Songline at Chatsworth Stud

According to St Georg magazine (can't post link) Mighty Magic and Songline are being retired from Andreas Diboski's barn to the breeding shed. Gustav Schickedanz owns Songline and will stand him in Canada.

Now that's great news. I love that stallion!

Edited title to reflect current update

Sara rode both during her 9mo's with Dibo. Said Songline was a lovely character and enjoyed him very much. MM was "all stallion, all the time" but also an incredible ride.

Mighty M had an injury @ end of his 7yo season, rehabbed and went back to Andreas' place last year. Guess he never came back enough to push on. Too bad; cool horse but over time I've come to realize what a role luck plays in this game.

Songline will be there for 2013 season breeding? it's so hard to have good cooled semen in Canada. Have to use frozen since years...

Tnazfee wrote:Songline will be there for 2013 season breeding? it's so hard to have good cooled semen in Canada. Have to use frozen since years...

That's what it sounded like.

But you have some great stallions in Canada surely? In Flagranti, EH Herzzauber, Huno Ps and the new kid - Alaskatraum - off the top of my head.... and I know there are more?

Of course JRR, i know Huno, and that's it. I think that Canadian Trakehner breeders have some problem with visibility. Imagine this year i have to use a haft Trakehner (Hochadel) to breed my mare, next year ......

Songline hits America ground, out of quarantine, ready to breed
I hear with LFG is CDN$1700.

Tnazfee, please open your eyes. There is trakehner activity all over Canada. There are trakehner breeding stallions that have "been there, done that" and have international reputations.

JRR wrote:
But you have some great stallions in Canada surely? In Flagranti, EH Herzzauber, Huno Ps and the new kid - Alaskatraum - off the top of my head.... and I know there are more?

Yes, there are multiple CDN stallions. Approx. 8 currently "Active" w/the ATA and in addition to the ones Fiona mentioned are: Arapaho GS, Heling, Hope of Heaven, Prince Habicht *Ps* and Tigre. (Alaskatraum was news to me; thanks Fiona). Link attached.

http://americantrakehner.com/Stallions/index.htm

Everyone has his reasons, I am pleased by the arrival of Songline, I have another good choice to have fresh in Canada.
His arrival is not means all Trakehner stallion stand in Canada are not good, that only means i finaly have a stallion exact what i hope to use.

So by now, everyone knows he's in the US at Chatsworth Stud

This is his "publicity blurb" from Chatsworth

http://pollardeventing.com/news/chatsworth-stud-stallion-showcase-songline-ii/

this section jumped out at me

Tim Holekamp of Windfall, LLC says: “There is a pretty good chance that this one stallion, of all that I have come across, might be able to take a modern US TB mare and produce a four-star eventer from her. Anglo-arab and TB mares who are rideable, not too big, not to small, with sporthorse conformation (not too downhill, not too light in the legs) and with pedigrees that suggest run-and-jump or themselves are proven in upper level eventing or producers of same, are what I think we all should be seeking for this stallion.”

So what sort of Trakehner mares would fit the bill, I wonder? And do you think that there is only a very small chance that a Trakehner mare crossed with Songline (or actually any other Trakehner stallion) could produce an UL eventer? Should Trakehner mares be bred to TB or AA stallions exclusively to produce UL eventers?

JRR wrote:
So what sort of Trakehner mares would fit the bill, I wonder? And do you think that there is only a very small chance that a Trakehner mare crossed with Songline (or actually any other Trakehner stallion) could produce an UL eventer? Should Trakehner mares be bred to TB or AA stallions exclusively to produce UL eventers?

Not sure why this is worded "only a very small chance" a TK mare crossed w/him or any other TK stallions could produce an UL eventer.  If you consider FEI as UL, we have many TK stallions in the US that have already done so - and continue to be (or were) under utilized:

E.H. Buddenbrock - Inamorato, Masterpiece 54
Carino *E* - Patras VR
Donaufuerst *Ps*E* - Nuance
Onassis *E* - Tatendrang
Stiletto *Ps* - Copycat Chloe
Domritter - Tagaelen
Tzigane *Pb* - Harry Houdini *Pb*, Sayyida
Windfall *Pg* - Kompass, Lickity Split, Pablo Picasso, Vandiver

I'm sure there are others for Buddenbrock and Windfall as these 2 have been widely used, which is great.  The others have not and tho too late for Carino, Donaufuerst (frozen avail?), Onassis (and maybe Domritter don't know), Stiletto and Tzigane are still actively breeding but do not get the #of bookings they deserve/have earned as sport horses and proven producers of same.  This is a big part of why I sent Taz to Germany - where BTW he bred as many mares his first year as he did in 8yrs in the US.  

