x Cadence van t'Gelutt Z) bred by Aileen Stormonth in Scotland. A wonderful result for this outstanding filly who was also selected for the AES Elite Foal Auction! Certificates of Merit for the highest scoring Futurity entries for their age and disciplines went to: The dressage foal Crocket (Quantensprung x Jazz), bred by Nicola Burton. Crocket was also an Elite Auction foal. The eventing yearling Mesmerize-Me-SSH (Zumani Decor x Edkinghill), bred by Rosalyn Serex of Solaris Sport Horses. The showjumping two-year-old Masterclass (For Pleasure x Balou du Rouet), bred by Keith Lovelock. The showjumping three-year-old Kylie (Amaretto LCH Z x Concorde), bred by Mark Evans of Castell Sport Horses.   This year, we would love to see yet another strong turnout from AES breeders to show and celebrate your great achievements!  As additional benefits to all Futurity entries, we are delighted to offer you the following: Opportunity of selection for the September foal auctions Grading of your broodmare, including full linear score, by two of our experienced evaluators: £50 FREE foal and youngstock grading for all AES registered entries! Young broodmare grading at the 3-5yo assessments for £50 This year’s Futurity dates and venue are:   27 th July – Pencoed 28 th July – Fosshey Stud, Cheshire 29 th July – Richmond EC (3-5yos) 30 th July – Richmond EC  31 st July – Vale View 1 st August – Writtle College 2 nd August – Bilsington Priory, Kent   26 th August – The Grange, Okehampton 27 th August – Catherston Stud 28 th August – Catherston Stud (3-5yos) 29 th August – Addington 30 th August – Swallowfield, Solihull 31 st August – Newton Rigg 1 st September – Drumcarrow, St Andrews   21 st September – Solihull, 3-5yo   There will be an end-of-season show and celebration on 22 nd September at Solihull, with special awards for the highest placed AES entries in each category!   To find out more about the Futurity and how to enter, go to  https://british-breeding.com or email  eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk .   Elite Foals Tour We very much enjoyed last year’s Elite Foals Tour, which saw excellent results for AES Breeders with many regional champions in each category. You absolutely dominated the showjumping section with all 4 top spots taken by AES Foals. Congratulations to the champion Ashdale Casino, bred by Henry Harding, the runner up Millfield Bambalina, bred by Millfield Stud, the second reserve champion Zilfa Starbred by Nicola Burton and Kirsty Keating and the third reserve champion FC Andromeda, owned and bred by Fiona Cox. In eventing, we had 2 finalists in the second reserve champion Luckington, bred by John Wrottesley and the third reserve champion Mayflower Thiemo, bred by Dorothy Shackleton.   It will be a great pleasure to support the tour again, with AES evaluators at every venue. The costs for the AES evaluation on the day will be a discounted rate of £20 per foal, which you will need to pay on top of your entry fee to the Elite Foals Tour.  As with the Futurity, we will also offer you the opportunity to have your foal selected for our September auctions. To find out more about how to enter the Elite Foals Tour, go to:  https://www.elitefoals.co.uk/ . For questions about the auction selections and the AES assessment at the tour, do not hesitate to get in touch:  eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk . Let’s all support what is going to be another great summer for British breeders, and showcase the very best of AES breeding!
Monday, March 4

Statement from the BEF about the Equine Flu Outbreak

We urge all our breeders, owners and riders to take note of the recent advice from the BEF regarding the current outbreak of Equine Influenza. It's important that we are all vigilant and do our bit to help us control the disease, so we can all continue to enjoy the 2019 competition season! "Equine Flu Update - 01/03/19 Unvaccinated horses attending shows / events  Throughout the current equine flu outbreak, the British Equestrian Federation (BEF) has continued to urge equine owners to ensure that their vaccination records are up to date. The BEF has also strongly recommended that all competition and event organisers check the equine ID passports of all horses to ensure that they comply with vaccination rules. This is based on advice from experts in equine influenza and epidemiology with experience of managing previous outbreaks. The BEF reminds organisers that, during the current outbreak, it is vital that unvaccinated horses do not mix with other horses because of the increased risk of such an infectious disease spreading. It is important that organisers and owners recognise that equine welfare is a priority and take steps to prevent the further spread of equine flu. There is more guidance available on the BEF website and in our Q&A Equine Flu Update - 01/03/19 Foal influenza vaccination The British Equestrian Federation (BEF) continues to monitor the outbreak of Equine Influenza (EI) and continues to urge all equine owners to make sure their vaccination records are up to date. The BEF has also issued the following advice to try to maximise the immunity of young foals against EI. 1.         We urge all owners to adhere to strict biosecurity protocols at all times. 2.         Vaccinations are subject to local risk assessments by the attending veterinarians. 3.         In-foal mares that have already had vaccinations of primary EI course should be vaccinated 4-6 weeks before the foal is due to be born. 4.         Foals should be vaccinated for EI at 6 months to commence their primary course.
Saturday, January 12

AES Breeders Shine at British Breeders' Awards

We were delighted to celebrate the achievements of British breeders at this year's British Breeders' Awards Dinner and Ceremony in London, an annual event organised by the British Horse Foundation.  We were particularly proud of the many AES breeders who received awards and recognition for their outstanding horses and youngsters.  The AES Award went to Suma's Zorro (Douglas x Horos XX) who was bred by Marily Power and Susan Lanigan O'Keeffe. This plucky little mare needs to introduction, after her superb win this year at Calgary! We were delighted that Marily and her brother Robert were able to travel to London and join us for the evening.  AES horses of all ages and across all three disciplines were recognised on the night: The Futurity Certificates of Merit and the Baileys Horse Feeds/British Breeding Futurity Awards are an opportunity to celebrate up-and-coming talent and give an indication of the exciting stars of the future.  The Baileys Horse Feeds/British Breeding Futurity Award for the highest placed foal of the entire Futurity series in 2018 went to Esme X (Goodyear VDL x Cadence van t'Gelutt Z) bred by Aileen Stormonth in Scotland. A wonderful result for this outstanding filly who was also selected for the AES Elite Foal Auction! Certificates of Merit for the highest scoring Futurity entries for their age and disciplines went to: The dressage foal Crocket (Quantensprung x Jazz), bred by Nicola Burton. Crocket was also an Elite Auction foal, and we were delighted that her new owner Bev Lynn was able to pick up his award.  The eventing yearling Mesmerize-Me-SSH (Zumani Decor x Edkinghill), bred by Rosalyn Serex of Solaris Sport Horses. The showjumping two-year-old Masterclass (For Pleasure x Balou du Rouet), bred by Keith Lovelock. The showjumping three-year-old Kylie (Amaretto LCH Z x Concorde), bred by Mark Evans of Castell Sport Horses.  But the awards did not stop with the youngstock.  The British Dressage Young Horse Award for 5-year-olds went to Kiss and Tell (Kardinal x Skyscraper van de Derkes) who was bred by Rebecca Hoare and is owned by Roland Tong and Angie Felton. The British Showjumping Young Horse Award for 5-year-olds went to Bianca du Rouet (Statinus x Balou du Rouet), bred and owned by Helen Rees. The British Showjumping Young Horse Award for 7-year-olds went to Cristo Beech (It's the Business x Cantero), who was bred by Derek Moreton and Geoff Glazzard and is owned by GG Horses.  And last but not least, the Gornall Equestrian Award went to Wishes (Guidam x Wellington), bred and owned by Claire Inglis.  Congratulations to everyone for your fantastic achievements, we are incredibly proud!
Tuesday, January 1

AES Horses Excel at Liverpool

It has been a fantastic show for AES riders, owners and breeders at Liverpool this year, with exciting wins every day! The show started with a superb performance by James Smith who won Friday's CSI4* Two Phases 1.40m with Elizabeth Robson's gelding Simply Splendid (Ustinov x Cavalier), bred by C.M. Robson. Saturday saw a spectacular win in the CSI4* 1.50m class for Harriett Nuttall with Rupert Nuttall's  Galway Bay Jed  (Romanov x Lux) who was bred by Justin Burke. The pair beat a strong line up of competitors from across the world in a great triumph for British breeding and show jumping.  On Sunday, we witnessed the return of the great  Top Dollar  (Dollar du Mourier x Darco) who carried Matthew Sampson to an exciting victory in the Puissance. This fabulous horse, owned by John and Laura Renwick and bred by Sue Clark is a great favourite with the British public, and it is wonderful to see him continue at the top of his game.  The show finished last night with a truly magnificent Finale in the 1.60m Grand Prix, which saw AES riders and horses occupy 7 out of the top 8 placings! Top placed AES registered horse was again Galway Bay Jed with Harriett Nuttall, who had a fantastic show at Liverpool and who came second just behind Shane Breen with the AES Elite graded stallion  Golden Hawk  (Vigo d'Arsouilles x Chin Chin). Just over half a second separated the pair from Will Funnel with  Billy Diamo  (Cevin Z x Andiamo) in third place. It was great to see further AES favourites with Holly Smith and  Hearts Destiny  (Heart Throb x Rabino) in 5th place, Billy Twomey and  Kimba Flamenco  (Je t'Aime Flamenco x Heartbreaker) in 6th, John Whitaker and JB's Hot Stuff  (Locarno x Cavalier Royale) in 7th and Anthony Condon and Sfs Aristio  (Arko III x Voltaire) in 8th position. Congratulations to all, and to Nina Barbour for organising yet another fantastic show at Liverpool!
Tuesday, October 9

The Billy Stud Launches its 2018 Online Auction

After the success of the 2017 online auction The Billy Stud is again offering a hand picked selection of British bred young horses. This annual online auction will take place between the 21st - 23rd of October 2018. Available to buy will be 30 selected three to six year olds out of the studs proven dam lines and all by world class sires.    The selection includes two Progeny out of Karina who jumped internationally with Robert Whitaker, Winning over 30 international classes around the world, she was part of a winning Nations Cup team and won over £130,000 in prize money.  Pedigrees Include: •    Same Dam to Billy Angelo (Tangelo Van De Zuuthoeve) - Double Clear Lummen 5* Nations cup. •    Two progeny from Karina (Emilion) - Double Clear Nations Cup & 30 international Wins. •    Two progeny to Pikeur Calanda (Cassin I) - Winner of 4* GP and competed 5* With Marie Longem (NOR) •    Progeny to Fame winner of 2* GP and competed 5* With Geir Gulliksen (NOR) •    Full Brother to the 7yr old Billy Tennessee 2nd in the British Foxhunter Final 2018 •    Two Full Brothers to Billy Onslow winner at 4* Level with Darragh Kenny (IRL) •    Sam Dam to the 8yr old Billy Manjaro Competing 5* with Darragh Kenny (IRL) •    World Class sires Inc. Plot Blue, Chaman, Tangelo Van De Zuuthoeve, Montender, Cabachon,  Billy Mexico, Billy Congo & Cevin Z In the Online Auction there will be three half brothers to Billy Angelo winner of numerous international classes including double clear Nations Cups, over £300,000 in prize money. There will be an opportunity to view these horses at the Billy Stud on the 20th -21st October 2018 between 10am and 4pm. All three year old horses will be loose jumped  All Older horses will be shown ridden and jumping Visit website: www.thebillystud.co.uk/auction-2018/ FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: WILLIAM FUNNELL: +44 7785223114 DONAL BARNWELL: +44 7801257545 EMAIL: info@thebillystud.co.uk The pictures shows one of the many successful horses purchased from The Billy Stud, Billy Manjaro who was sold to Whiterock Farm LTD as a 7yr old to be competed by Darragh Kenny. Their success has included a win in the 3* at Knokke and a 2nd at the 5* show in Dublin.
Thursday, June 28

New Equine Identification Regulations Make Microchipping Compulsory

We would like to inform all our breeders and owners of AES registered horses that the new Equine Identification Regulations have been put before Parliament. The regulations require that all horses, apart from wild ponies, are microchipped, regardless of year of birth. This is a change from the previous regulations, which stipulated that this was a requirement only for horses born after 2009. The new requirement comes into force on  1 October 2020, so please make sure that you arrange to have all your older horses microchipped by then.  The new regulations also give new enforcement powers to local authorities. From 1 October  this year , local authorities will be able fine offenders up to £200 when they are found to be in breach of the regulations. The purpose of these new regulations is to be able to track and trace horses, which will improve welfare and biosecurity. Please note that owners of horses are required to notify the studbooks of changes in ownership. The AES is committed to update your horse's records on the Central Equine Database within 24 hours of receiving your notification. This will help ensure up to date information is available to those who safeguard animal welfare. If you want to find out more, the Regulations and the accompanying Explanatory Memorandum are published at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/761/made   If you have any questions about what the new regulations mean for you, please do not hesitate to contact our office, we are always happy to help!
Tuesday, May 8

AES Statement about Warmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome

The AES take animal health and welfare extremely seriously, and see the abolition of hereditary equine diseases as a central goal for the studbook. In order to achieve this, we promote transparency and clarity for all breeders and stallion owners via our website and database. We will be advising all owners of active AES stallions to test their stallions for WFFS, and will add this information to our database, so it is visible to breeders wishing to use the stallion. If a stallion is yet to be tested, this will also be indicated clearly on the database. All new graded stallions will be advised to test for WFFS in addition to their veterinary inspection to deem their suitability as a breeding stallion and to inform breeders of any possible risks. We advise all mare owners to test their mares for peace of mind, but would also like to reassure everyone that the WFFS gene is recessive, and will therefore not affect the foal unless both stallion and dam are a carrier. Horses that are carriers of one copy of the gene still enjoy a successful career in the sport and can even be bred from safely, as long as they are not paired with another carrier. It is therefore important for breeders to have access to the full information, so they can make the right decision for their mare. We will continue to monitor the latest developments on all hereditary conditions. As a studbook, we can play a big part in promoting health and best practice through transparency and information, and we take this responsibility very seriously. We will work with all relevant parties and the WBFSH to explore how we can all work together.
Friday, April 6

AES Stallion Gradings Spring Tour

We are delighted to announce the details of our Spring Stallion Gradings Tour 17 th  – 19 th  April 2018. We invite all stallion owners to present their horses for their first grading with us or to present their already registered or licensed stallions to be considered for a free upgrade. Our experienced international team of evaluators will tour the UK, visiting a range of public grading venues, starting in the Scotland and travelling south. 17th April, 4pm: Xanstorm Equestrian Centre, Biggar Road, Carnwath, South Lanarkshire, ML11 8HJ 18th April, 9am: Northcote Stud, Northcote Road, Langho Blackburn, BB6 8BE 18 th  April, 4.30pm: Foxisle Stud, Samual Closes Farm, Epworth, North Lincolnshire, DN9 1LB 19 th  April, 2pm: Catherston Stud, Croft Farm, Over Wallop, Stockbridge, SO20 8HX Please note that times are approximate and subject to small final tweaks, based on stallion numbers. We will contact you prior to the grading to confirm the details. Booking your stallion in for grading is very easy, simply go to our website,  www.angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk/events , and follow the link for each venue. By completing the bookings link we can make sure that we have all the pedigree information available and can locate or enter your horse on our database. At  the grading, all stallions receive a full detailed linear description, which describes every aspect of the horse’s conformation and movement, providing excellent feedback and information for stallion owners and breeders. If you want to find out more, please do not hesitate to contact Eva on 07834 194821.
Saturday, February 10

