Trakehner Sire Helium Passed Away

Breeding

Trakehner

The Trakehner bred and former licensed stallion Helium has passed away on 29 April 2026. He was 13 years old.

Helium was a 2013 born gelding by Millennium out of Hirse (by Induc x Arsenal). He was bred by Alan Nissen at Gadebjerg Stud in Denmark.

Reserve Licensing Champion

Leading up to the 2015 Trakehner Licensing in Neumunster, breeder Nissen posted an article on Eurodressage promoting the Danish bred Helium going to the German Trakehner licensing as an "outsider".

Helium caught the attention of the licensing committee and was proclaimed reserve champion. He sold at auction for 170,000 euro to Gut Staffelde near Berlin.

He did his 14-day stallion performance test in Schlieckau in the spring of 2016 and became the top scoring stallion with an overal total of 8.58 points. He did the mandatory sport test in March 2017 and scored 8,02 points. At his second sport test in March 2018 he totalled 8,15 points.

Sport Career

Helium's sport career was not very significant. Although he showed up to S-level, he only did a few local shows as well as the trakehner championship but never truly flowed into mainstream high performance sport.

He was first competed in 2016 by Lena Bammel (née Gunnel) and in 2018 Pia Anina Gerullis took over the ride. Both Bammel and Gerullis presented him at the Trakehner Young Horse Championships in Hanover.

As of 2019 it was Michaela Kronenberger's turn and the stallion reached Prix St Georges level under Natalie Soujon in 2020. He did his last show in August 2022 in Görlitz.

Gelded

In 2024 Gut Staffelde announced that Helium had been gelded to have a more "horse friendly life with less hormonal stress." He was also retired from sport.

The German equestrian federation has 223 offspring registered for sport or breeding and 11 licensed sons of which three were licensing champions: Olymp, Damaron, Despino, Ferrari Forever, Go Magic, Halftime, Humboldt, Kalan HS, Kap Verde, Pazifik, and Rheinglanz.

His most famous offspring in sport include High Fashion OLD (Andrea Timpe), Herzenswunsch GE (Uta Graf), Rosenprinz WRT (Helen Langehanenberg), Rheinglanz (Steffen Frahm), Salvana's Helene (Jacob Schenk) and Kind of Magic (Rowana Noack).

Untimely Passing

On the morning of 29 April 2026 Helium was put to sleep in the expert care of veterinarians Marcel Krenz and Tobias Plümke of the Dallgow Equine Clinic.

"Helium was a Trakehner horse more beautiful than one could ever imagine, a mythical creature who touched everyone with his intelligence, gentleness and charisma," his owner stated. "We always tried to put his welfare above all else, even when we encountered a lack of understanding. But it was, above all, these two steps in his final years that enriched his life immeasurably: (...) the decision to allow him, as a gelding, to spend his later years in peace on the pastures of Staffeld. "

Staffelde continued, "there should have been so many more! And so, in his final moments, it filled us with great pain to feel, to decide, that Helium now wanted nothing more than release. Helium lives on through his offspring, and he will always be in our hearts, even though he is now galloping across the evergreen pastures in another world."