We discuss and study "new stallions" (from Germany) and overlook outstanding sires here @ home - and that includes young stallions proving their own prowess in the sport and have offspring just now under saddle (ie: the "Palmer boys" Cardinali, Inamorato, Incantare and Tatendrang).  I'm not saying Songline isn't a good stallion, I guess what I'm saying is why not give the same attention to ATA Stallions we've had but overlooked or under-used?

So, with that said I think we should start a thread each month discussing an ATA stallion - dressage, jumper or eventer - discuss his accomplishments in sport and breeding and asking owners of offspring to weigh in.  GO ATA!!

By UL I mean in the context of the quote - a 4* eventer - of your examples, Copycat Chloe is 50% xx and Patras VR are both 3* horses - none of the them are 4*. Patras VR is what I would term a "full" Trakehner - ie, he doesn't even have xx in the third generation. Vandiver is 50% blood (and Kompass I don't know) - I also don't know if those two have done a 3*

I don't think I made myself clear - sorry - what I was driving at was what appeared to be the assertion that a 4* eventer could only come from breeding a purebred Trakehner (by which I mean not like Windfall who is 1/2 TB) crossed with a blood horse ie AA or XX to produce a Windfall - so my question was actually more along the lines of - should one give up any hope of breeding a 4* eventer by breeding Trakehner mares to a Trakehner stallion unless she is very high % xx/ox?

I agree that many ATA stallions are overlooked - but let's be honest - of stallions in the US, only Windfall, Buddenbrock, Patras and Songline have competed at the 3*level - that's a fact. I'm not saying in any way shape or form that any of the other stallions you mention couldn't produce a 4* eventer, but if you are breeding for the upper levels, wouldn't you start with the ones who have done it?

I'm struggling to find the words to explain what I mean. Trakehners are so valuable as breeding stock and yet we - and rightly so - place a huge emphasis on performance. But if Songline (for example) is only used on xx or ox mares, where does that leave the breed - sure we need the infusions of blood - but we also need to preserve the Trakehner bit of the equation. Who is guarding the old bloodlines? If we keep adding ever higher %'s of blood, eventually there wont be Trakehners, there will be TBs with Trakehner names. So I asked - what sort of Trakehner mares could/should one breed to Songline and what could one hope to achieve by doing so?

I probably haven't explained myself well (as usual!) …… I was just a little saddened that Time Holecamp didn't add something about breeding Trakehner mares to Songline - and if he was talking exclusively about breeding 4* horses, does that mean that Trakehner mare crossed with Songline haven't a hope of being 4* horses?

and


So, with that said I think we should start a thread each month discussing an ATA stallion - dressage, jumper or eventer - discuss his accomplishments in sport and breeding and asking owners of offspring to weigh in. GO ATA!!

is a brilliant idea!

I am way too busy and way to stressed/tired, have a life, whatever you want to say to do a bunch of research on what is out there, done what etc. But I did want to say that Kim and I were talking not too long ago about eventers and breeding etc (btw, there is a pretty good article in which Tim and Andrew along with Michael were interviewed specifically about breeding for eventing in Horse Sport International a fairly new magazine that is out now - I posted it on my personal FB page and will post it to Tate's page and my EA page).

I think it is wrong to wait till a horse is "going" at that level before breeding yourself. As a breeder, you should know your bloodlines well enough and have a good enough eye/instinct to have an idea of what you are going to produce. For an example, I never in a million years would look at Tate and think "hunter" - he has the form over fences, but his movement is NOT hunter. The bloodlines say that he could possibly produce it and perhaps with a very "hunter" mare he could have a hunter baby, but that would not be my knee jerk reaction after seeing him move. (I use my own horse as an example, but you can substitute several horses for various disciplines and different conformational traits etc ).

You need to see the horses run to really get if they are "UL" or not potential. A true UL horse (and for what it is worth, that starts at FEI levels as is generally regarded in the real world, a 4* horse is a rarefied beast of any breed) has a "look" about them - I see plenty of horses run around at the various events down here and you can tell when they are maxed or close to maxed. The ones that are looking for their next fence and almost "attacking" the course are the oens that have the potential (barring accidents, financial set backs etc) to go all the way. It is FUN to watch those horses go. You can tell that they and their rider are having the time of their lives - and the harder it gets and the bigger the fences get they "get off" on it even more. They are the ones that (as Kim said), when they hit the proverbial wall, they push through and don't give up and want it more and dig deeper. Just as in humans, these athletes are rare. They learn from their mistakes on course quickly and they get off on the cheers on course. It is powerful and awesome to see. If I see a horse that has "that factor" and they aren't at the "4*" level, and I have a good mare, why should I wait to breed?? That would just be silly, meanwhile the mare the stallion are both getting older... anything can happen and MANY horses that don't get there themselves will and can produce it (we'll use Buddenbrock as the prime example of that), while many horses that do get to that level never reproduce themselves as awesome as they are. Just because they get there doesn't mean they can reproduce it .

