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Article:The Swedish Warmblood,Interview with the Directorsby Christopher Hector

Warmblood Stallions of North America

—Warmblood Stallions of North America 2013,originally published in The Making of the Modern Warmblood

2 This article originally appeared in Warmblood Stallions of North America’s 2013 issue

In Swedish breeding history, we have again that curious com-bination of church and cavalry that established so many of the early horse raising centres. It was in the 12th century that Bishop Absalon of Denmark established his cavalry horse breeding operation in what is now southern Sweden. When Charles X of Sweden acquired the district from the Danes in 1658, he estab-lished, three years later, the Royal Stud at Flyinge. Flyinge is still the centre of Swedish Warmblood breeding. In 1747, Crown Prince Adolf Frederik was appointed the director at Flyinge, and he brought with him his own Holstein stallions. To this was added blood from the Hanoverian, East Prussian, Thoroughbred, Arab, Oldenburg and Frederiksborg horses, as the Swedish horse emerged over the next 150 years.

By the 1920s, the local Swedish mare owners had their choice of a number of high-class stallions standing at Fly-inge. They included the Hanoverians Schwabliso, Tribun and Hamlet; the East Prussians Attino, Sonnesänger, Kyffhäuser and Humanist; and the Thoroughbred Hampel-mann. After the Second

World War, an influential group of East Prussian (as distinct from Trakehner) stallions migrated to Sweden. Over the next twenty years, a number of these stallions – including Harung (Ilmengrunde/Altan), Heinfreid (Paradox xx/Camoens), Heristal (Hyperion/Haselhorst), Humboldt (Hutten/Paradox), Polarstern (Portwein/Alibaba) and Unikum (Traumgeist xx/Aquavit) along with the home-bred Drabant (Kokarde/Pergamon), Gas-pari (Parad/Haffner), Jovial (Bohème xx/Trotz xx) and Lansiär (Niger/Florett)—combined to produce a horse that grabbed the sales in the emerging dressage

market, thanks in no small measure to the success of the competi-tion stallion Gaspari (see page 26).

Certainly the Swedes had an advantage: when most of Europe was breeding heavy horses for agricultural work, Flyinge was always a source of riding horses. From 1100 to the 1940s, the breeding aim was horses for the cavalry, and the cavalry were still buying horses in the 1970s, but by then, the main breeding aim at Flyinge had switched to breeding sporthorses.

Today, Flyinge is no longer government run; it has been run since 1982 by a private foundation and must make its own way. The CEO when I visited in 2005 was Bjorn Leander, who explained the set-up:

“These days we have four core businesses: stud and sport, we have an education sector, we have a veterinary department, and finally, we have an events department. So we have four core busi-nesses. We have about sixty employees, and the turnover is about 55 million Swedish krowns.”

And you breed mainly for the Swedish market, or for export?“Mainly for the national mar-ket, but now we have the qual-ity that we can export horses, and export semen as well.”

Birgitta Bentzer, who was responsible for the breeding program, chimes in:

“In this year’s breeding program we have twenty stallions that have covered about 1800 mares. We also send frozen semen all around the world, and we are sending fresh semen from Quite Easy to Italy this year. So roughly 2000 mares a year altogether. Mainly jumping stallions. We are improving the dressage breed-ing, but jumping breeding is much bigger. We also have some stallions that are very good for eventing.”

Your most successful jumping stallion has been Robin Z?Birgitta: “Robin Z was born in 1983 and came here as a three-year-old. He was one of the first stallions to improve the jumping

The Thoroughbred stallion Hampelmann was influential in the 1920s.

Breeding Director Birgitta Bentzer

The former director at Flyinge, Bjorn Leander

by Christopher HectorInterview with the Directors

This article is reprinted with kind permission of the author, Christopher Hector, from his 2010 book, The Making of the Modern Warmblood, from Gotthard to Gribaldi.

The Swedish Warmblood

The stallion Drabant is a legacy of the Trakehners that came to Flyinge in the 1920s. Drabant descends from one of the most influential: Humanist. Drabant sired Wald

who carried Gustav Fischer to a dressage Silver Medal at the 1960 Olympics.