AES Sports Results Round Up

It's been a strong start to the month for AES horses, riders and breeders on the international stage.  Here are some highlights: Billy Ginger and Steven Franks have been having a great time in Valencia this year. Today, the pair came second in the 1.30m class.  This year's Young Horse Classes at Valencia were dominated by AES horses, giving a great indication of things to come in the future: Hello Franklin , previously known as Jalisco, and Scott Brash came second in the 7yo young horse classes on Thursday and Wednesday. This son of Billy Mexico was bred by Amanda McGlynn.  Icarus bred by Castell Sport Horses and ridden by Aled Harding won the 5-year-old class on Tuesday. Warriors Boy O.L. , bred by P. Sultan, won the 7yo class on Tuesday with his rider Mark Armstrong. A particular highlight for AES horses was the 6yo class, which saw three of them in top position: Kaomi , bred by Peter Lamb and ridden by Ashley Ray,  Oakingham Titan , bred at Oakingham Farm and ridden by Patrick Joyce, and Phoebe , bred by Peter Lamb and ridden by Shane O'Reilly. Elsewhere in Europe, another great result for a talented young AES horse came for Flipper la Premiere , bred by Claudia Prior, who came 3rd in the 7&8 yo class at Villach with her rider Janne Friederike Mayer-Zimmermann and for  Golden Future MM  who was previously known as Kwick v.d. Prinsenhoeve and bred by Karen Jacobs won the 7&8yo class at Offenburg with Werner Muff.  Today,  Mevisto's Bonaparte and Felix Koller won the CSI1* at Kreuth. Bonaparte is by Carolus II out of an Aram x Notaris mare and was bred by Stal Seignette. The biggest win of the month so far came from Lizziemary , bred by Mike Dawson, who came 4th at Wellington with her rider Danielle Goldstein, winning a whopping  €17,715. Congratulations to everyone!  
Thursday, September 21

14 AES Horses Start at Lanaken

  We are excited to see no fewer than 14 AES horses starting at Lanaken this year, and wish them and their riders and breeders a successful and enjoyable competition! The owners of AES horses competing are warmly invited to come to our stand at Lanaken and collect their free AES saddle pad. Everyone is very welcome to come and say hello! The AES horses flying the flag for British breeding at Lanaken are: Navarro UK , an 11yo AES approved stallion bred by Mark Philimore, ridden by Thierry Goffinet and owned by Star Horses NV Mr Bullseye , a 6yo stallion, bred, owned and ridden by Emily Llewellyn Vancurtis , a 5yo mare, bred and owned by David Fudge and ridden by Rebecca Mason Billy Pringle , a 7yo gelding, bred and owned by Donal Barnwell and ridden by Greg Broderick Wellington Grandorie , a 6 yo mare, bred and ridden by Rowan Willis and owned by Lord and Lady Mornington Billy Fleance , a 6 yo mare, bred and owned by Donal Barnwell and ridden by Megan James Breit Star,  a 5 yo mare, bred and owned by Mr and Mrs Doswell and ridden by Lauren Edwards Kesara , a 6yo mare, bred and owned by Mr and Mrs Doswell and ridden by Lauren Edwards Lord Maximus , a 5yo gelding, bred and owned by Imogen Rogers-Nash and ridden by Adrian Whiteway Uncas S , a 9yo stallion, bred and owned by J&D Hens-Verelst and ridden by Thomas Gilles Chacco Time , 5yo mare, bred and owned by Josie Gates and ridden by Joseph Maher Heartstring , a 7yo mare, bred and owned by Mr & Mrs M Wells and ridden by Jamie Wingrove Luna vd Caatshoeve , a 6yo mare, bred and owned by van den Berghe & van de Velde, ridden by Arnaud Dewaele We wish you all the very best of luck and a successful Lanaken 2017!      
Saturday, August 12

Nicole Pavitt wins the Connolly’s RED MILLS Senior Newcomers Master

Nicole Pavitt took the Connolly’s RED MILLS Senior Newcomers Masters on day five of the British Showjumping National Championships, held at the NAEC Stoneleigh in Warwickshire. Aboard Xena 16 owned by Sandra Pavitt, Nicole was last to go in the jump off of 19 riders so the pressure was high. Unphased, the pair flew down the line to the last fence to take the lead in a time of 41.18 seconds. “Xena is naturally fast and careful so I didn’t need to worry about turning tight to the fences. This is a fantastic achievement for her; she has just recently come back from an injury and this is her third show back.” The pair has now qualified for the final at Horse of the Year Show at the NEC in October. NB: Qualifications will be updated pending grading of results. Image Credit - 1st Class Images The Horse of the Year Show 2017 will take place from the 4th – 8th October at Birmingham’s NEC.   Connolly’s RED MILLS: Connolly's RED MILLS is an Irish family owned company, providing precision nutrition for a wide range of equine needs. The company was established in 1908 in Co. Kilkenny, and today, exports to over 50 countries worldwide. For people who value their horses as high performers, Connolly's RED MILLS has been the automatic choice for over 100 years. We know just what it takes to get you the best results in terms of equine nutrition, health, well-being and performance. Some of the most successful high-performance sport horses in the world have been fed on Connolly’s RED MILLS and we are delighted to launch our new dedicated Sport Horse range of feeds. The quality products that produce these results are supported by nutritional research along with some of the most technologically advanced innovation and manufacturing processes in the world. For further information, please visit  www.redmills.co.uk/Horses/Home . Source British Showjumping 
Friday, August 11

An Invitation from the Anglo European Studbook and Brightwells Auctions

Riders and owners from the equestrian community are warmly invited to join us on  18 th  August 2017 for our second AES Elite Foal Auction at Addington Manor EC, organised in cooperation with Brightwells Auctions.  45 foals, bred for show jumping, dressage or eventing, have been selected from across the country, with selectors travelling as far afield as Devon and Inverness.  Entries for the auction were fantastic in terms of quantity, as well as quality, with foals boasting fantastic pedigrees and showcasing the vast improvements made in British breeding in recent years.   It has been an exhilarating time for AES breeders and for the studbook evaluators: Having covered journeys of several thousands of miles and having inspected a truly impressive range of foals, we are proud to present this year’s AES Elite Foal Auction catalogue.   Studbook Director Joris van den Oetelaar explains:   “Our breeders deserve a market place for their foals, and a platform to showcase the very best of British breeding. This auction is our way of giving something back to the breeding community: a place where our breeders can reach out to serious and knowledgeable buyers from the entire UK and beyond.”   This does not only provide a vital service for breeders, but also for buyers. When we ask professional riders and owners why so many still go abroad to buy foals, the answer is always the same: Buyers need to be able to see a great range of foals in one convenient location.    We breed fantastic quality in Britain, but it can be hard to find these foals, and even harder to go and see them, with many breeders not well equipped to show foals at home, or breeding in remote locations and in small numbers. The ethos of this auction is to provide a professional showcase for these foals and make things as convenient and accessible as possible for our owners and riders.    The AES evaluators were impressed with the breadth and depth of quality breeders presented to them.    AES spokesperson Dr Eva-Maria Broomer was responsible for researching the breeding of each foal:   “It was fantastic to see that our breeders do not only using excellent stallions, but breeding from outstanding mares. We made some wonderful discoveries. It is exciting to enter a mare’s details into a database, only to find that what you are looking at is the dam line of an all-time legend like Cicero, or Kostolany! Our auction selection really speaks for itself, and was very well received by international riders and owners when we presented it at our stand at the World Breeding Championships at Ermelo.”   For more information about the auction foals, including pedigrees, videos and photographs, go to:   https://angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk/foal-auction/2/addington-manor-buckingham-uk-aes-brightwells-elite-foal-auction-2017   To find out more about the timetable or how to book, please go to:   https://www.brightwells.com/equine/elite-sport-horse-sales/addington-august-elite-2017/   We hope that this wonderful initiative will be well supported by the equestrian community, and are looking forward to seeing everybody at Addington on 18 th  August!   The auction will be live streamed online, so anybody can follow it from home. For clients wishing to bid, but are unable to attend the auction, Brightwells will be delighted to assist. Phone bidding will be available. Brightwells ask that clients make contact with them before the sale, in plenty of time, and register their interest.       To arrange telephone bidding or book your tickets, please contact:  Sarah Johnson on 0044 (0) 7900 784014 or  sarah.johnson@brightwells.com           Darren Williams on 0044 (0) 7790 771458 or  darren.williams@brightwells.com     Sale day office number 0044 (0) 1296 713333             If you have any questions about the auction or the foals, please do not hesitate to get in touch with Eva-Maria Broomer, who can be contacted under: eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk  or phone:  +44 (0) 7834 194821
Thursday, August 3

The Best of British Breeding - AES Elite Foal Auction Catalogue Launch

We are absolutely delighted with this year's AES Elite Foal Auction Selection. We listened to professional riders and buyers in this country who told us they want to be able to see a great range of foals in one place, and this is exactly what we delivered! From all over the country, travelling as far afield as Inverness and Devon, we have brought together a fantastic selection of outstanding Show Jumpers, Dressage and Eventing foals from the very best Britain has to offer.  Foals were selected from proven top performance lines and assessed for conformation and gaits. In all disciplines, we found a great range of established names and exciting new talent.  To view our online catalogue, go to  https://angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk/foal-auction/2/addington-manor-buckingham-uk-aes-brightwells-elite-foal-auction-2017 . The foals will be available for viewing at Addington Manor EC in their stables during the day on 18th August, with an arena presentation at midday before the auction itself starts at 5.30pm that evening.  For more information and to book tables, go to  https://www.brightwells.com/equine/elite-sport-horse-sales/addington-august-elite-2017/ . After the auction, we invite everyone to come and join us for a big party with with the Belgian DJ Stijn Vanthienen. Come and join us for a great celebration of British breeding, and discover the Stars of the Future!  
Saturday, April 1

AES Stallion Gradings Spring Series

In April, the AES team of international evaluators embarked on a stallion grading tour of Britain where they met the full spectrum of stallion candidates, from colts presented for their first registration to international Grand Prix horses awarded Elite status. Our tour commenced at Northcote Stud, where we saw two promising young horses at the very first stage of their career and development. Both were awarded registered status in recognition of their quality and potential, and we look forward to following their progress. The first young horse presented was a lovely show jumper called I Improve by Air Jordan out of a Quidam de Revel mother, presented by Steven Gregory. A horse with a big frame, loose paces and a wonderful positive attitude, he has interesting bloodlines and everything needed to succeed in the sport. Next came lovely young dressage stallion, beautifully presented by the talented Zara Rose Woods and bred by Mandy Sanderson from her successful stallion Samara Fly out of a Weltmeyer II mother. Longacres Sergio is a very harmonious horse with beautiful conformation and natural topline, as well as three good, balanced paces. We then paid a visit to Stallion AI in Shropshire where we were given a tour of their outstanding new facilities and caught up with some old friends, such as Arko  who was first licensed with the AES as a young horse and who is enjoying his life as a fulltime breeding stallion. Joris van den Oetelaar was impressed with the new facilities and set up at Stallion AI: “The new facility at Stallion AI shows a great commitment to the future of British breeding and is becoming a centre of excellence for the very best in AI management. I certainly have not seen anything as impressive as this on the continent.” At Stallion AI, the team met Michael Whitaker’s famous horse Cassionato (Cassini x Quidam de Revel) who was inspected and awarded Elite status with the AES in recognition of his achievements in international Grand Prix. Cassionato was collected that very evening to resume his competition career with Michael, and we are all excited to see how he gets on this year. One of our evaluators, Marc Mertens, rode Cassionato as a young horse, and it was lovely to see those two old friends meet again: “It was wonderful to see Cassionato again, a horse with so much personality, athleticism and talent. He has always had the X-Factor, and I am delighted that he and Michael have such a great partnership in the sport.” We would like the thank Michael and the team at Stallion AI for the great opportunity to be the first studbook to license this outstanding horse, and wish them the very best success with Cassionato’s breeding career. Continuing the theme of Elite stallions, the next day we met another highlight of our grading tour in the breathtaking Dimaggio son Treliver Decanter who was presented at Quainton Stud in Buckinghamshire. Bred by Gill Clothier, Treliver Decanter had a very successful career with Matthew Burnett with whom he has built a wonderful partnership that took them all the way to Grand Prix. Following a field injury, Treliver Decanter is now enjoying a second career as a young rider’s horse with Charlotte Smithwhite. Treliver Decanter has a lot to offer to serious dressage breeders: the looks and star factor expected in a world class stallion, paired with a proven performance record and convincing breeding results with several licensed sons and grandsons. He also has a fantastic attitude to his work and outstanding ability to collect and extend in all three gaits. From his sire, the now sadly deceased Dimaggio, comes wonderful expressive movement. Breeders will be delighted to know that foals from Elite stallions receive free passports with the AES. Quainton Stud also saw the presentation of Lisa Maynard’s lovely young stallion Balou for Pleasure (Balou du Rouet x Landmark) who was awarded licensed status. We selected a foal by the same dam for last year’s AES Elite Foal Auction, so it came as little surprise to us that in Balou for Pleasure we saw another harmonious and talented young athlete with true international potential. Another horse to watch for the future! We rounded off our tour of the UK with a visit to Crofton Manor EC, where we saw three young showjumping stallions. Baskin Glasgow Red (Glasgow van’t Merelsnest x Clover Hill), owned and bred by Vanessa Alford, came all the way from the furthest corner of Cornwall and presented himself as an athletic young horse with a wonderful, easy temperament, not at all fazed by the journey or unfamiliar surroundings. He was awarded registered status, and we look forward to seeing him develop, as he will undoubtedly mature into a fabulous performance horse. Edward Bleekman presented two lovely young stallions with interesting pedigrees. The first was by Tangelo van de Zuuthoeve out of an Orlando mare and convinced with judges with his lovely conformation and type. As the full brother to the international Grand Prix show jumper Bintang II, this horse will have a lot to offer to the sport and to future breeding. He was awarded registered status in recognition of his potential, and we look forward to following his future development. The second stallion was by El Salvador out of a Cassini mare. A horse with wonderful type and a fabulous jump, this is a real star for the future, and has everything we can wish for in a young competition horse and breeding stallion, including great technique over a fence, three powerful and loose gaits, and beauty to match. He was awarded licensed status, and we are excited to see the offspring he will produce. We would like to thank everyone who supported this spring gradings tour, the breeders, owners, and of course our wonderful venues and would like to congratulate our successful breeders and owners. 
Tuesday, February 21

The AES Celebrates a Successful First Ever USA Stallion Grading

Our first ever stallion grading in the USA was a fantastic occasion with superb quality stallions presented as part of a great show set in the fabulous facilities at Wellington. Studbook Director Joris van den Oetelaar explains: “We are proud of bringing the very best of British sports horse breeding to audiences worldwide through our global activities. “One of the highlights of the grading was the four-year-old jumping stallion Billy Cavalier (Billy Mexico x Cavalier) who was bred here in Britain at the famous Billy Stud and is now owned by Donna Miller. We would like to congratulate Donna, William Funnell and his great team on this super result. “We are looking forward to promoting and celebrating further British successes in the USA and beyond.” The grading, which was carried out by a group of international judges, also featured two outstanding dressage stallions in the grading champion Heavy Metal  (Krack C x Metall) who was awarded Approved status based on his numerous successes in Young Dressage Horse competitions where he has been consistently scoring marks in the 80s. He was presented by Marcel van der Burgh and is owned by Lisa Jerkins. Also licensed was the Apache son Galando who was presented by Giraldo Abreu. The event was organised by our representative in the USA, Guy Huybrechts, and attended by Mayor Anne Gerwig. It attracted a number of wonderful sponsors, including Reid Equine Clinic. We would like to thank all our supporters for their generosity and are already looking forward to next year’s grading event. 
Monday, January 30