Breed your bloodlines and the horse in front of you and try and get them into the right hands and hope and pray that is all you can do. And yes, we infuse TB into our bloodlines (I do it a lot) but that outcrossing with the RIGHT TB blood is needed. I get what you are saying and wish that Tim (as ATA president) didn't leave out TK mares, but I don't think it was necessarily intentional - remember the audience he is talking to, and who knows what was left out of the article (ask me how I know that things are left out LOL). And yes, I think with the correct breeding and the luck of the Irish we can breed Trakehners for the UL.

Those Trakehner horses that have successfully navigated 4 star courses since the 1936 Olympics were at least 50% TB, or more (Opposition Buzz, Karascada, Windfall, Seacookie, Lafranco). Windfall, btw, is way over 65% blood, his sire was part AA. Blood is the very key to any type of serious 4 star success. The very very few exceptions to this rule (Nurmi, the Swedish mares, Peppermint, Larissa) are not what one can hope to breed. The Trakehner population used for event horse breeding lacks blood on a large scale.
I have a number of requests from top riders (4 star, team riders) that clearly state they will not consider ANY horse with less then 60% TB or AA. And we, as a population, have far too few of those.

We have the right sires to cross on high quality blood mares, as you all have pointed out, some are very close to home (US). What we lack depserately are MARES that carry this type of performance potential over a couple of generations.

Maren wrote:
We have the right sires to cross on high quality blood mares, as you all have pointed out, some are very close to home (US). What we lack depserately are MARES that carry this type of performance potential over a couple of generations.

THIS.  MARES, MARES, MARES!!  Maren (and Anissa and others) have heard me say again and again that next time I have $ to spend, it's gonna be on a TB mare from a proven dam line.

So we agree .... And do you think that there is only a very small chance that a Trakehner mare crossed with Songline (or actually any other Trakehner stallion) could produce an UL eventer? Should Trakehner mares be bred to TB or AA stallions exclusively to produce UL eventers? - there *is* only a very small chance.

But, if we go down this path, who will be breeding a Tzigane or Tatendrang? In order to have 50% or 75% blood, there has to be some Trakehner making up the other percent, yes?

Someone has to want to breed a Trakehner mare, who has no blood, to a Trakehner stallion who also has no blood, in order to produce an individual whom they believe to have the capacity to produce 4* eventers or - fill in the goal here - or ultimately we're going to lose our Trakehner marelines.

The Trakehner is not in any danger of losing its mare lines .... 1) essentially ALL Trakehner mare lines are founded on TBs, just way back when, but still, and 2) the fraction of people crazy enough to try and breed 4 star horses is so small that there is no lack of "purebred" breeding. I've always had a big problem with this American "purebred" vs. "Anglo" nomenclature - they're all the same. In fact, Trakehners with a high dose of TB or AA or OX are essentially much more the "real deal" than our 21st century "purebreds".

Only because you mention my stallion. LOOK at his bloodlines - he actually has quite a bit of TB in him,per the horsetelex he is just over 49% TB: http://www.horsetelex.com//horses/pedigree/558782, just none of it is in the first two generations. I believe that is what Maren is talking about when she is saying the whole "purebred" vs not purebred thing - same thing with Windfall (which is an even better example since his TB is much closer up, although he too is considered "purebred"). And FWIW, we do just fine with breedings and I'm sure Kim is with her boy too. And ironically the majority of the people breeding to Tate are not breeding for the lower levels or the Ami market. Time will tell.

That being said, it again isn't just about the blood (and I've been finding that more and more people are accepting that TK blood (if there is some TB or Arab infused in it is almost as good as 50% TB or more), but also about the other things with the horse - the gallop the mind, the heart, etc that makes an UL eventer.

Bottom line, by the time you get to the 4* level you are in "rarefied air". I dont care WHAT breed you breed, the chances of an individual randomly breeding a 4* horse EVER is slim. There just aren't that many in the world - and a lot of it depends on who you get to sit on the back of the horse too. Frankly, there are possibly some very great UL horses out there that are sitting in someone's field, or packing around a Prelim or lower course that will never show their greatness because the right person never got on him/her and took him around. Conversely, there are a couple of horses that go around that are possibly there BECAUSE of their rider. (although prob not as many ).