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4 This article originally appeared in Warmblood Stallions of North America’s 2013 issue

capacity of our horses. Before then was Irco Marco and before that Cortez. Amongst the younger ones is Cardento, who will have very great importance.”

Your success has been with the Holsteiner bred horses; now with Quite Easy you are bringing in the French blood of Quidam de Revel. Is this a radical step?“Normally we don’t use French horses that much, but Quidam de Revel was approved in Holstein, and it was from there that we got his blood, in combination with Landgraf. That seems to be a very good combination, Quidam de Revel has suited the horses in Holstein. We have a good stallion son of Quite Easy, Qalle, who is competing well at 1.50, 1.60.”

That is important for you, that the stallions go out and compete?Bjorn: “It is important that they compete, not just for marketing purposes, but also to select the good stallions. To be a good breed-ing stallion they have to be a good sport horse as well.”

At one stage Swedish dressage horses were very influential, but jumping breeding has taken over in your breeding area?Birgitta: “There are many more riders in jumping than dressage so there is more interest in breeding jumping horses. We breed 70% jumping horses, 30% dressage horses.”

You are also breeding for eventing?Bjorn: “Yes, but we think to have a really good eventer, it must be a very good jumper as well, much better jumpers than they used to be. Our Thoroughbred stallion, Eighty Eight Keys, seems to breed very good eventers. We have another stallion, Qalle, who we think will be a very good stallion for eventing, he jumps well and he is very good in dressage and he is a brave and very sound horse.”

With all these imported bloodlines, is it difficult to keep the traditional Swedish lines alive?Bjorn: “We see ourselves as breeding a European Warmblood. The difference, for example, between Holstein and Hanover is not as big as it used to be. We want to breed an international horse. Of course we have some good old Swedish mare lines. For example, Qalle is from the same mare line as Amiral. But at the very beginning all of these lines come from the Hanoverian and

the Trakehner, horses that were imported in the 1920s. We have always imported horses: Thoroughbreds, Russian horses and Ger-man horses as well.”

What bloodlines are you looking for in your dressage breeding program?Birgitta: “We have Donnerhall, and Sandro Hit, a great grandson of Florestan, a grandson of Rubinstein. We have a Holsteiner, L’Acteur, by Lorentin, who went Grand Prix dressage—he’s a good jumper but we breed him mainly for dressage.”

Are there many private stallions in Sweden?Bjorn: “Most of the breeding is done by private stallions; alto-gether there are about 180 private stallions and we have twenty. Our market share is 37%, which means that our stallions serve many more mares per stallion than the private stallions. For the past couple of seasons, Quite Easy, for instance, bred about 300 mares a season and that is a lot.”

Are you moving in the direction of specialised lines of jumping and dressage stallions?Birgitta: “Yes. It is much easier to make a jumping horse into a dressage horse than the other way around – you can never do that. But a horse like Qalle, he could do both.”

Do you have a 70-day or a 30-day performance test?Brigitta: “Neither. We have a Stallion Test in February. The youngest the stallions can come to that test is as three year olds, but very very few stallions are approved at three. At this test they are shown in hand, and under saddle as well, and there is also a veterinary inspection, a conformation inspection, a free jumping test. They have to be really really good to get through: 40 points for conformation out of 50. Sandakan was one of the few that passed as a three year old, and he received 42 points for confor-mation. They have to have an average 8.5 for the gaits. At three years old they are only licensed for one year, they have to do a new test at four years old. They are then approved until they are six years old, and then there is another evaluation. If at that stage the progeny is not good enough, they are out!”

How strict are you in the veterinary examination? What about OCD?“We have no OCD, not for the last ten years. The stallions that go into breeding are not allowed to have any OCD, they have to be absolutely clear. Of course some of the mares can carry OCD, but the stallions are all clear.”