Stallion Grading Event The First Of Its Kind In Florida

Guy Huybrechts, Anglo European Studbook representative for the United States, and Corine Taymans, president of Vizcaya of the Sun Farms, are bringing a day of special events to Wellington on Tuesday, Feb. 21. Taymans has more than 30 years of equestrian experience. She was on the pre-Olympic team for Belgium and was a 2015 finalist for the Belgian Dressage Cup. Together, Taymans and Huybrechts have more than 20 years of experience breeding and managing farms. The first ever Anglo European Studbook Grand Prix of Florida and Stallion Grading Event in the U.S. is coming to the Global Dressage Stadium on South Shore Blvd. on Feb. 21 starting at 9 a.m. Stallions four years old and older will be divided into four classes based upon their age — four years old, five years old, six years old, and seven years old and older — for jumpers, as well as dressage horses. They will then be assessed, or graded, on different levels, such as their ability, competition level, offspring production and offspring competition levels. Registration is $250 per horse. To be in the brochure, the fee must be submitted by Feb. 7. Dressage horses are presented before international judges, Huybrechts said, and the horses will be asked to walk or trot with a rope rather than a rider. In the afternoon, the horses will be asked to perform various elements with a rider. Then, they will be asked to do a freestyle demonstration. The horses receive points, and at the end, the horse with the most points is the winner. Then, it will be determined if the horse is good enough for breeding. It is possible for the winning horse and the runner-up to be approved in a class. However, it is also possible to have a winning horse that isn’t approved. The jumpers have a similar schedule, and will jump a few small jumps in the afternoon. There are cash prizes for the winners, up to $2,500. “It depends on who is going to participate, what kind of horses are in each class,” Huybrechts said. “Wellington has a lot of good horses.” Later in the afternoon is the Grand Prix of Florida, which he said is similar to the Prize of the King in Belgium and the Prize of the Queen in the U.K. It is designed “to reward the most beautiful and talented horse,” he said. “It comes from the old days where the royals would get the most majestic horses. Every year, the breeders in Belgium and the U.K. show their horses to the king and queen to convince them that it should be one of their horses.” The winner and runner up will receive prizes. The benefits of grading a horse include that the grading serves as a certificate of quality that the horse is approved for breeding. It compares horses to other horses of the same age, and for breeders, as well as those selling or buying horses, it provides an added value, as approved horses usually sell for higher prices. “We grade them because we want to be able to give these horses passports,” Huybrechts explained. “A passport is all about identification of the horse and giving the owner the ability to demonstrate that his horse is approved of a certain quality.” A veterinarian has to mark on the passport the characteristics of the horse. “The United States Equestrian Federation is requiring all the horses in the U.S. to be [micro]chipped,” he said. “These passports can only be issued by registries like ourselves. The advantage of this is if somebody steals the horse, you can demonstrate ‘this is my horse’ because of the chip, because of the design here and because of the passport, for example.” If someone wants to purchase a horse, the passport allows a horse to be recognizable and not switched. Additionally, if a horse is mistreated, the chip identifies the owner of the horse. Participating in classes, the chip will allow owners to demonstrate both the age of the horse and prove ownership of the horse. Horses purchased in Europe come with passports, Huybrechts explained. For other horses, the owner would have to go through various procedures for different registries. With Huybrechts and Taymans running a U.S. office, located in Wellington, it offers a convenience for area horse owners. Horse passports are becoming required, he said, though not every horse has one. “We’re here to help people get the passport, because it ascertains the identity of the horse. That’s good for the owner, good for the buyer, good for the industry and also very good for the horse because of the wellness and traceability. Vaccines and everything have to be put in here. Everything that’s given to the horse, the veterinarian has to put in here.” Buying a horse without a passport means the new owner may not have all of the details. With a passport, the details are provided, he said. “Why do we do all this? First of all, we’re here to support talent,” Huybrechts said. “I believe in talent and quality. We want to really support that. We want to do that by vetting the stallions… For us, it’s about service to the industry and helping talented riders and horses. This is the kickoff of a story that you will see growing over the years to come.” Sponsorship opportunities are available. To register, or for additional information, visit  www.vizcayafarms.com .   ABOVE: Guy Huybrechts and Corine Taymans with Galando. Article from:  www.gotowncrier.com
Friday, January 27

The AES celebrates its successful Stallion Licensing in Poland

The AES continues to grow in its activities as a truly global studbook, promoting top class performance breeding around the world, by holding a successful stallion licensing in Poland. The event was well attended with excellent entries, resulting in the licensing of 6 new stallions. Studbook Director Joris van den Oetelaar was part of the grading commission an impressed with the quality of horses presented: “It was particularly encouraging to see a good crop of stallions born in 2013. The AES is passionate about discovering and nurturing young talent without forcing breeders and owners to overproduce their horses.” The other judges were Marc Mertens and Bernard Demets who between them provide a truly international perspective and decades of experience in the industry. The first of the 2013 crop of newly licensed stallions we would like to introduce is Cassiopeia , a stallion line-bred to the legendary Cor de la Bryere, by combining the famous Casall and Corrado. Cassiopeia is a horse with a beautiful large frame and lots of presence who convinced the judges with his great jumping technique. Cassiopeia’s mother comes from the Holstein family 260 and brings further important jumping blood in Calypso and Ladykiller XX. Our congratulations to the owner, WECHTA SPOLKA Z OGRANICZONA ODPOWIEDZIALNOSCIA SP. J. and the breeder, Joachim Schiedel. Next we have the impressive showjumping talent of Isco , by the Heartbreaker son Quasimodo van de Molendreef out of a Burggraaf mother. Behind that comes the thoroughbred influence of Julio Mariner XX, and then the famous Jasper. The mare family has been a prolific producer of Grand Prix showjumpers, including the licensed stallions Olargo B and Coltaire Z. This lovely stallion is owned by FKJ ZBYSZKO and was bred by H.G. Mosman-Rohe. FKJ ZBYSZKO presented another successful stallion in the Zavall son Iowa . This interesting stallion showed a lot of power and presence. The mother is by the important Indoctro and comes from the dam line of the influential stallion Cavalier. This lovely horse was bred by J.F. Abring. The theme of Indoctro carries on in the next licensed stallion, Hineada , a direct son of this influential stallion, and out of a Corlando mother. Interestingly, Hineada comes from a different branch of the same dam line as Iowa, counting among its progeny the successful showjumping stallion Cor de Pomme. Hineada convinced the judges with beautiful type and a wonderful temperament. We congratulate his owner, KRZYSZTOF KRZYSZTOF, and his breeder TJ Tjaarda. A slightly older stallion presented and accepted for licensing was the Canoso x Carthago Z stallion Quentin Tarantino AB bred at the famous Gestüt Sprehe and owned by ACCORD'AB ANDRZEJ BŁAŻEJEWSKI. Behind the father and grandfather comes the thoroughbred influence of Rantzau. The damline is the Holsteiner line 223b that produced the stallions De Kooning and Loredano, as well as the internationally successful showjumper Conny (ridden by Evelyne Blaton). The AES offers a clear and transparent licensing system, allowing an initial registration status for horses that show a lot of promise but need to be allowed to develop further before a final decision on their licensing can be made. This applied to the Vivant son Viviano out of a Cassiano mare who also brings the very desirable L-line blood of Landlord and comes from the Holstein Stamm 504, from which came Jan Tops’s successful show jumper Operette, as well as numerous licensed stallions. Congratulations to his owners, WECHTA SPOLKA Z OGRANICZONA ODPOWIEDZIALNOSCIA SP. J. and his breeder BJORN NAGEL, we are looking forward to following this horse’s development in future. We would like to thank everyone involved in making the Polish licensing a great success, and we are already looking forward to our next AES visit!  
Saturday, October 15

AES Celebrate Registering their 1000th Foal of the 2016 Season

It is a great pleasure to announce the 1000th AES foal registration for this year, the lovely colt Charisma CDS by the Johnson son CHB out of a Stedinger x Dormello mother. We are celebrating the occasion with a free passport for Charisma's breeder, Janice Vallance, many congratulations on having bred a very special colt! Studbook Director Joris van den Oetelaar explains: "We are delighted that we have already made 1000 new foal passports this year. This marks a significant increase from last year, when by this time we had registered just 600 foals. Given that we made in total more than 1700 passports last year, this is an early indication that we are seeing yet another fantastic year for the AES, as we are continuing to go from strength to strength. What makes us special at the AES is that we pride ourselves in offering excellent value for money to our breeders, coupled with a range of exciting initiatives that put the studbook on the map, not just in Britain, but across the Globe. This year saw our very first AES Elite Foal Auction, providing our breeders with new opportunities to raise their profile and promote their stock. We continue our drive to be a clear market leader in innovation, data, and marketing, through exciting online initiatives and support for stallion and mare owners alike. These are truly exciting times for AES breeders. We would like to thank everyone who is putting their trust in us and supports us in providing British breeders with a globally recognised top performance studbook." 
Tuesday, October 11

HOYS:Horse Victory's Fayot wins Foxhunter Championships

Welsh challenger Laura Pritchard recorded the highlight win of her career so far when she captured the Senior Foxhunter Championship at the Horse of the Year Show. The 22-year-old from Anglesey guided Horse Victory's Fayot home by half a second from runner-up Billy Twomey and Eindhoven GH, with Richard Barton taking third spot on Donata at the NEC in Birmingham. Previous winners of the class, which was first contested in 1954, include Harvey Smith, Graham Fletcher and Michael Whitaker, but Laura added her name to that list in impressive fashion after delivering a confident jump-off performance. "I felt pressure, but not too much, because I always know that he never lets me down. This means everything to me," she said. "I just try to concentrate on what I am doing and not what everyone else is doing. Winning this class is so surreal, but it has happened!" Laura's round was just halfway through the jump-off, and she added: "I was half-watching the others go. I kept looking back at the television in the collecting ring, and I thought the last two might be quicker, but we managed to do enough.   "I jumped him in the Newcomers on Wednesday and we were third, and I knew we were ready. "He has a very bright future. I think he is going to be a very special horse. I am always confident on him, and when I jumped the first round I said to my Dad 'today's the day'. It is the best day of my career, by far." Source: British Showjumping
Thursday, October 6

Hello Dolly defends The Colosso Family Ladies Side Saddle Horse of the Year Championship title

Another Championship title has been defended on day two of Horse of the Year Show (HOYS). Dianne Stennett’s Hello Dolly claimed The Colosso Family Ladies Side Saddle Horse of the Year Championship title for the second year running, ridden by Jayne Ross. With 22 immaculately turned out starters, spectators were treated to scenes of a bygone era as horses of all types were put through their paces. This is the second year that the Championship has not been restricted to hunters. The eight-year-old Thoroughbred X mare was pulled in first in the provisional line up and impressed both the ride and conformation judges enough to stay in the top spot and claim the honours. “It’s the best she’s gone,” said Jayne. “She stood like a rock in there. She’s so level headed”. Yesterday Hello Dolly was placed third in the Irish Horse Gateway Small Show Hunter of the Year Championship. Bred by the Old Lodge Stud, and by Parco, she also likes to jump. “We give her a pop at home,” says Jayne. The combination qualified for The Colosso Family Ladies Side Saddle Horse of the Year at Edenbridge and Oxted Agricultural Show. Second to Hello Dolly was Gary Merton’s Seabourne Silent Valley with Esther Rostron in the saddle.  Gemma Chapman and her own Atonement went two places better than their performance in this Championship class last year and were delighted to take the third place rosette.  Source: HOYS
Sunday, August 21

AES and Brightwells Elite Foal Auction Results

The AES are delighted to announce the results of our very first Elite Foal Auction organised in conjunction with Brightwells Auctioneers on Friday, 19th August 2016 as part of the Elite Sales at Addington Manor EC. Over half of the foals presented on the night sold, with an average prize of over £4,000, and an overall auction revenue of almost £100,000. However, this does not tell the whole story, as in many cases bidding went far above those averages, and at times into double figures, but did not make the reserves. AES Director Joris van den Oetelaar explains: "Our aim was to provide breeders with a shop window to promote their breeding to a national and international audience, and this auction has certainly achieved that with interested attracted not only in Great Britain, but also in Holland, Germany and beyond. What an auction really needs is good promotion and good presentation. Not only did we travel the length and breadth of the country to select, photograph and video the very best foals available and promote them in our very well received printed and online auction catalogue. We also provided professional runners on the night, to ensure that the presentation went smoothly and horses were shown off to their best advantage. We are immensely proud of all our breeders who worked incredibly hard. All the horses were turned out beautifully and showed that great care have been taken by everyone in the preparation of this auction." Not only was this the first time in recent years that something of this magnitude has been tried, but it also happened under some challenging circumstances. Because of all the other events at Addington Manor EC that weekend, the auction had to be scheduled for the day of the Rio Olympics Individual Show Jumping Final. AES Representative Steve Lamb feels positive about the outcome: "We asked competitive riders in this country how we could persuade them to look at British bred foals, rather than buying exclusively from the Continent. The answer was always the same: they would like to see a wide range of foals together in one place, rather than having to travel up and down the country. This is exactly what we provided here, attracting entries from places as far away as Scotland, Wales, and the South West. "The Sale provided not only a great opportunity to sell more foals to wider audiences. It also raised the profiles of many of our breeders who do outstanding work often below the public radar. We already heard from some taking bookings for their stallions this weekend because people liked the foals they saw in the auction and want to breed something similar for themselves. This demonstrates how this auction is not only an effective selling platform, but a great way of gaining wider recognition and publicity for AES breeders and British breeding in general." The AES are looking forward to building on the many positives that came out of this year's auction and make next year's event even bigger and even better. 
Friday, August 5

AES & Brightwells Elite Foal Auction Catalogue Now Available

We are pleased to announce the launch of our very first AES Elite Foal Auction Catalogue. The auction is organised in cooperation with Brightwells Auctioneers and will be held on Friday, 19 th August as a standalone part of the Brightwells Elite Auction and alongside the Young Horse Championships at Addington Manor EC. At the AES, we appreciate the support we receive from our many breeders across the country and want to give something back to the breeding community. We believe that our breeders need more opportunities to present their foals to wider global audiences and to place their foals with serious competition riders where they can achieve their full potential. The Addington Elite Sales alongside the Young Horse Championships provide the perfect venue opportunity to achieve this. Since the original announcement and invitation to our breeders to present their foals for auction selection, we have been overwhelmed by the interest, support and enthusiasm we received from the entire breeding community. In the past weeks and months we had invitations to come and see foals as far afield as Britain’s south coast, Wales and Scotland. Breeders even made their yards and facilities available for open public selections. Wherever we went we met passionate and knowledgeable breeders whose dedication has been truly humbling and inspiring. We were particularly struck by the breadth and depth of quality we encountered in breeding for all three Olympic riding disciplines, which allowed us to put together a truly outstanding selection of quality foals that showcase some of the very best Britain has to offer. They demonstrate that our breeders in this country can hold their head up high in international circles. We are excited that for the first time in recent years, we can offer serious and knowledgeable British buyers what they have been asking for: the opportunity to see an outstanding and truly diverse selection of serious competition prospect foals together under one roof. Our special thanks go to Brightwells Auctioneers who are running the ‘business side’ of this auction and whose expertise in this field is simply invaluable. Without their support this would not have been possible. We believe that Britain deserves and needs a strong and successful Elite Foal Auction and look forward to making this event a firm part of the annual equestrian calendar. ​To see our online catalogue or order a print version, visit  https://angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk/foal-auction/order-or-download-the-catalogue To book your attendance at the auction, visit www.brightwells.com For further questions, please do not hesitate to contact Dr Eva-Maria Broomer: 07834194821, eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk
Tuesday, July 12

