The 2003 Oldenburg Stallion Licensing kicked off today featuring approximately 75 horses of an overall good level of quality. As usual there were a few highlights in the collection, which raise the expectations for tomorrow's free jumping day
, but in general a large lot of two and a half-year old colts is vying for licensing as well as winning the premium titel.
The day started at 1 PM at the Oldenburg centre in Vechta, where the entire collection was to be shown on hard surface. Usually for Oldenburg a hard surface meant a concrete floor between the Oldenburg Halle arenas in Oldenburg, Germany, but as the Licensing had moved to Vechta this year, now the race track had been chosen as location for the hard-surface-viewing.
Although it remains disputable whether the hard surface was actually hard so that leg problems would appear, the difference between outside and inside presentation was still clearly visible. Pumped up by the atmosphere and pressure, the colts were all excited on the race track and many of them simply exploded. Not only the colts, but also the audience was put to the test at the race track. A couple of hundred spectators, who were at the show scrutinizing the quality and consistency of these future sires, were pestered by a strong lashing west wind.
The afternoon triangle session in the heated afternoon arena was much more confortable for horse, judge, presenter and viewer. The excitement from outside had worn out with some stallions and indoors several of them showed uninteresting and flat gaits indoors, especially the Diamond Hits and the Dormello offspring. The Dormello's were overall gorgeous colts, but gait-wise they lacked power and flexibility. The Diamond Hits had no father qualities whatsoever but proved to be good sport horses.
Taking the morning and afternoon session into consideration, day one favorite has to be the number 23, a Paul Schockemohle owned Donnerhall out of Kilkenny (by Kennedy x Karon). The black stallion has a very nice conformation, a solid walk and an superb trot showing great flexion of the hocks and swing in the body. The audience was really impressed by this dark bay as they clapped for the first time for a stallion's performance.
Oldenburg foundation sire Rubinstein and his son Rohdiamant presented a uniform collection of drop dead gorgeous colts of varying quality. Some of them moved simplistically, while others were quite interesting. Trotting breathtakingly was #64, a Rubin Royal x Calmiro x Eldorado offspring. His powerful, ground covering gaits were extraordinary making one wonder if this horse will ever be able to collect with such big movements. Another big and interesting mover was # 85, a Weltmeyer x Duntroon x Pik Bube I colt which showed talent both as sire and as dressage horse. The Rubinstein lined colts almost all had excellent walks showing large overtrack.
Oldenburg's most popular sire Sandro Hit was represented in Vechta with 12 offsprings, of which Paul Schockemohle (owner of Sandro Hit) owned four. The Sandro Hits are a peculiar type of sport horse; extremely thin boned, not too tall, expressive heads and gummibal movements. While most Sandro Hits did not really have the father-quality in them, they were all very interesting sport horses. Very appealing was #74, the Sandro Hit out of St. Pr. St. Paisy (Pik Bube I x Donnerhall) who was considerably taller than his half brothers, and was born with stronger joints than the other "Stiletto Hits".
Speaking to the imagination was also # 79, a Sandro Hit out of Fregata/T (Aspirant x Dogmat) who dazzled with his rhythm and suspension. Number 83, a Sunny Boy x Donnerschwee x Hill Hawk xx, showed interesting potential and will be taken into consideration tomorrow.
Day one at the 2003 Oldenburg Stallion Licensing made clear that the 2001 born colts are of overall good quality and show more refinement than ever before. The colts were in general small and thin boned, but extremely supple and energetic. Most oustanding horse of the day was the Donnerhall x Kennedy x Karon.
Images and Text copyrighted: Astrid Appels
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