It is probably some measure of the way breeding in Sweden has changed, that the most popular stallion in 2009, was the thor-oughly dressage bred, Zuidenwind, who was recently imported from Holland where he was a winner of the 2008 Pavo Cup. Zuidenwind is by 00Seven, who is 50% German 50% Dutch, since he is by Rubinstein, out of Gelbria by Doruto out of a mare by Amor. Gelbria’s full sister, Barbria was an international (if notoriously hot) Grand Prix performer with Tineke and then Imke Bartels. Zuiden-wind is out of Serendy by Jazz out of a mare by Ulft with Amor appearing on the next line. In his first season in Sweden, Zuidenwind covered 146 mares out of a total of 4608 breedings.

Amiral descends from the old Swedish mare lines. He went Grand Prix with Kyra Kyrklund

The Swedish Warmblood continued

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The next most popular was also a Dutch import, but this time the solidly jumping-bred Nintender. Nintender is by Namelus R who is by Concord out of a Joost/Abgar mare, and out of the Holsteiner mare Nambia, who is by Contender out of a mare of Mephisto/Farnese/Cottage Son breeding. Nintender bred 144 mares in the season.

The third most popular, another jumping stallion, Hip Hop was of more traditional Swedish breeding, being by Feliciano, a son of Irco Marco out of a mare by Utrillo, an import from Hanover but for many years one of the leading stallions at the Swedish state stud at Flyinge. Hip Hop’s dam, Mazurka, is by the Dutch stallion Electro (Voltaire/Amor) and out of the Swedish mare Kotiljong, who is by the Trakehner Hartung, with yet another cross of Utrillo in her third line. Hip Hop covered 109 mares.

The fourth most popular stallion, with 106 mares, was Ludwig’s Champion, by the licensing winner of the “OS,” or Springpfer-dezuchtverband Oldenburg-Internationl, Ludwig von Bayern (by Landor S) out of an Argentinus mare. In fifth place with 98 mares was Cartier, with classic Holstein breeding: Contender out of a Capitol mare. Sixth, with 96 mares, another jumper, Tornesch by Lux Z out of a Libero H mare. Seventh, to Common Sense (88 mares) by Contendro out of a Cardento mare. The Danish-

bred Blue Hors Don Romantic (Don Schufro/Romancier) covered 87 as did another Don Schufro son, Bocelli (out of a Bernstein mare). Rounding out the top ten, we find another jumper, Baltimore, by Balou du Rouet out of a Landor S mare, with 85 mares—the same number as Faustinus by the late Fürst Heinrich out of a mare by Starway (Star Regent xx).

The current breeding director at Flyinge, Karl-Henrik Heimdahl, was appointed in October 2009, but he has long been involved with horses. Karl-Henrik com-

menced practice as an equine vet in 1997, and before becoming breeding director at Flyinge was a conformation judge and Presi-dent of the Swedish Warmblood Stallion Commission. He feels that he has taken up the reins when the breed is at the crossroads:

“I think we are in a phase where we need to step back a little bit and see what the future is going to do for us. We’ve had a period now since the middle of the 80s with a very quick development of our horses, especially on the jumping side. We came from quite a low position to being amongst the world’s top nations. A lot of it was our own breeding, but mainly through the import of a lot of Holsteiner blood, and also a lot of Dutch blood to improve the jumping of the mare lines we had. It’s been very successful.

“We’ve always had very good dressage horses in Sweden. In the 40s and 50s, our horses dominated, and while those horses have developed, I don’t think it has been quite as quick as what we did with the jumping horses.

“The development of the modern horse is going quickly all over the world, and we have to take the next step forward. We are looking for new bloodlines for the dressage, and bloodlines for jumping that would consolidate the jumping horses we have now, and complement them.”

What are the important jumping stallions that you are using in Swe-den at the moment?“The most dominating stallion in the past ten years has been Cardento, who came from Holland. He has really dominated the production of jumping horses in Sweden; his offspring are just overwhelming in young horse competitions. They all jump fantastically and they are now in the age where they start hav-ing international success. What I need to be looking for is to find bloodlines that would go very well with the Cardento mares because they are the gene pool that will take us to the next level.