Botero's offspring performing well in Italy

During the latest Mipaaf leg, at Sommacampagna (Italy), we had an interesting demonstration of the quality of one of the stallions graded on the 6th May at Equieffe Equestrian Centre, Botero . A stunning grey stallion by Dobel's Cento x Le Tot De Semilly. The first of Botero’s offspring have now reached 4 years old however, during this leg we could give our attention to his 3 years old progeny: Turbine (1st classified in the free jumping test and 6th in the morphology test), Bellissimo (3rd classified in the free jumpint test), Baccus (8th classified in the free jumping test and 4th in the morphology test) and last but not least Bad Boy Grey (10th classified in the morphology test). This was the first testing try away from home for almost all of them (but is important to say that Turbine had a particular mention even at the test for Fence's auction, almost a month ago) and they all behaved exceptionally well showing a willing attitude passed down by the sire, even with such different mothers. In fact we're talking about two thoroughbred mares and two German mares with a slightly less impressive pedigree. Turbine, the winner of the jumping class was born from Matimoviestar, a thoroughbred from Roi Danzing. Who  has never jumped a fence throughout her lifetime. Bellissimo's dam is also a thoroughbred named Spiddal, by Luso XX. This chestnut gelding, jumped really well in the final day, accumulating 51 positive points from one of the judges, gaining the highest score of the day comparing with Turbine's score of the previous day. Baccus, the only stallion of Botero’s offspring who joined in the competition. Baccus is a grey stallion born from a German mare named Walkenfee, daughter of Landcup B for a mare by Wiener Dom. He really impressed the judges in the morphology test, gaining the 4th position, by virtue of the correctness of his physical model. He jumped well the first day of the jumping competition, leading the class for almost the entire time: he gained the 3th position that day! Bad Boy Grey is a gelding from a mare by LANDFRIEDEN, whose mother is by Landgraf I. On this occasion Botero, had an important confrontation with some internationally famous sires as well as the mothers of the many young horses who joined the competition. I feel it is important to voice that they have provided  really amazing genetics and some of the most famous names of the Italian sport horse breeding. In the end we can say that this competition was just the first step of the sport career for these young and talented horses, but is a really fantastic satisfaction and confirmation for Botero's owner, Alessandro Dell'Anna, who always believed in his quality. We wish for them an important - and always better - sport and breeding career! During the Mipaff leg, valid for the final competition of Verona, the approved stallion Botero, graded during the first official event in Italy the last may, has been really noticed and appreciated for the quality of his offspring! Botero, italian (SI) and AES stallion, a son of the legendary Dobel's Cento for a mare by the fantastic Le Tot De Semilly almost unknown, places 3 offspring in the first 10 positions for the final day of the competition. We're talking about Turbine (Botero x Matimoviestar by Roi Danzing, a thoroughbred  mother first classified, Bellissimo (Botero x Spiddal, by Luso XX, another thoroughbred mare) third classified and Baccus (Botero x Walkenfee, by Landcup B for a mare by Wiener Dom) 8th classified. This good result despite the large number of top sires in the competition (Balou, Ustinov, Clearway, Action Breaker, Cristo, Canturo, Quaprice Bois Margot..): Turbine was the winner of the competition and Bellissimo gained an amazing score in the final day. Even in the morphology test he placed 3 sons in the first 10 positions! Botero is available in frozen and fresh semen for all the european breeders! Owner Alessandro Dell'Anna.
Thursday, June 30

Statement regarding ECS letters

Dear AES Clients, We at the Anglo European Studbook offer excellent value for money to our breeders and try to keep the costs of our passports at an absolute minimum, supporting you where we can. In order to be able to offer a high quality service at affordable prices, we are reliant on all our breeders paying their bills in a timely manner. It is a matter of regret to us that in a very small number of cases, some may occasionally forget to pay their bills. We ask for your understanding that steps have to be taken to recover the debt if payment reminders remain ignored. It is our desire to treat all our clients equally and with fairness. Some of you will have been receiving letters from a Europe wide debt collection agency, which has raised a few questions: 1. Is this a bona fide agency? Yes, the ECS(European Credit Solutions) is a company employed by the AES to recover its debt. As the AES has clients in several European countries, a European company was chosen. 2. Why did I receive this letter? When our records show that a particular payment is outstanding, our policy is first of all to send a reminder. After four reminders, the details are automatically passed on to ECS, who will then contact the client directly. 3. I did not receive a reminder, why is that? We are aware of a very small number of cases where reminders have not been received. We believe that the most likely explanation is a mistake on the contact details. Often, we receive those details in handwritten form (for example on a covering certificate), which may create issues with legibility. We apologise sincerely if you have been affected by this and would encourage you to contact the office. 4. Will I be charged any additional fees? Unlike other collection agencies, our arrangement with ECS is such that at first notification, no additional costs or fees have been added to the money that is shown as outstanding on our records, so that no financial penalties are applied this time. If you have been in receipt of a letter, and consider this to be the result of an error, please do not hesitate to give our office a call, so we can answer any questions and take steps to resolve any issues. Please rest assured that we value all our customers and want to work together to resolve these matters as quickly as possible. 
Wednesday, May 18

AES Stallion Gradings – Spring Series – Italy

The AES continues its development of an excellent modern and performance oriented stallion portfolio with successful stallion gradings this spring not only in the UK, but also in Europe. Another highlight in the series was the first grading event held in Italy, at Equieffe Equestrian Center in Gorla Minore, which attracted a number of excellent and exciting proven horses as well as promising new talent. Among the young stallions presented and licensed was the very beautiful young stallion  LIMITLESS by the outstanding Liberty Life. Liberty Life is by Lord Liberty out of a Zymbal x Wicht mare and convinces with beautiful looks and outstanding conformation. Lord Liberty’s dam line also produced the important stallion Fiorissimo, offering a genetic background of excellence across multiple generations. Another young talent licensed on the day was FLINTON by Clinton out of a Heartbreaker – Voltaire mare from the Dutch dam line of Nomana, an incredibly prolific mare family that produced multiple licensed stallions and Grand Prix horses in both show jumping and dressage which offer a highly valuable contribution to the AES portfolio. Another licensed stallion was the charismatic 4-year-old Clarimo Ask son GALEXUS E out of an Alexis Z mare who through her dam sire Abgar XX brings to the table that all important injection of thoroughbred blood so essential in a truly modern athletic performance horse. The list of licensed stallions concludes with the very striking HALOS KINTOS , bred and owned by Az. Agricola Cinzia Basso. Halos Kintos is by the Darco stallion Ogano Sitte whose mother goes back to the famous Jasper. His mother, Fenjce, is by Voltaire out of a Sultan mare from the Hanoverian dam line of Jahde, which also produced the stallions Godolphin and Don Index, who was the winner of his stallion performance test, making this line a fantastic addition for breeders looking for a proven dam line likely to produce future stars. Among the older stallions were a number of horses standing out in quality and proven performance, meriting the award of ‘Approved’ status. The first in this group was the beautiful grey stallion BOTERO , owned by Alessandro dell’Anna and bred by Noesar SRL. Botero  is by Cento out of a Le Tot de Semilly x Lysander mare from the Dutch dam line of Worona I, which also produced the famous Apache and Ulrich Z. Another stallion awarded Approved Status was the beautiful CANTURANO II (CANTURANO III DELLA CACCIA) , bred by Jürgen Strauss, by Canturano out of a Coriano – Ahorn Z mare from the Holsteiner Stamm 2067. This stallion has outstanding type and is still at the beginning of what is set to be a very promising competition career with already numerous successful performances at CSI2* and CSI3* level. One to watch for the future! The list of approved stallions concludes with the athletic ARHUACO NOESAR Z , bred and owned by Noesar Show Horses SAS. This stallion has an outstanding pedigree through his sire, Air Jordan who brings together the influential blood of Argentinus and Matador, which is matched in his dam who is by Contender out of a Lord Calando mare. We congratulate all the stallion owners and breeders who presented their beautiful horses at this successful and uplifting grading and look forward to watching these stallions progress in future. We would also like to thank our hosts at Equieffe Equestrian Center for supporting us with such a fabulous venue, with in particular Mr Alessandro Dell'anna.
Monday, April 11

22 Stallions AES Licensed

AES has 22 new Licensed stallions after Saturday’s approvals in Schijndel, the Netherlands. Ne-President vh Koekshof (President) of the breeder Jaak Evens was crowned Champion. Robert Ehrens, son of Dutch Chef d’Equipe Rob Ehrens, was part of the jury and said: ‘Ne President was the most complete horse of the day. He has the X-factor and the skills to go well in the sport.’ Quickstar-son Quality Star of Jan van Hamond from Germany became the runner-up and third place went tot Nirvana C (Clarence C), maybe the most beautiful horse of all. Constant Vermeiren got two pony stallions approved and in dressage Ichiro van Bergham (Don Juan de Hus) of Miranda Eigenraam became the Champion. The breeder bought the mare of this horse four years ago in France at Haras de Hus and already has an AES-champion for the third time now. All pictures: www.paardenfotograaf.be Licensed jumping   20 BEST COMPAGNIE Z  (Best Man x C’est Lui Z) Hugette Exelmans en Kees van den Oetelaar 21 JORLANDO DI LUNA Z (Jiqueenturo di Luna x Capalino Z) Kelly en Tim Cornelis-Waegeman 22 ITALO  (Inshallah de Muze x Cambridge) A. Mazza 23 CATCH A DREAM Z (Comme il Faut x Vittorio) S. Egbergen 24 GOTHA DE LA BRASSERIE (I’m Special de Muze x Karacondo) Joris de Brabander/stal Van der Hasselt 26 QUALITY STAR (Quick Star x Concept) Jan van Hamond 29 CEES (Caretino Gold x Calgary) Stoeterij Black Horses 30 NE-PRESIDENT VAN KOEKSHOF (President x Cicero van Paemal) Jaak Evens Lemmens 31 NIRVANA C (Clarence III x Cicero van Paemal) Eric Laenen 34 MORENO (Carenzo x Manhattan) Fans en Frea Plantaz 41 ACTIVE X VAN WWW.OLLAND.BIZ  (Allegro x Namelus R) Joan van Gorkum 42 EMINEM SBK Z (Emerald x Quintero) Kristof Bijloos en Patty Custers 43 COCORICO DE RIVERLAND  (L’Arc de Triomphe x Kashmir van Schuttershof) Kees van den Oetelaar 44 CAMARO BTL (Casall x Casiro) Bjorn te Lintelo 46 ECOLANO VAN STAL ROMANO (Corland x Indoctro) Adri Jespers/J. Timmermans en Dos Santos   Licensed pony   17  ROYAL WASH DRUM VAN HET JUXSCHOT  (Eternity vd N.Ranch x Hoppenhof's Victor)   J., C. en E. Vermeiren 18 REICHSGRAF -DRUM VAN HET JUXSCHOT  ( Kantje's Fahran x Ten Ankers Jerolianca) J., C. en E. Vermeiren   Registered jumping   19 NABAB ST.HUBERTUSHOEVE (Nabab de Reve x Voltaire) Roland Lammers 45 ALL READY JVH Z  (Armstrong van de Kapel x Pierrot) Jan Vermeiren   Licensed dressage   1 IDENTIEK BH (Furst Heinrich x Florencio) Stoeterij Black Horses 3 NOCITO DE MUZE (Jazz x Rubinstein) Joris de Brabander/Nick van Laer 5 ICHIRO VAN BERGSHAM  (Don Juan de Hus x Salieri) Miranda Eigenraam 9 ATZE (FUERST AUGUSTINUS) (Astor x Sander) Gerrit van heijst 15 GARONUS (Uphill x Flemming) Anouk Daris   Registered dressage   2 INCREDIBLE BOY  (Bordeaux x Jazz) E. ten Bosch 4 INSPIRE  ( Chippendale x Zeoliet) E. Appelmans / D. Calle 6 IGOR  (Davino VOD x Wynton) Dirk Jan Wulfse 10 GALLARDO-SW  (Bretton Woods x Sandreo) J.C.M. Cuypers    
Thursday, April 7

AES Approval for Cobra 18

Cobra 18, the Cornet Obolensky son, standing at Drumhowan Stud, Castleblayney, Ireland, has recently been awarded Approved Stallion status by the Anglo European Studbook (AES). AES Studbook Director Joris van den Oetelaar said “As we prepare for the 2016 breeding season, we are delighted to award Approved Stallion status to Cobra 18. By the renowned Cornet Obolensky and out of an exceptional damline, Cobra 18’s phenomenal genetics are an exciting addition to have in our Studbook.” Joris continued, “Cobra 18 is a big athletic horse with great presence, movement and scope. These qualities along with his excellent temperament and competitiveness are demonstrated in his offspring, the eldest of these starting successfully this year at 1.60 level.” Cobra 18 was campaigned through the youngster series in Europe, progressing up to 1.50 level before a career ending injury resulted in his premature retirement from the sport. However, the sports loss is proving to be the breeder’s gain based on the recent results of his offspring, debuting at championship level. A spokesperson for Cobra 18 advised “It is a privilege to have Cobra 18 awarded Approved Stallion status by the Anglo European Studbook, particularly as the AES is one of the top 10 Studbooks in the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses World Ranking list. The AES is a progressive Studbook, actively promoting sports horse breeding throughout Europe, with AES registered horses competing throughout the world and their riders getting podium results. Therefore, as Cobra 18 was a good sports horse and is now proving to be a great breeding stallion, it makes complete sense to have an association with this dynamic Studbook.”  
Friday, March 25

