Sunny-Boy Passed Away

Breeding

Oldenburg

The Oldenburg breeding stallion Sunny-Boy passed away on 24 August 2022. He was 25 years old and lived in Denmark.

Sunny-Boy was a 1997 born stallion by Sandro Hit out of Fantastica (by Donnerhall x Pik Bube I x Unkenruf), who is the sister of Don Schufro.

Licensed Stallion

He was bred by Paul Schockemöhle and was from Sandro Hit's second crop of foals, which was still small at the time as Sandro Hit only became popular with breeders as of 2000.

Paul presented Sunny-Boy for licensing at the 1999 Oldenburg Stallion Licensing, which was held in Oldenburg at the time. The black did his 30-day performance test in Vechta at age 4 in 2011 and was the high scorer of the testing with 8.99 for dressage and 9.11 for show jumping. In 2003 he achieved his life licensing by competing at the Bundeschampionate in Warendorf.

Sunny-Boy was trained and shown as a youngster by Anja Engelbart, Schockemöhle's head dressage rider at the time. The pair made its show debut in 2001 and rode him through the spring of 2002.

In the summer of 2002, Ulf Möller took over the reins. In 2003 the pair was 9th in the 6-year old dressage horse finals after winning round 2. Engelbart showed Sunny-Boy one more season in 2004 at

Denmark

In 2008 the stallion sold to Jørgen Ravn in Denmark and he was approved for Danish warmblood breeding in 2009. He first stood up for stud at Ravn's Gørklintgård, but later moved to Margit Ørum's Stutteri Klosterheden.

In Denmark he was lightly competed by Ørum's student Malene Mira Petersen between November 2010 and January 2011 at MB-level.

Danish Warmblood proclaimed him Elite sire in 2015.

Margit Orum announced the news of Sunny-Boy's passing on Facebook.

"Thank you for the many good years we had with you in the stallion stable at Stutteri Klosterheden," said Margit. "You became the last in a line of many beautiful stallions. You produced many wonderful offspring, most with a lovely expression, extremely good temperament and elastic movements."

Legacy

In Germany, Sunny-Boy sired no less than 21 licensed sons and 31 state premium daughters. His most famous sons are Spielberg, who produced U.S. olympic team horse Suppenkasper, and Sting. Both are out of the combination Sunny-Boy x Rosier and both were approved in 2006.

When Sunny-Boy received Danish Warmblood elite status at age 18 in 2015, he had sired 87 daughters in Denmark including the gold medal mare Gørklintgårds Brody as well as a silver medal mare and two bronze medal mares.

He had also sired two licensed stallions in Denmark, Gørklintgårds Santos, and Alt for Damerne Firfod.

Sunny-Boy's most successful offspring in sport is Shy Boy, who was competed by Fie Skarsoe at GP level and now by student and owner Victoria Schonhofen. He also sired Grand Prix horses Sonny Star (Marcela Krinke-Susmelj), Salazar (Guillaume Lundy), Gorklintgards Laika (Carmen and Keyla Gutierrez), small tour horses Show Boy (Joyce Lenaerts/Mercedes Verweij), Seiltanz (Roanne Tyson), Sniper van de Helle (Brecht d'Hoore), as well as Danish young riders horse Safari Klintgaard (Sophia Ludvigsen), and 2012 WCYH participant Superman W (Sanne Henningsen).