“For those mares I am not looking for specific bloodlines, but what we need is a bloodline that would produce a little bit more supple-ness in the top line, improve the canter and consolidate the type. Sometimes they are a little stiff, but they have all the scope in the world and they have the right mind, so many good things; if we can improve on those traits we can make a big step forward.”

Left: Zuidenwind another young sire topping the popularity stakes…Right: Number two on the Swedish popularity chart: Nintender

Karl-Henrik Heimdahl.Marielle Andersson Gueye photo

6 This article originally appeared in Warmblood Stallions of North America’s 2013 issue

Robin Z was a good sire of performers but he doesn’t seem to have left a stallion son?“No he hasn’t. We tried a few stallions from him; many went to the selections but they tend to become too heavy, and not very modern in type. The ones that have been approved have not been that successful with the breeders, so it doesn’t seem we are going to be able to continue that line. The only one approved in Sweden now was out of a very good Carthago mother line, a super jumper when it came to scope, but type-wise not very much favoured by the breeders, so he is not used very much. We are still looking. But Robin has done very well when you look at the competition horses —with mares—they are lighter in type and they are more sporty in the conformation.”

Jaguar Mail, the French stallion that came to Sweden, has he worked?“The progeny are too young so far to tell. I have myself one of the oldest in Sweden, made before he came to Sweden, and she is going to be the first of his in the three year old test. His first crop was quite large and they are two-year-olds now, so it is go-ing to be very interesting to see. He is a big horse with a lot of Thoroughbred in him; theoretically he should be a good combi-nation with our mares, but we have not been able to evaluate the offspring as yet. They look good, they have a super mind, tem-perament-wise they are superb, but we’d like to see what happens when we start jumping them. We have started free jumping them and next spring we will have enough horses by him through the evaluations to have a good idea of how he works with Swedish mares. I am hopeful; he is a beautiful horse, but he is dividing the breeders in two categories, the ones that hate him and the ones that love him. That has to do with his rather odd technique over a fence; he has all the scope in the world, he has a great rideability, [but] he has a front limb technique that is not optimal, which makes some breeders very negative to him, others say with a good mare that is nice in front with good reflexes, it doesn’t matter because he gives so many other good qualities. It’s interesting.”

In dressage, which are the more important stallions at the moment?“Right now we don’t have a stallion that is dominating the market. We have a lot of stallions that are used, a lot of young stallions. We are trying to find the next step. I think here we are

looking for younger stallions to improve the type of our dressage mares which is a little behind the rest of Europe, I think. We are looking for stallions that give more of an uphill conformation. For a long time in Sweden we have been focused on improving the neck-set, to improve the hind limb activity, and we have been suc-cessful in doing that, but along the way we lost a little bit of the freedom of the shoulder and we still haven’t got the natural uphill tendency that we would like to see. So we need to improve that and we are looking for the stallions that can do that. Some of that I think we can find in the Dutch bloodlines.”

Have you used Dutch blood so far?“A little bit. We have been using a lot of German bloodlines. We have a lot of Donnerhall blood lately, Donnerhall and Donnerhall sons have produced really well with Swedish mares, rideable, nice horses but not really the refinement and electricity you would like to see in a modern dressage horse. So we need to get that some-where else, and I think some of the Dutch stallions would fit very well with the Donnerhall/Swedish combination that we have.”

I was surprised looking at the number of mares being covered that Briar doesn’t seem to get mares in Sweden.“Not very many, he has been covering 30–35 mares a year for a long time and it doesn’t seem to get less or more. It is strange from the point of view that he is a fantastic international horse. I think we are in a process where the people who breed in Sweden are different, there are a lot of people who are very influenced by what is modern, what everyone is talking about right now—and not so influenced by long-term breeding strategies; they want what is flashy and modern. Now I am being critical of these breeders, but they would rather seek something that is fancy from

abroad than look at what we have in the country that has proven itself. I find that problem with some other proven stallions as well. There is more demand for flashy, young unproven stallions than the ones that have really proven themselves in the sport. Then when we talk strategies with our breeders, everyone says, I want to use a stallion that has gone all the way. So we present them with stallions that have gone all the way, and they don’t use them. Briar is one, Lingh is another fantastic sport horse of a lighter model than Briar, which would suit a lot of our mares, but again

Jaguar Mail - will he succeed in Sweden? The breeders are divided.