Family De Rooij with Spanish Cartujano horses in modern dressage

AES has approved two interesting new stallions from the Dutch breeders and owners Frans and Sylvia De Rooij-Tonnaer in Belgium. Both grey horses have Spanish roots. The impeccable Cartujano stallion Generoso CII is already sold to a French international dressage rider. The promising seven-year-old Adonis-R, a cross of the Spanish Cartujano race and the warmblood stallion Damsey, is ready to make his international breakthrough with Roger Schulkens.  De family de Rooij has an interesting story to tell and with this, they already were standing in the spotlights several times. Not only we are charmed by the glory and luxury of the Spanish horses. Also moviemaker Mario Dirkx was inspired by it. He started to investigate the history of this clean Spanish race. This was the immediate cause of the documentary Horse of Kings - “Thief of Hearts”, a wonderful movie about the one and only real Spanish horse, the predecessor of the currently famous Andalusian horse. The horses are described as always sharp, temperamentful, but gentle. Their history is immemorial, their character is incorrigible, their potential is inexhaustible. The look in their eyes, the waving manes, the strong back and the fluent canter make the horses a pleasure to work with. That’s why these Cartujano’s have always been the horses of kings, the thiefs of hearts. That’s also why these horses fit in modern dressage… The long history A conversation with the de Rooij family generates the same feeling as watching the movie Thief of Hearts. Your heart will be conquered by the Cartujano horses when you walk in their stable. Sylvia De Rooij dips us in the history of her horses: ‘Cartujano is derived from the Carthusian monks in the south of Spain. In the Andalusian city Jerez de la Frontera, they already bred this type of horses in their abbeys many centuries ago. Noble people from the army’s and kingdoms from all over Europe bought the horses from the Spanish abbeys. Do you know why the school in Wien is called the Spanish Riding School? Because the Austrian Kingdom received a Cartujano horse as a present from Spain! De Lipizzaner horses that they use now, are still descendants of our Carthusian horses.’ Sylvia tells her story with a Dutch-American accent. ‘As a young girl, I moved with my family to California, where my father had a job. I lived there until I was thirty. I rode dressage on a Frisian Horse. When I moved back to the Netherlands, where I met my partner François, I picked up my old passion, but I wanted a quieter horse. A friend of ours brought us in contact with the Carthusian horses.’ Cartujano’s are esteemed to be the traditional Spanish horse. However, today the pure race is only a small percentage of the PRE (Pure Race Espagnol). How bizarre it may sound, but the PRE nowadays is impregnated with foreign blood, such as Arabian and thoroughbred. Only three percent of the “Pure Spanish Horses” is real Carthusian. ‘Luckily our horses have a certificate that proves their purity. That’s why twenty years ago we started to only breed Cartujano’s. We wanted to go back to the roots, because we were so impressed by the history of these horses. In the beginning we also had the typical Andalusian horses, but those we didn’t find unique anymore. Worldwide there are 60.000 horses like that. Of the real Cartujano there are only 1.500. The big Spanish studfarms mostly have not more than six or seven pure Carthusians. The rest are Andalusians. To prove that a Cartujano horse is pure, they are tested by the University of Cordoba.’  Sylvia and Frans De Rooij already breed Cartujano’s for more than twenty years now. They won the European Championship in 2006. Most competitors came from Spain and also the judges were Spanish, but the winners came from Belgium! Cartujano’s mostly are grey. Many old paintings and statues in Europe show the original Cartujano. Commanding officers only rode on these horses. Even Napoleon had a Cartujano horse. Rubens mostly portrayed the Carthusian horse. Altogether, the studbook lived up in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century, but the monks have stored pieces of writing about their horses that go back much further in history.  Future in dressage Cartujano’s are multifunctional horses. That’s for sure, but that they also can be suitable for high level dressage sport, is doubted by some. Family De Rooij motivates why they can be so competitive: ‘Our stallion Generoso was sold to the French junior rider Eugenie Burban, only fourteen, and she will become part of the national team soon. Her parents were looking for a quiet horse for their daughter. Normally then you wouldn’t end up buying a stallion, but with a Cartujano stallion, there is no problem at all. They have such a nice character and a lot of expression ofcours! For now Generoso is the only Cartujano stallion acting in the international sport, but I see changes. Jan Bemelmans has trained this horse and he was very delighted to see a new Spanish horse breaking through in the sport. In the past he trained the Spanish team existing of almost only Spanish horses. In that period, they won a lot of medals. It proves that there are chances for our horses in this world. Often Spanish horses are seen as show horses, but we want to prove that there is also a place for them in the sport. We think their potential will start to distinguish in the higher level. Also we are curious about how far the seven-year-old Adonis-R will reach. He is a crossing of a Cartujano-mare with the Hannovarian dressage champion Damsey, a grandson of Donnerhall. With this experiment we hoped to breed an even better dressage horse and we think it worked out well. Adonis now starts in the Z2 level and will make his international debut soon. Jan Bemelmans has told us often that he sees a nice future for this cross breeding. We also hope that Adonis-R will get chances in breeding with his AES approval. He really is the best of two different worlds. We already have bred seven foals of the same crossing Cartujano x warmblood and they are really in the market. We only have to more left and they are still growing up.’  Also Adonis’ rider Roger Schulkens, who shows us his stallion under saddle, is very enthusiastic about the grey horse. ‘It’s my first experience with Spanish horses, but I like it a lot. Adonis immediately can enter in the high level dressage. He wants to learn and to work.’ Roger likes the character and also the expression of Adonis. Spanish horses are also more powerful, because they’re a bit shorter. ‘They do complicated exercises, like pirouette, piaffe and passage, much easier because they have less difficulty with collection.’ Sylvia: ‘You already have to do your best to see that Adonis is a semi Spanish horse. A lot of people don’t remark it. You can mostly see it in the movement. He really is a nice horse, so that’s why many people ask us about this horse when we show him in competition. Every time he got a lot of points.’  By crossing Cartujano’s with warmbloods, more length and speed was added to the Spanish type of horse. They have more impulse. François Van Rooij: ‘The next warmblood on my list is Totilas.’ It’s an experiment, but obviously the De Rooij family keeps on focusing mostly on the breeding of Cartujano’s. ‘That’s what we became famous with. We sold horses to China, France, Turkey, Spain, … We only do outcross once or twice for one mare, because we don’t want to fall out of our pure Spanish breed. Also because our son Francisco, who studies in Spain, works with pure Cartujano’s, we need more of these horses. With Bonito XXII he acts in the Doma Vaquera, which is Spanish dressage with one hand. He even does exercises without reigns. In the Doma Vaquera the rider has the reigns normally in one hand and he carries a stick, in Spanish the Garocha, in the other hand. The Garocha was the attribute to drive the cattle in the past. Today it’s only a show attribute. Doma Vaquera is a wonderful demonstration. Riders wear amazing ancient outfits. There is also a competition for it. It’s the passion of our son and he wants to go further in it. He went back to the roots of the sport, as we found the original Spanish horse back. The Doma Classica, or the modern dressage as we know in the north, arose out of the Doma Vaquera. Driving cattle together is the base of every dressage. Horses had to turn sharp. That’s how the pirouette originated. They had to do lead changes to follow the cows. The capers, known from the Spanish Riding School, also come from the Doma Vaquera.’  Not only in Belgium, but also in the Spanish area of Malaga, the Dutch family De Rooij has a barn. The Spanish one is called Residelca. There the breeding stock lives. In Belgium they have the sport horses. ‘The better dressage events are in Belgium. In Spain we have more place to do the breeding. The mares with the foals have plenty of place to live together and grow up without any problem. It’s perfect for their health and their mental freedom. Our son also trains his show horses in Spain, because he studies there. Now it will be his decision whether he continues the breeding or not. In fact we think he will start a professional career in the horse world, but we don’t want to push him at all. For us, it has always been a hobby. We have started off, but we don’t have the plan to expand the activities. We’re too old for that.’  The Curthusian movie Because of the wonderful old story and because of the exceptional character of this race, a movie came out about the Cartujano horses. The première has been done and the movie is now available on the digital network Horse Lifestyle. In november the movie won the award of best documentary about horses at Horse Film Festival in New York. You really have to see him. It takes one hour and a half and it is marvellous from the beginning till the end. Sylvia: ‘Generoso, the AES-approved Cartujano stallion that we sold to France, is on every flyer in the world about this movie. In total seven of our horses are used for this movie. It’s all about the birth of the foal up to the most technical exercises in the show ring.’  Horse of Kings is a documentary in which the whole evolution of the Cartujano race is described. Sylvia De Rooij about how the idea arose: ‘Scriptwriter Mario Dirkx bought two of our Carthusian horses and got charmed by their history. When I started telling about how precious these horses were in the Middle Ages and how the monks already bred them in the 16th century, he got that interested that he travelled to Spain to discover every little detail of the Cartujano horse. It attracted him that much, that he wanted to make a movie of it. Finally the search to the roots of Mario’s horses became the subject of the film. It’s about history, about secrets and about the qualities of the Carthusian horse. It took many years before the project was finished. Scenes were filmed all over Europe. The result is amazing.’
Saturday, February 20

AES Stallion Grading Spring Series 2016

The AES is supporting the 2016 breeding season with another highlight of public stallion gradings in the UK. We are delighted to announce that we have confirmed two dates and venues for this year’s spring gradings, 13 th April at Northcote Stud, Lancashire and 14 th April at Crofton Manor, Hampshire. These public gradings are a wonderful opportunity to showcase and assess up-and-coming young talent, presented for licensing for the first time and comprising some of the very best in modern performance bloodlines. Older, more established stallions are invited to be presented for an upgrade to Approval Status, awarded to horses that have proven themselves in competition and breeding. Offering these gradings at several venues across the UK is making it easier for stallion owners to travel to the venues, and for breeders to see horses available for stud in their region. The horses will be evaluated by a panel of judges from Britain and abroad, thus providing that all important national and international perspective to ensure the AES provides its breeders with the very best selection of stallions to choose from. Studbook director Kees van den Oetelaar sees the stallion gradings as something close to his heart. He himself is well known in the industry for having a keen eye for spotting and nurturing talent and has discovered show jumping and dressage stallions alike that later became legends in their own right: “These public stallion gradings are always a highlight of the season, giving everyone and our judges the opportunity to see some of the very best. We believe in giving our breeders a fantastic choice.” In order to qualify for AES licensing, stallions need to be presented with full verified pedigree and clean veterinary assessment and x-rays. On the day, they will be assessed in hand on hard and soft ground and loose in the arena. Ridden stallions will also be assessed under saddle.  
Monday, December 21

18 New stallions for AES

At Molenheide in Schijndel, 18 new stallions have been licensed or approved on the winter approvals of AES. Nector vd Watering (Sandro Boy) was crowned champion. Six older stallions were fully approved and also one pony has the right to cover unlimited. Two dressage stallions have been added to the database of registered stallions. Five stallions were registered. The list: van Klaveren Nathalie            WORLD WIDE WONDER VAN HET ANSERLAND    WEISSGOLD GF                                       Dressage         Registered        Eigenraam Miranda                DENIM DE HUS                                                  DON JUAN DE HUS (DIOVANNIE)             Dressage         Licensed       Dressuurkampioen stoeterij black horses             IMPACT BH                                                       APACHE (AMIGO)                                    Dressage        Licensed Stappaerts Raphael                 ROCK & ROLL D'ERES Z                                     RASCIN (VAN SCHIJNDEL'S RASCIN)         Jumping         Registered      Spits BVBA                              NONO VD WITHOEVE                                        ELVIS TER PUTTE                                    Jumping          Licensed   C A M van den oetelaar           CASCATINO                                                      CARINJO (CARINJO 9)                             Jumping          Licensed C A M van den oetelaar           NO SURRENDER SR Z                                         NUMERO UNO                                       Jumping          Licensed stoeterij black horses              INSIDER BH                                                       CHELLIST                                               Jumping         Registered broeckx marcel                       NECTOR VAN DE WATERING                              SANDRO BOY                                        Jumping          Licensed   Springkampioen Stal de bergkampen                DEVILL VD BERGKAMPEN Z                                 DALLAS VDL                                          Jumping         Licensed hengstenhouderij Van Dijck    COMME D'HAB J & F CHAMPBLANC                     CLARIMO (CLARIMO ASK)                      Jumping          Licensed           Rovers Jorgen                          DON CARLOS Z                                                  D'AVO'S DUCARLOS (DUCARLOS)          Jumping          Registered    GG-Groep                               MELVIS VAN DE PASPOLDER                                ELVIS TER PUTTE                                  Jumping          Licensed Exelhof nv                               M-ADORADO                                                      BREEMEERSEN ADORADO (ADORADO) Jumping          Licensed         Benny de Ruiter Sporthorses    HOUSTON VB                                                      INDOCTRO                                          Jumping         Registered D. Willems                                INDIAAN                                                            ETOULON VDL (ETULOUN)                   Jumping         Licensed Stal de Eekhoek                       PABLO                                                                 PACIFIC (BROERE PACIFIC,PEARL JAM) Jumping          Approved  Pony          Lac-hoeve                               FELLOW                                                               QUIDAM DE REVEL                              Jumping          Approved   Wamers arnold                        OKLAHOMA HOLSTENHOEVE Z                            OGANO SITTE                                      Jumping          Approved   Frans Burgers                           EXCENTRIEK                                                       USTINOV                                             Jumping          Approved Emily Smet                               JUGANO VAN DE VOSBERG                                  OGANO SITTE                                      Jumping         Approved Wamers arnold                        ACANTUS LA MANGA                                           ALVARINO 2 (FS ALVARINO)                Jumping          Approved D&J Projects                            D&J HAVANNA                                                     GRISELDI L (DAMHUS GRISELDI FHP)    Jumping          Approved  
Monday, September 28

Annual Member Meeting 2015

Great Opportunity for AES Breeders to Shape the Future The Anglo European Studbook is committed to becoming the main British Studbook for performance sporthorse breeding and to supporting its breeders at all levels. To this end, AES members, breeders, owners, riders and supporters are warmly invited to join us in Surrey for our annual members meeting on 14 th  October at 7pm in The Parrot Inn ( www.theparrot.co.uk ). This is an exciting time to be involved with the AES and we look forward to discussing a number of interesting initiatives and ideas to shape the future of Breeding and of the Sport. Our common aim is to recognise and promote breeding excellence at all levels and provide innovative support that delivers real benefits for our members and breeders whose views and ideas we look forward to hearing. Topics for discussion will include: Mare and young stock gradings Purple, silver and gold papers to recognise and promote quality and performance Sales and marketing support for our breeders AES foal auction – in partnership with Brightwells? Increasing participation at our gradings Attracting new audiences The AES App – How can we develop it? Publishing results on our database – working with British Showjumping, British Eventing and British Dressage This is a great opportunity for our breeders to have a say in how we can move forward together to build on our success and create a great future for British Breeding and the Sport. We would like to encourage all breeders to get in touch and let us know their suggestions for further discussion topics to be put on the agenda, and welcome everyone along on the night with their questions and ideas. We hope to see a great turnout in Surrey. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to get in touch with Eva-Maria Broomer,  eva@angloeuropeanstudbook.co.uk , 07940 575 782.
Wednesday, August 26

New Junior International Team GB Rider for AES licensed stallion, MFS Cayden HH

MFS Studfarm are pleased to announce that their 5 year old AES licensed stallion MFS Cayden HH (v Contender) will have a new dressage partner in the Junior International Team GB rider Ruth Hole. MFS Cayden HH already won the British Dressage Winter Regional Championship at Novice Freestyle and competed at the British Dressage National Winter Championships at Hartpury in April 2015.  He recently was 10 th in the British Dressage Summer Regional Championships at Novice Open level with Jennifer Johnston. Ruth has competed internationally for Team GB on numerous occasions and has had outstanding results as a Pony and Junior rider. MFS Studfarm express their sincere gratitude to Jennifer Johnston for currently continuing Cayden's training and doing so well at the British Dressage Regional Championships a couple of weeks ago. "She has done the most outstanding job with Cayden in such a short time, and this was highly commented on by both Rachel and Ruth at the weekend, while they were up visiting us." "We had the delight of spending a couple of days with Ruth and Rachel at the weekend and had a great time watching Ruth riding Cayden, and cannot say how excited we are for his future with a super talented rider and also the super veterinary talent of Rachel watching over his care." Cayden leaves for his new home this Friday with Eric Gillie and will arrive on Monday with Ruth, Rachel, Duncan and Claire. The MFS Studfarm team were delighted to send the first picture of what we all hope will be a very exciting future international partnership MFS Studfarm are pleased to start a long standing collaboration with this fabulous dressage family and express their t hanks to Sarah Steggall and also Ruth's mother, Dr Rachel Murray. We congratulate MFS Studfarm on their success and wish MFS Cayden and his new rider all the best for the future.   
Monday, August 3

AES LOOSE JUMPING CHAMPIONSHIP SET TO IMPRESS

The British Showjumping National Championships and Stoneleigh Horse Show will be coming to Warwickshire for the first time in 2015. The show will take place on the 11 th  – 16 th  of August at the National Agricultural and Exhibition Centre (NAEC), Stoneleigh. This exciting new show will feature National Show Jumping and is the summer highlight in the British Show Jumping Calendar. The new addition to the showing calendar, Stoneleigh Horse Show, will run in conjunction with the British Showjumping National Championships and is set to make a big impression. For the first time the British Showjumping National Championships and Stoneleigh Horse Show will feature the Anglo European Studbook Loose Jumping Championship. This prestigious Championship will be the highlight of the Tuesday evening performance on 11 th  August in the Andrews Bowen Indoor Arena. Before the Championship takes place there will be an introductory talk by a representative of the Anglo European Studbook to help audience members know what to look for and how to spot talent in young jumping horses. The Anglo European Studbook Loose Jumping Championship is open to horses registered in all British and WBFSH Studbooks, which are born in 2012. There will be a special prize awarded by the sponsors to the highest places AES registered horse. The class will be of benefit to both breeders to highlight the strength of their breeding program, and to riders looking to source future champions. We hope the class will encourage breeders to attend the British Showjumping National Championships and Stoneleigh Horse Show and will be an exciting connection between the breeding fraternity and riders. The British Showjumping National Championships and Stoneleigh Horse Show offers exciting competition, indoor performances, hospitality and a retail shopping village. Entry for spectators wishing to take advantage of this fantastic show is free! For more information please visit www.bsnationalchampionships.co.uk 
Friday, July 31

Argento tops the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses World Rankings List.

