Leonberg Passed Away

Breeding

Zweibrucken

The retired international Grand Prix horse and RPSI licensed stallion Leonberg passed away in Germany on 30 December 2017. He was 23 years old.

Born in 1994, Leonberg was by Lonely By xx out of Romina Power (by Romiros x Grandus). He was bred by Christine Schneberger.

Leonberg was first licensed in 1996 for the Zweibrucken/RPS stud and in 2010 approved in the U.S.A for Oldenburg and Hanover.

The dark bay stallion did his 100-day stallion performance test in Marbach in 1998 and scored 83.38 points for dressage and 64.24 points for show jumping (total 72.15), ranking him 24th out of 27 participating stallions. He redid the testing a year later in 1999 in Zweibrucken and got 105.06 for dressage and 73.99 for jumping (total 91.02 points), finishing 14th out of 18 participating stallions.

Under Manfred Gloede, Leonberg made his show debut in Trier, Germany, in the riding horse classes in May 1998. Leonberg sold to Brigitte Ebers-Erkens and was shown by Markus Erkens as of 2001 at M-level. Erkens took him to national Grand Prix level by 2003.

Dr. Cesar Parra discovered Leonberg in Germany and convinced his sponsor at the time, Anne Sparks of Horses Unlimited, to purchase the beautiful stallion. Between 2003 and 2005 Cesar Parra competed the stallion at national and international Grand Prix level with CDI starts in Allentown, Wellington, and Loxahatchee.

After Sparks and Parra ended their collaboration, the stallion moved into training with Florida based Danish Mikala Munter (Gundersen). Mikala and Leonberg made their show debut in 2008 and they competed extensively at international Grand Prix level from 2008 till 2011. They capped off the 2010 show season with starts at the CDI Aachen and Copenhagen and were the alternates for the Danish team at the 2010 World Equestrian Games. The stallion was retired from competition at the end of the 2010 show year.

After his sport career, Leonberg initially stayed in the U.S.A. but eventually was shipped back to Germany in October 2014, where he spent more than three years in retirement at Lena and Dirk Janssen's Storchenhof near Vechta, Germany.

“When Leonberg first came to me he was nervous and fragile, but soon we gained each other’s trust and became close friends," said Mikala Munter. "He was such a gentle soul and always needed someone to hold his ‘hand.’ I miss him every day, and I am forever thankful that Anne Sparks made sure he had a great retirement in Germany and let him go to rest at the right time.”

As a breeding stallion, Leonberg produced one licensed son in the U.S.A: Liberando VT. In Germany 15 of his offspring are registered for sport.