GFH Stud

The finale of the Oldenburg licensings was the evening Stallion Show held in the main ring at Vechta. After grabbing a quick bite to eat and a beer we took out seats to enjoy a feast of stallions from both dressage and jumping stallion stations. We loved watching Fidertanz, now ridden by Marcus Gribee and were impressed at how well the stallion handled the atmosphere. It is always a great place to see which stallions cope in a quite intense atmosphere. Furstenball was also a...

This year the crop of two year old jumping stallions were of particularly good quality and this was reflected in the prices achieved in the auction after the licensing. Sometimes you have to keep reminding yourself that these are only two year old horses. Not only do these stallions show plenty of scope of the fences but their movement in all gaits is of the same quality as many of the dressage stallions. The Champion this year was by the world famous successful jumping sire,...

The 2011 Stallion licensings at Vechta lived up to their usual expectations although this year it was evident how the Verband want to encourage more diverse bloodlines into the Oldenburg breeding program. As always there were some surprises in terms of which stallions did and didn't license and the crowd certainly made their feelings known. The champion dressage stallion, bred by Paul Schockemohle, was by Furst Romancier out of a Sir Donnerhall dam. It is a very elegant long...

We would like to say a very big Thank You to Lynne Busson and Caroline Ironside from the Horse Breeders Magazine who considered us worthy enough for an interview.  I hope the readers found our views on breeding interesting and if you do'nt yet take the free subscription it is well worth doing so. The online magazine has a wealth of articles on all aspects of breeding. To read the interview simply click on the 'Link' button below.

We dashed down the autobahn to Warendorf once the times were released to watch Underberg take his place in the line up of the top German young horses of 2011. We were increadibly proud to have made it this far with a horse we had bought as a two year old with every intention of castrating him and Jonathan using him as a hunter! It has been an amazing journey with Underberg and it was great that his breeder, Christoph Herdering could be with us to watch. His first round went...

August 30th - Thomas took Underberg and Use Me to a show at Nienburg. For Underberg it was his last before the German Bundeschampionat. He jumped a lovely clear in the M class and was placed and then had once fence in the M** - the first time he has jumped an M** class. The weekend though did belong to Use Me. Thomas jumped her in the main S class and wow - she came 2nd. We were in the UK so missed it!.  We didnt get a video of either but here is Underberg jumping a...

Our last two foals of 2011 arrived safely - another colt but at last a filly. The colt is by Floriscount our of a De Niro mare that we bought last year. The owner lived in our village in Germany and passed away very unexpectedly. We were asked if we would like to purchase the mare and after consideration decided we would go ahead. I am a great believer in fate and something was telling me it was the right thing to do. The colt foal is beautiful and very like the father. Our...

For the second year we spent a few days at the renown show, Horses and Dreams. Held in the grounds of the Kasselmann stables it stages top class dressage and International Show jumping and again the weather was glorious - we needed sunscreen! The Brits were out in force - Laura B, Carl, Henrietta Anderson and Emile Faurie. We also watched some top stallions like Belssimo M and Blue Hors Romanov. Jonathan prefer to watch the showjumping, usually with a beer in hand. John...

The first foals of 2011 arrived in April. Two were born in the UK and one in Germany and all were colts. We had a black colt by San Amour our of Vernand Premium mare Athen who is by Don Cardinal. This was a very welcome arrival as we had lost the filly foal - again by San Amour that she produced last year. Our first Underberg baby of 2011 also arrived. Again a colt, out of our Supreme Leader mare. The third colt was born at our base in Germany, a beautiful dark bay colt by...

Our mare Use Me and young rider Mathias Schwentke travelled down to Mannheim in April for their first international competition. The dates clashed with the Royal Wedding but we were not going to miss our 'International debut' so packed up everything including the children and made the five hour drive down to a very pretty part of Germany. The prestigious Mannheim Maimarkt Turnier attracts many international riders and the first week is dedicated to junior and young riders. It...

Our mare by the stallion Royal Hit out of a Licotus dam made the short trip to Vechta at the beginning of June 2011 for her mare test. She had passed the initial inspections so now it was on to the detailed assessment which includes free jumping, being ridden by our trainer Hans Bremke and then being ridden by a test rider. The main arena at Vechta is daunting for any young horse but she coped very well. We were absolutely over the moon when the inpsection commitee annouced...

  We were absolutely delighted when our mare, Use Me was selected as a member of the German Junior Nations Cup Team in April. We travelled down to Reims in France to support her and Matti and we think it was somewhat of a first to have a 'Welsh' owned horse on a German Nations Cup Team!. The grass arena in Reims was enormous and the fences looked big too. It is an increadibly tense competiton and I am not sure if I actually enjoyed it - I was so nervous. Use Me found...

We spent a very enjoyable afternoon at Verden where we watched Woodlander Farouche live up to all expectations and win the finals of the 5 year old World Champion Dressage Horse. I even managed to get a half decent video.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDrdOnhn8PQ  

Many thanks to Christiane Simon for taking this video of Use Me jumping at Isernhagen today. It was only the second S Class that Use Me had competed in and she finished in 5th place. She was ridden by our rider in Germany, Thomas Heineking who was delighted with her performance      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVkbtcPOzwQ      

Friday 17th June - the news we have been waiting for.... our stallion Underberg today qualified for the German Bundeschampionat. He qualified last year as a 5 yr old and needed to qualify again this year - he now gets his lifetime license. No decisions yet as to whether he goes here or to Zangersheide (World Young Horse Championships) but we will keep you posted. Big sigh of relief here at GFH today!            

We spent a lovely morning at the Stud in Lodbergen who were holding a selection day for the German Foal Championships. It was very interesting to see the quality of the foals which by and large was very good. It was also interesting that the selection panel gives its feedback and opinion after each foal has been presented. They hold up their score cards a litttle bit like in 'Strictly'! This foal, born on May 15th was placed second in the filly section at the German...