Argento tops the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses World Rankings List. John and Clare Whitaker's brilliant 13-year-old stallion Argento has taken over top spot in the latest World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses world rankings list. The 13-year-old stallion has enjoyed an outstanding season, guided by John's masterful riding, to post a string of impressive performances that includes a grand prix victory in Hong Kong, second places in the Longines Global Champions Tour London and Monaco grand prix, plus a magnificent double clear in stamina-sapping conditions that underpinned Great Britain's FEI Nations Cup triumph in Rome two months ago. After being ranked second last month, Argento (Arko III x Gasper) is now top of the prestigious WBFSH list, heading fellow world-class horses like the Scott Brash-ridden Hello Sanctos, owned by Lord and Lady Harris and Lord and Lady Kirkham, in sixth, while Rolf Goran-Bengtsson's London Global Champions Tour grand prix winner Casall ASK is fourth. Speaking after Argento's second place in London two days ago, John said: "He is on very good form, and I think I'm on quite good form! He jumped great, absolutely superbly." Argento's breeder Keely Durham commented "It is fantastic news for British breeding. I am very proud of Argento, and a big well done to John for getting him there." Source: BS
Tuesday, April 21

Elite stallion Marome NW awarded AES stallion of the year

During the stallion show of the DSC-Group in Schijndel (NL) that followed the schedule of the continental AES spring stallion grading, Elite stallion Marome NW was honored and awarded the AES stallion of the year. The 21-year-old stallion is bred by Willy Sidorak and owned by Fam. Bruggink.   Marome NW competed in the past at the highest level under Gert-Jan Bruggink. The duo won the Dutch Championship for Young Riders in 2002. In addition, the fantastic jumping Marome NW placed for Zwolle, Aarhus, Madrid, Mannheim, La Baule, Rotterdam, Den Bosch and Geesteren. The combination also won the 2005 Open Benelux Championship in The Hague. Due to an injury Marome NW  had to leave the sport a little to soon. The AES has to thank it’s 6 th place on the WBFSH final ranking 2014 partly by Marome NW's offspring Andrea and Vampire . The AES registered Marome NW son Anton recently made a number of huge successes under Jaime Azcarraga. This combination won last year at Spruce Meadows the incredible amount of $ 400.000.- and last month, more than $ 350.000 in Thermal, California. The results achieved by offspring of Marome NW in competitive sports are also a very great achievement for breeding given the small number of offspring that this stallion has compared to most other top jumping suppliers. Marome NW is standing at stud at the Dinkelhoeve in Denekamp (NL). There is both fresh and frozen semen available, the stud fee for 2015 is only € 850.- www.dinkelhoeve.com  
Tuesday, April 14

AES stallion approval Schijndel: Diego Maradonna champion!

Thirty stallions have been Registered, Licensed or Approved by the AES Studbook on the main stallion approval in Schijndel on Monday April, 13. The athletic chestnut Diego Maradonna 111 Z (Der Senaat 111 x Action Breaker) was chosen champion. He was presented by De Roshoeve, but owned by the breeders Harrie Theeuwes and Peter Van Santvoort. His full brother De Flor 111 Z was one of the champions during the winter stallion competition in Belgium. Elected as reserve champion was Mosito vh Hellehof (Elvis ter Putte x Nabab de Rêve) of Joris De Brabander. Also the nice modelled stallion Horado V (Eldorado vd Zeshoek x Chellano Z) of Team Nijhof was one of the three decorated three-year-olds. Three jumpers were fully approved after a nice presentation under the saddle. First of all Citizen Kan EBH (Canturo), owned by breeder Frank Kok, turned out to be the most impressive. Also the grey four-year-old Goedhart (Quasimodo vd Molendreef x Clinton) impressed and got Approved. The Untouchable son Diesel was approved, because he proved to be very competitive. Of six dressage stallions, two were Approved: Giano (Lord of Loxley x Sandro Hit) of Björn van Kessel and de Ijzeren Man, and Fribourg W (Lord of Loxley x Ferro) of Johan Lokhorst. The Licensed dressage stallions were Berreaux (Bordeaux x Ferro) of W-Stables from Wuustwezel and Sacandro (Sarkozy x Fürst Heinrich) of De Dinkel Hoeve. Also two pony stallions have been Licensed: Quidam’s Drum vh Juxschot (Eternity vd N. Ranch x Kantje’s Armando) and Merlijn vd Bisschop (Flipper d’Elle x Nabab de Rêve). This last pony was bred as a horse, out of the damline that has produced Cella (Ben Maher).
Monday, March 9

WEF: Ben Maher and Diva II top $372,000 FEI World Cup™ Grand Prix CSI-W 5*

Last night saw Ben Maher and the British Bred 10 year-old chestnut mare  Diva II , owned by Tatiana Korsakova,  clinch a brilliant win over Germany’s Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum to secure the €372,000 FEI World Cup Grand Prix in Wellington, Florida by just a fraction of a second. This big achievement made the combination rise to a spectaculair 4th place in the HorseTelex Results rankings which are still led by Argento and John Whitaker. ​ The final combination to come forward in the jump off, it had looked like Meredith couldn’t be beaten but Ben, who put his foot on the accelerator from the start, managed to break the finish line in a time of 46.03 seconds.  This was just enough to relegate Meredith, the first of the three to go in the final round, into second place with her time of 46.31 seconds.   Laura Kraut for the USA took third place with her longstanding partner Cedric. With such huge prize money at stake there wasn't an empty seat in the grandstands at this superb venue which seemed all the more atmospheric with this major competition being played out under spotlights.  Alan Wade from Ireland was the course designer that had tested the riders to the hilt, hitting the note perfectly in terms of giving the spectators a thrilling class with it having culminated in a three way jump off from a field of just over forty. Talking afterwards Ben commented  “It was a pretty quick turnaround for me. I was second from the end so Diva did not have much time to recover from the first round.  The jump off was probably my best ever round on Diva, She’s come a long way this circuit”. Source: British Showjumping
Thursday, January 15

William Funnell: ‘I was the only rider in the GCT on a home bred horse’

Of the greatest show jumping breeders in Great Britain evidentially are top show jumping rider William Funnell and Donal Barnwell of The Billy Stud. Last year Funnell was in the top thirty on the Longines Ranking, thanks to his home bred AES horses. His fully AES approved stallion Billy Congo helped him and Great Britain to win team gold at the European Championships in Herning, Denmark in 2013. A Tuesday evening in October we pass by William Funnell’s farm near Dorking and stop by his favourite pub to have a chat. While consuming a glass of beer and a good steak, William talks extensively about his breeding program and his aims in the sport, about what he likes about his life and about his “eventing wife” Pippa Funnell of course. We just passed by your breeding farm. It looks huge. How many foals do you breed every year? We have about seventy right now, but we have already sold a few. Seventeen? No, seventy! We cleaned some mares lately, but do more embryos now. We started with ET five years ago and we can see the difference. We are now trying to focus more on our best mares. That’s what everybody is doing right now. The breeding has changed. In the future we want to have thirty embryos a year and fifty normal born foals. This year we started to do the embryo transfer at home. We have enough of our own mares to use, so we don’t have to rent foreign surrogate mares. My goodness! Do you really think you have to breed in these large numbers to get something really good? It’s hard to draw a line. If it was a science, it would be easy to breed GP horses. We have already sold broodmares that afterwards seemed to have given interesting foals. If you could see it all before, it would be easy. We started to breed on a bigger scale five years ago. How did it all get started? Twenty years ago Donal and I bred our first foal together. We got to know each other when I worked at the Brendon Stud for the Light family as a young man. Donal often called in at the Brendon Stud to loose jump horses. Later on he became a dealer and I a rider. Donal and I had some horses together and our first foal came from a mare who had been injured. Her name was Tatum. She was an Irish horse by Clover Hill. We couldn’t do anything but breed from her. Maybe it was faith that pushed us in this direction. Also luck was on our side. The mare we started with was a very good jumper. She was meant for sport, but used for breeding. That’s how it should be. Little by little we realized she could be the founder of a nice breeding story. From the beginning we believed that crossing the Irish blood with the best European, could offer us top show jumping and eventing horses. Her first foal immediately turned out to be a GP horse. This was Billy Orange (Animo), who jumped in the Super League Nations Cups for The Netherlands with Roelof Bril.  There’s the Billy term already! In fact we named this first colt just Orange, because it was a chestnut. When he came in to start being ridden, a groom called him Billy. His sport name became Billy Orange and we kept the Billy name for our stud. The second foal out of our mare Tatum was Billy Autumn, also by Animo. She was a lovely filly, so we decided to cover her as a three-year old. The stallion we used was Vechta, a stallion by Voltaire who I had just bought in Scandinavia. I had seen him jump clean in the Grand Prix of Oslo as a seven-year-old and fell in love with him. The foal of this young mare and Vechta was Billy Congo, my current GP stallion. One more foal out of our first breeding mare Tatum jumps internationally at the moment. This is Billy Buttercup (Vechta) from the Norwegian Victoria Gulliksen. She mostly jumps the small tour 1.40m-1.50m classes, but she’s often placed. Could you see Billy Congo’s skills from the day he was born? In fact we decided to keep him entire and not sell him because he was a brilliant foal and because his mother started to perform so well. Congo was four when his mother won her first GP in Canada. She would even win a car at Spruce Meadows in Calgary later on, so it wasn’t surprising that Billy Congo ended up being a GP horse as well.  You had Vechta, but also acquired Cevin Z as a breeding stallion. Did you use your own stallions to reduce the expenses? We did, but we had already started to use more foreign semen. I don’t think it’s smart not to use top stallions because of the price of the semen. For 2.000 or 3.000 euro you can use any of the best stallions in the world. The stallion is the cheapest part, as long as the semen is good. The only problem is the quality of frozen semen. Often they send the worst straws from Europe to England. But when you have fertile semen, those few pounds can make the difference in the end, when you have a good jumper. However, with our own or with local stallions we were lucky. First we used Animo a lot, because he was stationed in the neighborhood and he was a blood stallion with an Olympic record. He has given a strong base to our breeding operation. Later on I bought Vechta and received Cevin Z as a gift from Heather McPherson, which brought more success to the breeding programme. Vechta was unbelievable. He was to jump the World Championships with me, but was injured just before. He was nearly there. I remarked Cevin Z in the Foxhunter class in Birmingham. Also my home bred stallion Billy Congo has delivered very promising young stock, but I don’t think it’s necessary to use only own stallions. Right now we have fifty percent foals from our own stallions and fifty percent from foreign stallions.  And which stallion brought you the best horses? Billy Congo is the best! No, I’m a modest man, but I’m just so in love with some of the young horses by Billy Congo. Some six- and seven-year-olds in my stables. What I experience with Billy Congo is that he gives blood and produces careful sport types. There aren’t many stallions like that. For most stallions you need a blood mare. He doesn’t need that. I think most people don’t even realise how good he is because I think he is suited more to the European mares than the English blood types. He’s good on the typical continental mares, because he’s a strong horse with a good back and good hind end. That’s why I think we should sell more semen to Europe. There are not enough stallions with this type in Europe. Together with Kees Van Den Oetelaar I’m dividing the semen in Europe now. We have just finished another period of freezing his semen. His semen is better than any other. And his frozen is as good as the fresh.   Do you also breed eventing horses for your wife (Pippa Funnell)? Of course she rides some home bred horses, but most of the time this happens coincidentally. We don’t really breed in that direction. We don’t use thoroughbreds anymore, but some horses just seem to be suiting the eventing sport better than the show jumping. We just try to breed sport and blood types, which boosts our chances. Look at the top four horses at WEG. You could easily make a top eventer of Jeroen Dubbeldam’s horse, from Casall and from the French one. You really need blood in general. When you use too much Darco or Cassini, you end up too cold. It’s the same for me as for her.  How much is she involved? Of course we don’t ride all the horses ourselves. We have lads to produce the young ones. But I can say we both do important work. Besides that Pippa is busy writing children novels. She has begun the 21 st book now. It started some six years ago and the books are getting really popular.   So she’s already thinking about the retirement pension?! Back to business… How does the cooperation between you and Donal work exactly? We discuss everything and always seem have the same opinion. We make each other complete. I couldn’t do better than to work with him. He’s even more of a horse expert than me. He does the breeding part. When they are three and a half year old, they come to me. We don’t really select before, because all the young ones are in groups in the field. We have some dry land where they can stay out during the winter. We don’t do anything with them before they come in. It works well. We don’t have a lot of trouble, because the first weeks when the foals are born, we handle them a lot. They remember that forever. They are not wild when they come in three and a half years later, but they come to me loose. We put them in the stalls and from there start working individually. Horse by horse we judge the quality and decide which direction to take with each one. Some will be sold sooner than others. Certainly there is a market for many of them. In England a lot of horses are imported from Holland and Germany. Lower quality horses. The breeding of jumpers here is smaller, so we have the tradition of importing horses. I think in the future the English have to provide their own horses, like we do. When people come to us to buy a horse, they know it was exclusively produced by us, which is a plus point. They also know we have more horses when they need the next one. More and more people approach us for horses as a result. We’re making progress. We don’t see you in the show jumping ring anywhere right now. Is this the time of the year you start with the young ones? In fact I’m finished competing until the Sunshine Tour next spring. Billy Congo was injured in Lummen, where he won the Grand Prix this Spring, so I didn’t have the horses ready to compete at the highest level. That’s why I took it a bit easier for the rest of the year. I gave my stallion a longer break than necessary, but he’ll be back at the beginning of 2015. I like the shows, but only when I’m able to perform. Last year when I was in the top thirty of the world ranking, I was invited to every big show in the world. I was placed many times in the Global Champions Tour shows, so I stayed in that top thirty. It was the time of my life, as I was the only rider on that circuit winning prizes with home bred horses. I enjoyed it, but I don’t need it to be a happy man. I’m not frustrated about having lost my position. I’m not obsessed by the Longines Ranking. I think that’s the only way to keep enjoying it. Once you lose your top horse, it’s nearly impossible to stay in. It’s important to know that as a rider. Next year my other horses will still be too young. I don’t want to burn them out. That’s the reason I planned another quiet year for Billy Congo next year. In 2016 I want to be on top of the game with a nice string of horses again, because I think Billy Congo is a horse able to jump the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. I hope we can jump in the team again, like we did in Herning, where we won the team gold for Britain at the European Championships. In the meantime you enjoy working with the young ones. I like the sport as much as I like working with the young ones, but I wouldn’t want to miss either of those two activities. I like riding a Grand Prix, but on Monday back home I also like to loose jump the three year olds. I study the horses and constantly try to improve what we do.  There are few people making money by breeding horses, but you do. How come? Like I said we always try to improve ourselves and we have been lucky from the beginning. From our first Irish broodmare Tatum we have sold three Grand Prix horses. We had a portion of luck with the accident to this mare. She was expensive and she got injured, but the foals made the profit. Because we want to produce the best horses and keep on making money from the breeding, we now use more frozen semen from top stallions than ever. We want horses that can keep us at the top of the sport. They have to be good enough for the international level we compete at. That’s our aim. Also because we produce our own horses, we can make more money that way. My goal is to have fifteen seven-year-old horses ready every year for the international sport and available to commercialize. It works well like this and we are still growing.   
Thursday, December 25