The dominating jumping sire in Sweden right now: Cardento, in action with Peter Eriksson. Cardento is now back in Holland at the VDL Stud.

The Swedish Warmblood continued

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they go for the younger, flashier horses. There is not a lot of sense involved.”

Do you feel that you have to make a choice: breed for the elite sport horse or for the amateur rider market?

“We are trying to breed for both markets with the same strategy. I think for the private riders, that works. We have a little bit of a problem with the riding schools, which is a very big base of the equine industry in Sweden. Most kids start in Riding Schools, and we’ve had established schools for many, many years—that’s a little different from other European countries—and they are looking for calmer horses, not-so-sensitive horses that can toler-ate a rider that is learning. With some of the modern lines, that sort of horse is difficult to find. I know that some of our riding schools are trying to find other horses, not the ones we breed for the sport market. Some lines certainly have a temperament that is perfect even for the riding schools and also for sport horses, but it is not always that way.

“For instance in Sweden we have the Irco Marco line for jumping. They are very rideable horses, very sensible horses, a little bit late developers but you can use them for anything. They can go well in Riding Schools, but they can also be top jumping horses inter-nationally. Irco Marco is one who has produced a good sire line in Sweden, with several approved sons who are doing well in the sport and in the breeding as well, unlike Robin Z.”

Karl-Henrik feels that one of the strengths of breeding in Sweden has been their rather different stallion test.

“Our test is quite different in length from the others. When we started testing in the mid-80s, we had a long argument with our breeders about what to do. We needed a better test of the stal-lions, but we were not wedded to just copying what the Germans did. At the time everyone was copying Germany. We made a very thorough research into the strengths and weaknesses of the 70- and 100-days tests, and we decided we wanted to do it differently. We have an eight-to-nine-day test that is divided into two phases. Everyone can enter in the first phase, and they are checked on veterinary soundness, checked for conformation, gaits under the

rider—with their own rider—then jumping free or with their rider, depending on the age of the horse.

“After those evaluations, the committee will recommend a number of these stallions to go to phase two. We say to the owners of the rest of the stallions, thank you very much but this horse is not good enough, it is not going to be approved. There is always a group where the horses have shown something but not enough to be convincing, and usually we would discuss with the owners of those horses, the strengths and weaknesses, and from that information they can decide to go on to the second phase or not. They know their own horses and whether they presented themselves in the best way or not. If they go into the second phase, then the dres-sage horses do another gait test under their rider, and then they are ridden by test riders. The same goes for the jumping horses, once more on a little bit tougher course with their own riders, then the test riders. On the basis of the total information that the committee gets from these evaluations, the stallion is given an approval for six years or not. Three-years-olds are approved for one year, and then have to do the test again as a four-year-old.

“It is interesting that our test is much shorter. You don’t have to leave your stallion somewhere for a long time where you have no control of who rides it. You do the training period at home with your own rider. We have been doing that since the mid-80s and we can see it from the genetic evaluations, that we are really selecting just as well as they are doing with 100-, 70- or 30-day tests. The genetic correlation between the performance test and the results in the sport and in breeding for these horses is very high. So for us, we think it is a very good system.”

You are optimistic for the future of the Swedish horse?

“Yes I am, but I think we are more and more going into develop-ing the European Sport Horse. From a different mare base, but it gets hard to define what the Swedish horses are now because with all the import of semen from nice international stallions into the breeding, it gets less obvious what is actually Swedish compared to German and Dutch. If you look 15–20 years from now, we’d be more like the European Sport Horse, the characteristics of the different breeds will be less obvious.”

Irco Sun and Malin Baryard - by Irco Mena by Irco Marco. A line for both the pros and the amateurs!

The most famous modern Swedish dressage stallion, Bjorsells Briar, by Magini.

8 This article originally appeared in Warmblood Stallions of North America’s 2013 issue

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