Breed the best horses you can, and hope and pray that they prove your breeding theories right!

And for what it is worth - it is all about the mares! Totally, completley agree with this!!! Get the best mares that you can that match your goals and then BREED UP from those mares and cull the ones that aren't living up to your goals (cull not meaning bad things but sell on to a young breeder, riding horse, etc). I WISH I could get a Tater Tot filly from one of my girls - I have some awesome semen in a tank that I really want to use, but alas I keep getting colts... .

acottongim wrote:And FWIW, we do just fine with breedings and I'm sure Kim is with her boy too.  .

I didn't say who WILL breed to your stallion, I said who will breed something like your stallion ie one without an xx parent - who will the next Zenda Farrell or Pam (Fisher? sorry can't remember Tate's breeder) be?

But never mind, I'm not able to make myself clear so I give up.

Because of a fluke in timing on when Tanz was inseminated and when I purchased her, Pam Norton is the breeder Also, Tate is kind of highlighting what I was saying about the riders and the luck aspect of it all - Tate has 6 full brothers and sisters, very nice siblings all of them. Tate is the youngest of them. NONE of his siblings have gotten to the level he is at now as a 7 year old. Full siblings all of them and Tate is the only one of the 7 that has gotten higher than Prelim. So was it where they ended up or the genetics?? I think it is the former personally. There's not a lot of difference between Tate and his siblings from the ones I've seen, only minor things.

And I'm seriously hoping that I have one sitting in my barn right now - but only time will tell and only ensuring that he gets into the right hands will have the chance to prove me right/wrong. But then I guess in your definition, they would not be considered purebred because they have a good dose of blood in them.

Andrew also has a couple of foals/yearlings that are pretty dang nice and I know he's hoping one or two of them are going to turn out to be UL horses (by various stallions) and one of them is out of a purebred mare (no TB up close) and by Inky. Will she get to be 4* I don't know but she is super nice and very athletic and has the "look" that she has the potential to get there.

I think there are a few really good breeders out there

Sorry I misread your orignial post.

JRR wrote:
I didn't say who WILL breed to your stallion, I said who will breed something like your stallion ie one without an xx parent - who will the next Zenda Farrell or Pam (Fisher? sorry can't remember Tate's breeder) be?

Agree there are several next Zenda Farrel's out there. And frankly based on the List we keep updated in The Lounge, I'd say there are a lot of breeders doing a really good job b/c more than ever onlythey are selectively breeding for purpose.  In addition to those mentioned by Anissa which certainly are ones to watch for future as they come u/s, there are some small breeders out there doing it now:

Rita Haas - great mare base (recurring thread, eh?) and she chooses proven stallions.  Consequently she's produced multiple eventers with at least 2 @ FEI and has a Pavarotti colt she seriously should present for stallion inspection.  She doesn't breed every year and when she does, produces 2-4 foals total.

Would also argue I've done ok.  We've produced a total of 8 foals.  Of the 5 old enough to be u/s, 2 are FEI eventers (40%), one is a winning Modified Jumper (1.25M & ready to move up) and one is a 4yo Approved stallion who's finished 2nd on his D score in both HT's entered.  And there's an extroardinary 2013 colt now in the barn that could be the best one yet.

These examples all from two "full TK" (ie:neither sire nor dam is full TB).  So if I'm answering your question correctly, it's totally do-able.  Choose the very best mares you can get your hands on, breed to a proven sire and then hope they go to a home capable of producing them to their full capacity.

I think I'm lost too .... in any case, there ARE breeders that produce international championships horses (high end 3+4 star) on a very high quality level and reproducibly, and not just once or twice. Of course they have been in business for more years now, and others are only at the beginning. And yes, the environmental circumstances of a horse very much determine if he or she can go all the way or not. All that said - people like the Weltons, Mr. Butt, Mr. Immhoff or now emerging Dr. Schmittlein have done it. What is the common denominator?? HUGE amounts of blood. End of story

We've spent a lot of time talking about what it takes to breed an UL eventer.  

The Rebecca Farm Entry list makes the point best: if you are breeding to sell, produce the best horse you can for the sport.  Maybe it makes it to Rolex one day, maybe not but the biggest demand is for Novice and Training level and a sane, sound athlete with a strong work ethic promotes your breeding program AND the Trakehner horse.

http://eventingscores.com/eventsr/rebecca/ht0713/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ILxpTr5tZZM

video clip of Songline with Michael Pollard schooling on the flat and over jumps.