Prince Torki: ‘I will use all this helpful information provided by the AES’

His Royal Highness Prince Torki Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Kabeer must be the only Saudi showjumping horse breeder whose home bred horse has won a medal at the Olympic Games. As the breeder of London 2012 team bronze medalist Sultan V, Prince Torki gained lots of respect worldwide for his stud Old Lodge in Ashdown Forest. Certainly because the Olympic horse Sultan V was not just a fluke. Prince Torki, member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia, is very passionate about show jumping and has approximately fifteen foals a year. They all get an AES passport. He uses the best mares and stallions and the foals develop in the best circumstances, with the best care. This we can witness after visiting the Prince at his wonderful stud. It’s a unique location where the Prince’s horses grow up. In the middle of Ashdown Forest,  in Uckfield, East-Sussex, he has a 180 acres stud land territory just for the horses. He bought the property twenty years ago, since it was a unique and preserved area where construction permission was difficult to get, but he eventually managed to persuade the local authority to grant him permission to build stable for the horses because he is one of the leading breeders in England. This benefits the horse industry ofcourse. That’s why he has now temporary stables on the hill just one hundred meters away from the main house, a huge manor. Call it a castle, with massive walls, impressive decoration, a wonderful view. The house is being well looked after by a local couple residing in a detached house next to the main house. There are horse pictures and valuable paintings in every room. Other pictures show the Prince of Saudi in meetings with George W. Bush, Nelson Mandela, the presidents of China, Argentina, and many other head of states and highly ranked officials. The house was built by Henry VIII in the 16 th  century and has always been used as a hunting lodge. Prince Torki renovated it totally, but it wasn’t easy. After being granted building permission a new huge remarkable building will rise in Ashdown Forest, to stable the young ones and the broodmares. The ridden horses are in training with professional riders. Prince Torki is very strenuous to make sure his horses grow up in the best circumstances and he knows why. As experienced thoroughbred breeders, the Saudi’s know how to breed top horses and how to produce them. The instinct and the knowledge from the race horse breeding, he also uses for the show jumpers. He has educated people working for him and the stud manager Carolyn Murdoch treats every single horse as if it were hers. She currently runs the breeding farm professionally and has things well organized. The horses are very well cared for and mannered. To inspect every single horse and to make up diagrams and reports for the Anglo European Studbook, all horses were shown on hand in front of the judges. Recently weaned foals give their legs as if they have done it every day. Horses are shown in top condition. The feet are trimmed at regular base. It’s remarkable, but Carolyn gives us the explanation: ‘Also when you have a lot of horses to manage, it’s important you still treat them individually. When we bring in mares and foals, we always catch both, the mare and the foal. That’s how we start to learn leading them. It makes work much easier to handle them, deworm them and trim the feet. We can do that in the field! Foals go to the blacksmith every four to six weeks. Together with the vet and the blacksmith we follow up the growth of the legs of the foals.’ Watching them one by one, we see top bloodlines and promising looking horses. The 2014 foals are by Kannan, Corland, Diamant de Semilly, Presley Boy, Nabab de Rêve, Super Trooper de Ness, Clinton, Cassini and Concorde to name some. The years before also Arko III, Locarno, Armitage, Conterno Grande, Calido, Nonstop, Vigo d’Arsouilles, Clinton and Mylord Carthago have been used. Also the mothers have great certificates. Most of them have an FEI passport. In Ashdown Forest, they are breeding with the homebred mare R. Little Lefanie (Indoctro), former British 7 year old champion and gold medalist at the European Championship for Young Riders. Then Geoff Luckett took over the ride winning many GP’s and her last competition ever was at the Bolesworth International show, where she won the Grand Prix. In addition, mother Lefanie had a filly again this year. C’Est Tres Chique (Cassini II) and Twilight (Vert et Rouge) jumped internationally and produced international show jumpers lately. The mare Lianta, mother of Olympic horse Sultan with Abdullah Al Sharbatly and GP winner Brickfield Boy (Geoff Luckett), is still used for breeding, just as her daughter Dorina (Chin Chin). Furthermore Oaklahoma (Larome) is a valuable mother as she got the highest marks ever given by the AES judges. She is now in foal to Spartacus. The progeny of Prince Torki’s mares delivered five AES approved stallions in 2014. And there are more to come. We have seen a very strong group of two-year-old colts, sired by Action Breaker, Numero Uno, Corland and Super Trooper de Ness. Prince Torki bred several foals sired by this last stallion. Super Trooper de Ness was acquired as a young stallion at the sale and sold to the USA when he was a GP horse. He finished 5 th  at the worldcup final in Gothenburg. The Prince has always regretted the decision to sell him.  In the USA he’s been showing under the saddle of Katie Dinan, Mclain Ward and nowadays under Beat Mändli. Because of his unbelievable jumping qualities, the semen of the stallion was much used at Old Lodge and also the half sister of Super Trooper was acquired for breeding. Also many sport horses that the Prince bought, are jumping in the top of the sport right now. Think about Golden Hawk with Shane Breen, Zanzibar under Ellen Whitaker, Shahenaz with Michael Duffy and Lord of Arabia (John Whitaker), who won a class and placed second twice at HOYS in Birmingham this year. Also at HOYS Nicole Pavitt placed third in the Foxhunter Championship on Old Lodge Contessa. Your horses did well at Horse of the Year Show in Birmingham. Congratulations! Thank you. Lord of Arabia was amazing, not touching any pole for the whole week. He started on Wednesday with an easy fifth place, won on Friday and placed second twice in the weekend. It was not an easy show, with some of the world’s top riders present. Outstanding horse, but top rider as well. John Whitaker is riding the gelding. My two young mares were ridden by Nicole Pavitt. Tia Semilly won the Newcomer’s. Contessa ended up third in the Foxhunter championship, a very prestigious class in the UK, and she could have won. They changed bits in the last minute before going into the ring the first day, which was not a good decision. The second day was better, but she had to go in the ring the first, which is always a disadvantage. We ended up being too slow, but we should have won with a mare like this. You like to win, Sir? I love it! I go to the shows every time I am in England. I like the sport and I like to win, but I know the game very well after all these years. You win some and you lose some. You know what I like the most? That I compete with horses we bred. I breed to compete at high level. It is even more special when you see a foal you bred entering the ring. So you hope to be competitive with home bred horses. That is our aim indeed and we succeeded already several times with Sultan, Brickfield Boy, Little Lefanie and many other. We were fortunate, but only because we work hard for it. You have to make your luck. We really want to be in the top, nothing less. That’s why sometimes we have to sell some horses. Not to make money, but just because the horse is not good enough for what I aim. Mares have to be able to jump 1.40m. Then they can stay for the breeding. Geldings must compete at 1.50m or 1.60m. Otherwise I sell. That doesn’t mean they are not good horses. Just not good enough for my request. Still thousands of riders would be happy with a horse like that.  Where does the passion for horses come from? It’s a family tradition. I grew up in an environment in which top horses always had a central place in life. In Saudi Arabia right now I have 250 race horses. We have the leading stable in our country, with 150 horses in training. I also have the International horse riding school in Riyadh for young showjumping riders, which was the starting point for many top Saudi show jumpers. Horse riding and breeding is a family tradition, but not breeding jumping horses. Historically we are thoroughbred and Arabian horse breeders, but in fact you can compare it to breeding jumping horses. Only the best performing mares and stallions can give good foals. We never use commercially interesting stallion, only stallions proven in the sport. What they have not done themselves, they cannot pass on to their descendants. Using young stallions is a risk that I don’t take. It’s the same with camel breeding. In our country camels are used for racing and shows. The best parents give the most expensive foals. Recently we sold a camel for one million pound. My father learned me to never buy something because it’s cheap. His advice was to buy something good, even if it’s expensive. All my life I kept that advice in mind. Also the mares you breed with all have competed. We’ve seen your three-year-old mares, but none of them is in foal? We take the three-year-olds now to riders specialized in breaking and producing young horses. We give every horse a chance, the ones that prove to have big potential, move on to an international rider. The best mares will be used for breeding by the use of embryo transfer. I use this technique often because I want the best foals from my best mares, whilst the mares can compete in the same time. Just during the breeding season those mares get a few months sport break, because I think it’s hard to get a mare pregnant when she’s in training. How come you have your jumping horses in England? I started studying at Cambridge University and London University in 1973 and during my stay I bought one race horse at an auction. That horse won the Queen’s Stake as well as the Norfolk Stake at the Royal Ascot meeting and many other important stakes. It encouraged me to start breeding where I bought Brickfield Stud in New Market. When I finished my studies successfully, I went back home to work for my Government where it became difficult for me to attend racing because of the commitments of my job, and whenever I have a holiday I always like to spend it with my horses. Flat racing is more popular worldwide but I lately enjoy showjumping because it lasts longer, because one clas in a show jumping competition could last more than an hour with the jump off, whereas in flat racing it’s a matter of minutes. In show jumping you can see the warming up session before the start of each class and you can enjoy the show from morning till evening. When did you start up your British breeding farm? I started horse breeding at Brickfield Stud in New Market in the late 70's and after that I moved to Oldlodge Stud in Ashdown Forest where expansion in our breeding program kicked off. We bought more mares and used top stallions to cover them. Oldlodge is considered as one of the most successful breeding studs in the UK, because we are more selective with the mares and we make a lot of studies in considering which stallion to use with which mare taking into account conformation, pedigree, performance, temperament, and previous offspring. Which horses did you start the breeding program with? When I decided to start the breeding program, I went to the Dutch VDL Stud to buy some mares. Lianta (Voltaire) and Lefanie (Damiro) were two of the five I picked out. A few years later, when the first foals were growing up, my eldest son Prince Sultan came to watch the horses. He had one favorite, a strong, grey colt by Irco Mena. I said okay, you can have him. I asked him which name he would give him? He said "I will name him Sultan V". I was surprised, because that’s a huge risk. In our language Sultan means King or Monarch. It’s a very glorious title. My father always told me: carefully choose a horse's name. Only give a horse a special name like this when there is a sign he’s going to be a top horse. That’s why we take our time with filling out the names in the passports. Mostly we don’t give them a name before they get ridden. Maybe we’re a bit superstitious, but we think there’s more chance you get a good one, when you wait with giving names. But my son didn’t, he was convinced about the foal. And he was right? The horse Sultan V was big and solid when he was around three and four years old and when he was cantering and free jumping we realized that he had the potential of being top class horse. That’s why we didn’t rush him in the training process. We castrated him because he was very difficult to handle being a big and strong horse. We thought about a calm and steady rider and have chosen Bruce Menzies. One day Bruce called me to ask if I wanted to see the horse jump. I went to his yard and saw the most powerful young horse I had ever seen. He jumped like a ten-year-old horse and a bit later he started winning. It wasn’t a surprise that Sultan V went on to win the Foxhunter Championship in Birmingham and the Scope Festival National championship. When Sultan V was nine years old, the British chef d’equipe Rob Hoekstra asked me if Sultan V would be available to be part of the British Nations cup team in Gijon in Spain, I accepted his request and he jumped double clear in the Nations Cup and placed second in the five star Grand Prix. Rob Hoekstra asked me if I would keep the horse available for the British team. Of course I said yes. I would never sell the horse and because it worked out so well with Bruce Menzies, he was meant to keep the ride. But when I was in Saudi Arabia, my cousin called me. He was in charge of the Saudi Equestrian Team and told me he had a message from the King. The Saudi Arabian team has qualified for the 2012 Olympic Games in London and was in need of top horses to compete with. During that time my cousin approached me and told me that the Saudi Team was acquiring top horses and Sultan V was one of them. He wanted the horse to represent the Middle East at the Olympic Games in show jumping, to compete with the Saudi Team. The Custodian of the Two holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz AlSaud supports the Saudi Team and bought top horses for them. My Son Prince Sultan and myself decided to give the horse Sultan V as a gift to the King which he kindly accepted, and was later given from the King to the Saudi Equestrian Showjumping Team. With that team he won bronze team medal at London Olympics. Luckily I still have two full brothers to Sultan V which are two years old now, and I also have a a five year old stallion which is half brother to Sultan V and full brother to Brickfield boy. His current performance indicates that he could be a top horse for the future. I also have his half-sister Sultana now being ridden by Bruce Menzies. Do you stick with those pedigree lines you have now? In breeding you always have to look for new blood which I'm currently doing. I always go for mares with top performance as well as top pedigree and good confirmation. I think it’s important to have a great variety in your breeding program, its not advisable to stick to one line. Choosing the right stallion for the right mare is essential. I mean conformation, performance, or temperament wise. I always prefer to choose stallions that have proven themselves through their progeny. I always follow closely the result of the top stallions and which breeding lines they successfully combine with. I look at it as a hobby and feel so excited when I see the horses I bred doing well in competitions. I’m breeding horses my entire life, but I'm still open to listen to experts' advice. When we do my horse breeding program I always try to select the right horse for the right mare. There is no point of sending a big mare to a big horse, cause you'll end up with a giant and vice versa. It is essential to be very selective and careful when you make your breeding program. Nowadays, in show jumping you need horses with more blood because the jumping courses have been more technical and difficult where you need a strong quick and careful horse. That’s why breeding nowadays became so difficult and more technical.  I really appreciate what Anglo European Studbook (AES) is doing now by judging all AES born horses and making reports. I use all this helpful information provided by them, because I feel they are doing a professional job and are being more selective and careful in their choices and judgment. I use their information and comments when I choose the suitable stallions for my mares. I feel I’m in the right direction cooperating with the AES and there useful information. Their effort to improve the studbook must be appreciated by all of us, and will be a very useful reference for the future. Final question. What about the Saudi team? They won the bronze in London, silver individual at the WEG in Kentucky, but didn’t come with a team to the WEG in Normandy this summer. The Saudi team riders are considered to be one of the best riders in the sport, where they have proven themselves internationally such as in the London Olympics, WEG in Kentucky, Sydney Olympics, the Global Champions Tour, the Arab league, and other various international events. Unfortenatly most of the Saudi Equestrian team horses suffer from injuries including Sultan V. And lately one of the top international horses that was ridden by Khaled Aleid, Presley Boy, has passed away. Also the Silver medalist Seldana at the 2010 World Equestrian Games suffers an injury. And HRH Prince Abdullah bin Miteb AlSaud and Davos have both retired from the sport. With these big losses it will be difficult for the team to maintain a high level of participation. Except Abdullah Al Sharbatly  is currently competing very well with his own horses. We hope the team will acquire top horses in order to be able to have a complete team for the upcoming international competitions. London 2012 was a super moment for our team. I was proud watching my country's team winning the team bronze in such a very competitive and difficult competition at the most important sport event internationally. It was an outstanding moment and amazing feeling. It was even more astonishing because my home bred horse Sultan V was representing my country.  
Monday, April 28

John Whitaker: ‘Someone has to breed!’

