Ad van den Tillaart, KWPN Breeder of the Year 2026

Breeding

KWPN

Ad van den Tillaart has been proclaimed KWPN Breeder of the Year 2026 at the KWPN Horse Days in Ermelo on Saturday 29 August 2026.

"He has always kept his sights set on one major goal: top-level sport. That is why he primarily uses what has already been proven in his breeding: Grand Prix stallions," KWPN wrote. "Of course, he does not lose sight of the inspections and performance tests in the process. But using young stallions to then achieve quick success at the foal auction? That is not his style."

It Starts with Holsteiner

Just like with many successful KWPN breeders, they went in search of a foundation broodmare... in Germany.

For Van den Tillaart it was Holsteiner mare E-Delypsa (by Calypso x Ladykiller xx) who became his foundation mare as the dam of licensed stallion Osmium (by Ferro) and his full sister Velvet VDT.

Velvet VDT produced five licensed stallions, as she was flushed multiple times for embryo-transfer. Her licensed sons are Improver (by Apache), My Toto (by Toto Jr), and Goldfinger (by Jazz), Pontiac (by Total US), and Ribery (by Don Juan de Hus).

VDT

Van den Tillaart's breeding products got the VDT suffix and many proved themselves in sport.

FEI level horses from his breeding programme are Bestseller VDT (Guillaume Ducos), Hero VDT (Rotem Ibrahimzadeh), Improver (Divyakriti Singh), Jazztime VDT (Stella Hoff).