Mares Are The Key To Success

A firm belief in the importance of mares to a breeding program has brought Bill Mulholland’s Windswept Farm of Georgetown, ON, to the peak of breeding success. He is also one of the few North American breeders to develop breeding programs both here and in Europe.

Mulholland was recently honoured by the American Hanoverian Society (AHS) with the Bari von Buedingen Memorial trophy after his three-year-old Mathilda won the overall high-score mare award - the third time in six years that a Windswept Farm mare has earned the distinction. (She and 1997’s winner EM Welkin both achieved scores of eight while 1995’s top score was 8.33 by EM Whisper.) Each of the three is a descendant of one of the farm’s six foundation mares (purchased in Germany) and was sired by one of Windswept’s own stallions and is now a Windswept broodmare.

“What is different about Windswept is that we pursue a consistent mare policy,” declares Mulholland. “We aim to establish quality bloodlines identified with North America. The objective is to establish consistency in the production of high quality offspring. To achieve this, we have put our best fillies back into breeding. We have bred 12 State Premium quality mares, 10 of whom have been used in the Windswept breeding program. As a result, we have been able to continue to improve the quality of our herd while increasing its size.”

Mulholland believes that you can’t have a solid equestrian sport of international calibre in North America if you depend only upon money and a handful of top riders. In addition, you need competent trainers, of both riders and horses, well-conceived programs for development of young riders and horses, a healthy breeding industry capable of producing consistently higher quality horses. Such a program takes time (“I didn’t start soon enough,” says Mulholland.) and you must be able to produce a sufficient quantity of competitive quality horses to reduce internally our dependence upon our international competition.

In Germany, The Windswept Lemon Park daughter, Lili, was “Best of Show” at the 2000 Freiburg Mare Show which resulted in an invitation to compete at the prestigious Ratje-Niebuhr, held only every six years in Verden (Aller) for the top 150 mares. Here, Lili placed fifth among the two-year-olds. She is a granddaughter of one of Windswept’s foundation broodmares SPS Bummy (Bolero/Wendekries) and a daughter of Windswept-bred St.Pr.St. Wilhelmina by Weltmeyer.

In North America, Windswept-bred horses have achieved singular success: three first-place mares in the last six annual AHS inspection tours, 63%
premium mares from Windswept-bred fillies, and 40% of Windswept-bred mares have achieved “Top-Mare” listing since inception.

However, the success of any breeding program is measured eventually by results achieved in competition. Although it has never considered itself a “show stable” Windswept’s achievements in the show ring both here and in Germany are a testament to the strength of its policies, its breeding philosophy and to the discipline with which they are pursued.

Winterstern, Windswept’s first colt by their foundation stallion World Cup IV, ridden by Tom Noone, is moving up to grand-prix-level dressage. Montcalm, a full brother of the Windswept stallion Merlin, was the Ontario Hunter Jumper Association’s 2000 combined working hunter reserve champion. He has since been sold to the US. Wurze (show name Windswept), now owned by Anne Vosburgh, was the 1999 reserve champion in the combined working hunter division at the Royal Horse Show. Wladina won several dressage championships and is now competing at the Intermediare I and Prix St. Georges levels. Full brother Wellesley and Wolsey are both competing in the Medium division. In 1999 Wellesley was Ontario Basic 4 champion. At the Medium level he’s a consistent performer - always in the ribbons.

Auction Action
European sport horse auctions were very successful in the fall of 2000. The French auction at Bois-le-Roi saw record prices with 200,000 French francs being paid for Manau du Ter by Galoubet and 180,000 francs for a son of the German Carthago.

Paul Schochemohle’s premium PSI auction also had a record gross of 22.8 million deutsch marks. The top horse was the five-year-old bay Holsteiner mare, HS Europa (Carthago - Landgraf I) who went for 2.3 million DM. The second top seller was a six-year-old Selle Francias stallion Oredo by Oredo de Paulstra who has already won at intermediate show jumping levels and who fetched 1.5 million DM from a Mexican buyer.

Top prices have been the case at all of the Verden auctions. A son of Charon went for 100,000 DM at the auction for non-licensed colts at the Hanoverian stallion licensing in October while Equitop in November saw record sales of approximately 25,000 DM The high-sale price was 125,000 DM for the four-year-old dressage horse, Welcado (Weltmeyer - Donja).

Also in Great Britain, prices were high at their annual sport horse auction held at the Towerlands Equestrian Centre. Top price was offered for a three-year-old licensed Hanoverian stallion, High Fashion, who went for 85,000 (pounds sign) by Holensteiner out of a state premium Weltmeyer mare. High Fashion will compete in dressage. Second high price went to Rio Negro, a Rubenstein I grandson who went for 20,000 (pounds sign - also to the dressage ring.

At the Holstein grading and auction in Neumunster, the champion colt, Carabas (Carnaby - Roberto) went for 320,000 DM for a dressage career. The second hightest, at 300,000 DM was a show jumper Cashman, by Hugo Simon’s deceased good show jumper Cash (by Cor de la Bryere).

Youngsters Strut Their Stuff
The first-ever Americas Championship for Young Horses was held in the fall at La Club Hipico la Silla in Monterrey, Mexico, with horses from North and South America show jumping in three age divisions. After four days of competition, champion in the five-year-old division was the La Silla’s own Dutch-bred stallion, Bandolero La Silla by (Burggraaf - Iddle Dancer), ridden by Santiago Lambre.

In the six-year-olds, Guatemala’s Juan Pablo Pivaral rode the stallion, VDL Maserati (Indoctro - Celrite) to the win and Alberto Michan of Mexico was aboard the Dutch-bred Lorenzo (Goodtimes - Guanita) for the seven-year-old championship.

This young horse competition is intended to become a North American version of the World Breeding Championship for Young Horses in show jumping that is held in Lanaken, Belgium every fall.

Marked for Life
The Unique Equine Life Number (UELN), which would allocate a one-time identification number to a horse and also allow for the electronic transfer of breeding information between world breeding organizations, is on the horizon.

The idea was proposed at the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses’ (WBFSH) annual meeting in October of 1999 and came about in response to the ever-increasing movement of semen and horses internationally and the need to track, verify and identify horses and their pedigrees.

After two meetings in June 1999 and June 2000, meetings were held with representatives from the WBFSH, International Stud Book Committee, the World Arabian Horses Organization, the Union Europeenne du Trot and the Federation Equestre Internationale to determine the format of the number.

In the fall of 2000, the WBFSH approved what should be the final proposal for the 15-character number.The first six digits are comprised of the country and registry code, the other nine make up the specific registration number of the horse. For more information check out the UELN website at www.haras-nationaux.fr/ueln/main.htm.
The work now revolves around getting all the breed registries and organizations world-wide to agree to the number which would incorporate their own tracking systems.

The Canadian Equestrian Federation is seeking input on the UELN and its impact on the Canadian breeding and horse industry. See the CEF website link at www.horse-canada.com on how you can register your comments on the number.

Horse Sport March, 2001