John Whitaker is a famous show jumping rider, and an AES breeder. His stallions all were graded by AES. The foals are registered here aswell. Logically he uses his top stallion Argento mainly for the breeding nowadays. Hopefully one day the eldest Whitaker (58) will ride one of his own foals in the Global Champions Tour. So far it didn’t turn out that way. ‘The ones I bred never reached the level of the horses I bought, but British breeding is improving. We keep on trying, because someone has to breed them!’ Not many people know you are breeding? I’ve always been breeding a little bit, but now I have this stallion Argento, and my daughter is motivated to help me with it, I’m starting to be more involved. People are interested to use him. Nevertheless I realize the breeding in Great-Britain is small scaled compared to Europe. People are breeding thoroughbred mares to get show jumpers and eventing horses. There’s still a long way to go, but you have to start somewhere. Some breeders are getting bigger, like William Funnell and some others. I have six foals this year. Maybe it doesn’t make a big difference when you compare to Belgium, Germany, Holland and France, but someone has to do it. Which mares you use? Former sport horses? I mainly rode stallions in my carreer, but one mare I’m breeding with, jumped the World Championships at Aachen, not with me, but with Cassio Rivetti. Her name is Olona. She’s by Indorado x Nimmerdor. The mares I ride myself most often are quite old when they stop jumping, so after their career we don’t get too many foals out of them anymore. Besides breeding your own mares, you focus on selling semen of your stallions at Heyside Farm in West Yorkshire, I see on your website. You do quite some effort to commercialize the semen? Yes that’s true. We’ve always been selling semen, but before 2004 we didn’t have a website. Now my youngest daughter Joanne is involved, we can give the breeding all the chances. The breeding is a good income next to prize money now. She’s pushing the business a lot by promoting the stallions. We sell quite a lot of semen of Argento. He’s only a few weeks a year available to fresh, when they are freezing semen. The rest of the year I don’t want him to breed, because I have the experience stallions get crazy when the combine sport and breeding. Of course we always have frozen semen in stock. What about the Argento offspring? I cannot say anything of them so far. I just know they are beautiful and big, however he’s smaller himself. The eldest are five and starting to go under the saddle. Then there’s a gap of a few years and we got bigger numbers of foals born last year. As soon as he started to become successful in the sport, people wanted to use him. Now we have thirty mares a year pregnant. That’s a lot in Great-Britain, but not in Europe. So it would be nice to also break in the European market this year. He is a good breeder and he has an interesting bloodline with Arko III as the father and Jasper as the father of his dam’s father.  I hope Argento gets chances in the breeding, because when you don’t get the chance, it’s hard to succeed. You must have the chance and get good mares to produce good offspring. When other breeders notice the children are jumping good, they also start using him. It’s like a snowball effect. The more you roll, the greater you become. When did you buy Argento? I got him when he was four years old and we broke him in by ourselves. My daughter Louise rode it for two years. I took him over when he was seven. We’ve had him for seven years now and he has never disappointed us. He looked promising as a four-year-old and he turned out to be super careful, but also brave and honest. He’s always trying hard. He’s a real winner as well. Did he also win a lot as a young horse? We didn’t push him too much to win as a young horse. Because he was always so careful, I tried to give him nice experiences. Until today I focus on keeping him happy and confident, because he’s so careful. You’ve been hesitating about the last scope of Argento. Now he’s won some big GP’s in Germany and the CSI4* in Amsterdam, would you believe he could be a championship horse? He’s always developed and today he’s jumping a big Grand Prix, so who knows? I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying definitely no. I just try to do the right thing for the horse and see what’s happening. When I keep him happy and confident, we don’t know where he will end. What’s your short term schedule for Argento? We do Hagen again, where we won the GP last year. After that we do Global Champions Tour in Madrid and after that maybe Hamburg. For sure I use him as my first horse this year. And next to him I’m developing Lord of Arabia as a second Grand Prix horse. I need certainly something to take some pressure away from Argento. One thing is sure. You don’t sell Argento! Indeed. All the time people keep asking a bit if I would be interested to sell, but that’s not the meaning. It’s difficult to do this sport without a horse and this is what we do in life, so I need a horse like him. It’s nice to have money, but money is not everything. This is my life. I still enjoy doing the shows and I like to win classes now again with this horse. He’s earning money, so we just continue like this. Which other stallions you offer the breeders? One of my former jumpers Cornetto King (Cornet Obolensky) is still available. I don’t ride him anymore because of his strong character, but he breeds very nice. Also Catwalk (Colman), my son Robert’s top horse, is available. I still have semen of my former grey top stallion Randi (Ramzes), which already died. All the stallions are fully AES approved. And when the mares have to be inseminated, you play the helping hand? Yeah, if I have to, I do that. I’m qualified to inseminate the mares, and when Joanne is not there I sometimes do it. As I mentioned we’re all very interested in the breeding. The whole process happens at home, except for freezing the semen. Does Michael breed? Yes he does. Not so much like me, but still he has four or five foals a year. What’s the best foal you ever bred? That’s a difficult question. I think it’s everybody’s dream to breed a superstar, but that’s no evidence. You have to accept what you get. We bred some nice ones, but up to now we’re still looking for that superstar. We still didn’t succeed in breeding, I admit that. But someone has to breed them, so hopefully one day we get that one top horse from our own breeding. We just try to keep crossing top mares and stallions and we wait for the result. It’s easier to buy them? Yes, then you buy what you like. When you breed, you have what you get. But still it’s so interesting. Really a lot of fun to see them grow up. We have own stallions, mares and a lot of fields, so why wouldn’t we do it? You like the breeding! That’s why you also breed cattle? I just have thirty. it’s more of a hobby. I like to see the animals in the fields around the stables. The farm is set on the hill above 140 acres of land, so it’s perfect for breeding at home. I like breeding and I always will.
Tuesday, April 8

AES scores with full fledged stallion grading in Schijndel

Friday April 4 the AES grading in Schijndel was scheduled in Riding School De Molenheide. Kees Van Den Oetelaar showed to be a successful new leader for the studbook. He left the judges’ table and moved to the secretary table to organize things. His efforts were highly respected by the public. Not less than fifty stallions were presented. The champions Black Bird and Gletsjer helped to raise the studbook to a higher level. ‘The world was not created in one day’, Van Den Oetelaar said at the day of the gradings in Schijndel. ‘We’re happy with the progession we made, but there is still a long way to go. It costs a lot of money to reorganize things. We want to give the studbook a new image. We’re modernizing and reorganizing.  We’re looking for sponsors who want to support us in all of this. We already found pancake producer Jan Vink of Abra-Ca-Debora willing to pay fifty percent of the printing cost of our new designed passports. And in the future we want to find sponsors to help us organize competitions for young AES horses.’ AES has great ambitions. Also the stallion gradings is in progression. It’s still a small-scale event, but they thought about all the details. They used a new ring, in which the horses jumped loose and two new judges entered the inspection team. Bernard Demets and Maikel Van der Vleuten debuted and both were enthusiast about the quality. Bernard Demets: ‘I followed all of the approvals in Europe and I remarked that AES has just the same quality as any other studbook.’ Maikel Van der Vleuten replaced his father Eric for the first time and felt comfortable judging aswell. ‘I don’t look so much at the pedigree. I just like a horse that can jump, no matter which pedigree it has. And those jumpers I really remarked today. Jumping champion Black Bird, brother of Orient Express Of the 28 stallions which were licensed, Black Bird (Street Hassle) appeared to be the most complete jumper of all. The French bred horse showed a lot of balance, great canter, scope and a good technique. Also his bloodline is top, as he’s a grandson of Quickstar out of the same mother as Orient Express (Quickstar), the third placed horse in the GP of Aachen last year. Their mother is also the half sister to the stallion Dollar de la Pierre. Owner Joop Aaldering also wants to mention the other owners of this horse, Mr. Van De Lageweg and Mr. Sinnack. ‘I bought Black Bird in France as a foal. The breeder Mr. Boureau was the best breeder of France that year. By him I also bought Quick Study, Street Hassle and Hors La Loi. He also bred Orient Express.’ Black Bird will in the future listen to the name Gare du Nord. He is also invited to do the saddle testing of KWPN in the end of the year, but thanks to his AES approval, he will already breed this year. Joop Aaldering: ‘I already had several requests from mare owners, so AES gives me this perfect solution.’ Dressage champion not for sale Dressage rider Wilma Van der Steen is the owner of the new crowned dressage champion Gletsjer, a nice and modern bay horse with elegant moves. The owner doesn’t have a stud, so she’s still not sure what will happen to her horse in the future. ‘I want to sell him because I don’t have a stud. Horses are not my job. I just ride dressage until intermediaire level. I do it for pleasure, but this horse is capable to do more.’ Wilma bought the horse as a foal.  He’s always had the looks from when he was born. Kees Van Den Oetelaar is super happy with the new champions and also with the average quality at this gradings. ‘A few years ago at AES you sometimes saw simple or not correct horses, but those we didn’t see any more today. We were very delighted with the lot of dressage horses. We could license and approve ten of them. In the past we often had not enough dressage blood on the list. Stallionneer Wim Schoukens brought none of his own stallions to Schijndel, but had one horse to present for a friend of his: ‘I recommend AES to all of my friends. Here you get the chance that you deserve and they give you enough time to prove it afterwards. My stallion Gotthardsen was approved for AES as a four year old. We didn’t need to do any obliged stallion competition or testing, so we gave our horse all the time he needed to grow out. When he was six, he was still green. The other approved stallions already jumped around like a perfect schooled horse. But a few years later my horse jumped Aachen and all of the others were gone. Who’s right then?’ Gaetan Stalpaert got the four year old stallion Don Darco de Bornival approved. He has chosen the AES because he doesn’t want to have any further obligations afterwards : ‘My horse will only start to jump as soon as the fences get higher. Until then I don’t want to exaggerate. I will not let him breed. I just wanted him to be licensed because that means extra value, I think.’ Adrie Jespers, the business partner of Wiebke Van De Lageweg and a neighbour of the riding place Molenheide in Schijndel, comes to watch every year. ‘I often remark interesting horses here! About the setting I can just say that you feel something is really changing at AES.’ Another stallion presenter came with a horse, previously not approved in another studbook. ‘I hope they take him here. Then I can do the stallion competition next year and then the judges that disapproved him will hopefully see that they made a huge mistake.’ Other stallion owners stated they chose AES because the public gradings here are much cheaper. Rik Van Miert of WBFSH: ‘No hesitations anymore’ Kees Van Den Oetelaar had to fix many things when he became the new AES director last year. Many illegalities had to be changed. That’s what WBFSH sub director Rik Van Miert said. The Belgian official came from Belgium to attend the gradings in Schijndel: ‘We had a lot of decent conversations with the new team of AES. We made clear that something had to change and when seeing the way how this grading is organized now, I really feel like they have understood our wishes. I think this is not the most eyecatching stallion approval, but horses get  the time to be decently presented to the judges. There is a good atmosphere and I think some horses show nice quality. Nothing makes me believe AES is still working as it did before. They are self-conscious and listen to what we ask.’  
Saturday, April 5

AES gradings in Schijndel, The Netherlands

At riding school De Molenheide in Schijndel the Dutch stallion grading of AES was held on Friday April 4. It was a cosy event at which stallions got all the time to prove themselves if good enough. AES keeps on organizing on low budget profile, but improved many things and took care of the charisma of the studbook, after the problems they had last year. We can speak about an up-to-par stallion approval which is comparable to the grading at any other studbook in the world. Two new judges Bernard Demets from Belgium and Maikel Van der Vleuten talked about the quality of the stallions. ‘We have the same quality as anywhere else in the world’, they said. Together with Bert Van den Oetelaar and Koen Olaerts they named Black Bird (Street Hassle x Le Tot de Semilly) as the jumping champion 2014. Gletsjer (Apache x Prestige VDL) came out as the top dressage horse. Black Bird, a French horse now named Gare du Nord, is a stallion of the three friends Aaldering, Van De Lageweg and Sinnack, born in France as a grandson of Quickstar and out of the same mother as Orient Express. Reserve champion was Gunnar EB (Acolord x Quite Easy) of Stud Enterbrook. Tallmann TN, a horse born in Belgium as Loreto vh Zorgvliet, placed third. Tallmann (Toulon x Colman) is born by Andre Braeckevelt and owned by Team Nijhof. Gletsjer, the dressage champion was put for sale by her owner Wilma Van der Steen. Gletsjer is a modern type dressage horse with four low white socks and a beautiful star on his face. He has an uphill body and moves the way he has to for a future dressage prospect.28 Stallions were licensed. Three older stallions got approved. There was the dressage horse Lincom’s Elton John CL (Johnson x Balzflug) and the jumpers Jiqueenturo di Luna (Canturano x Larome) and Empire (Calvaro x Erdbal xx).
Monday, December 16

Goodluck VDL AES grading champion

Goodluck! What’s in a name. Goodluck VDL won the AES stallion grading Friday at Molenheide in Schijndel, the Netherlands. Goodluck is a son of Baltic VDL out of a Cassini dam. Thirteen stallions were licensed. Two stallions are registered to be used for own breeding. One stallion was fully approved and that was Vannan (Diamant de Semilly x Kannan) of Roshoeve NV and breeder Stal Tops. Judges were Eric van der Vleuten, Koen Olaerts, Bert van den Oetelaar and David Lamb. Jumping stallions: L.  Goodluck VDL (Baltic VDL x Cassini I)  - VDL Stud L.   Gameboy (Arko III x Heartbreaker)  - Gebr. Bosch / Team Nijhof L.   Gaetano Musterd (Darco x For Pleasure)  - C.A.M. van den Oetelaar BV L.   Goedhart (Quasimodo van de Molendreef x Clinton)  - Han Aarts BV L.   Goodyear VDL (Indorado x Cardento)  -VDL Stud L.   Ghost Z (Game Boy x Quentucky)  - Verbergt Horse Trading BV L.   Great Gambler MB (Brainpower x Concorde)  - Nevejant Dirk L.   Gummaraes VDL (Baltic VDL x Mr. Blue)  - VDL Stud L.   Garant (Warrant x Verdi)  - Gebr. Bosch / Team Nijhof L.   Star Top Z (Stakkato's Highlight x Quidam's Rubin)  - Herman Keltjens L.   Giuseppe di Nala (Nagano x Camus)  - Vlassak & Co comm. v. A.   Vannan (Diamant de Semilly x Kannan)  - Roshoeve NV / Stal Tops R.   Firecracker (Tangelo van de Zuuthoeve x Burggraaf)  - Geraerts Tim Dressage stallions: L.   Furst Nicolaas (Furst Piccolo x Riccio)  - Ingrid Koonen L.   NN (Lord Loxley x Coriando)  - Thomas Kögler Eventing stallions: L.   Che Guevara d'Arville (Diktator v/d Boslandhoeve x Shamaraan XX)  - de Liedekerke Barbara R.   El Bonillo (Berlin BEJ x Przedswit XIII-4)  - Vanwijnsberghe Eva