Westfalian Premium Stallion Velvet Gelded

Breeding

Westfalian

The Westfalian premium licensed stallion Velvet has been gelded. The liver chestnut used to be owned by the Warendorf State stud and is currently being focused on sport by Shona Benner.

Velvet is a 9-year old Westfalian by Van Vivaldi out of Finlay (by Fidermark x Domenico). He is bred by Nel ten Heuvel-de Vries in The Netherlands and was originally named Vito de Vries.

Licensed Stallion

He was presented at the 2016 Westfalian stallion licensing by stallion rearer Mathieu Beckmann and in December 2016 he moved to the Warendorf state Stud.

Velvet was first competed by Henrike Sommer in June 2018 as a 4-year old, while in 2019 the reins were passed on to Nele Lübbehausen and Ann-Christin Wienkamp. The latter took him to the 2019 Bundeschampionate, where they finished 15th in the finals, and they were third reserves for the German team for the 2019 World Young Horse Championships. In 2020 Lübbehausen did two shows at M-level with the stallion.

Shona Benner

German young rider Shona Benner got the ride on Velvet in the autumn of 2021 through the help of trainer Helen Langehanenberg.

Benner moved into the junior division with Velvet in 2022. She mainly focused on national showing. In 2022 she did three CDI's (Le Mans, Ornago, Samorin). In 2023 only one (Exloo). They were 22nd at this year's German Young Riders Championships.

Gelded

The Benner family own Velvet and they decided to geld him.

With Banner at the 2023 Westfalian
Championships

"Over the past couple of months, we experienced a lack of concentration whenever we went to competitions. And while that can be perfectly normal for a young stallion, we no longer wanted to put Velvet under that kind of pressure and stress," Shona explained. "He has been in excellent form in training at home and I could not be prouder of his development and engagement. On competitions, however, it was more stressful to him than anything else, and there was barely a chance for him to show his true potential and capabilities."

Benner is already seeing major improvement after the procedure. "His operation went well and he is a lot more relaxed now," she said. "For me, it is the most important thing to know that Velvet is completely comfortable with himself and his surroundings. This was the best way to go."

As a breeding stallion, Velvet has no offspring registered in the database of the German equestrian federation, although a handful of his offspring has appeared at breed shows in the past few years.

Benner also has a second junior horse to ride, Dancing Florencia (by Don Tango x Negro), while in 2022 she briefly competed Schone Scarlett for Langehanenberg, who is now showing the mare again at medium tour level herself.