The Modern Showjumper - A History: Introduction

Similarly, as the offspring of some showjumping progenitors have done particularly well, breeders seek out the sons and daughters of these horses to produce future generations of showjumpers.

Some readers may wonder why so much of this book is devoted to the thoroughbred. There are several reasons:
First of all, much of the best jumping blood comes from the thoroughbred, and even today many good showjumpers are of that breed.

Secondly, thoroughbred breeders can draw on the experience gained over three centuries of producing performance horses. This experience is relevant in any context where excellence is measured by winning competitions, rather than getting a prize for good conformation or other subjective criteria.

Lastly, the only real data which we have on jumper breeding prior to World War II are the pedigrees of leading steeplechasers.
Obviously, the questions which are asked of a showjumper differ from those which are asked in 'chasing', but some data on consistent jumping ability is better than none. In particular, I have always found that the tough fences at Aintree made the Grand National a supreme test of this ability long before showjumping became an established sport, and the pedigrees of the horses who did well in that race are probably the best data available up until World War II.

I must stress that this is not a book on how to breed horses. Rather, it is a history of why and how a certain type of horse came into being.
Nor is it a book on warmblood horses. Because of the successes of German, Dutch and Belgian warmbloods in international competitions, it has become common in recent years to equate warmbloods with sport horses. That is only correct if one defines as sport any form of riding in a leisure-orientated context.

Many popular warmblood stallions never sired a winner of a serious competition, while some stallions who produced highly successful performance horses were quickly withdrawn from stud duties. Whether in the 1950s or today, the main market for warmbloods consists of amateur riders, the majority of whom do not compete. As a result, the average breeder of warmbloods does not concentrate primarily on producing winners, but, rather, temperamentally balanced, supple and attractive horses, who can be ridden and enjoyed by persons of comparatively limited ability.

Given the parameters of a history of the modern showjumper, I am focussing on studbooks and bloodlines which have consistently produced horses who win advanced competitions.

On the following pages, we will meet the chefs-de-race of modern jumper breeding, whose influence more often than not extends well beyond their own studbooks. We will also meet their ancestors, that is horses who have had a particular impact on 'chaser' breeding, and whose genes can be found in many of the leading showjumpers of today.

Much of the attention will focus on stallions. Great sires receive so much attention because they can cover hundreds of mares in the course of their career, and it is, therefore, possible to assess their impact on a statistical basis within a relatively short period.

Since a mare’s off-spring is always much more limited, few broodmares receive the acclaim of successful sires. Still, to breed good horses, good broodmares are essential, no matter how special a stallion may be.

In all studbooks where performance is measured statistically, certain broodmare families are known to produce better quality offspring than others. Moreover, there are some mares whose impact was undoubtedly as great as that of the best stallions. A stallion who appears regularly in top pedigrees deserves attention. When a mare does the same, not just through one son or daughter but several, perhaps even from matings with different stallions, one takes twice as much notice. After all, she had far fewer shots at it than her male counter-parts.

However, one must never forget that the systematic breeding of showjumpers is still in its in-fancy. Showjumping as a sport is of relatively recent origin, and even within the last two decades the tests devised for the best jumpers have changed considerably. Until approximately the late 1970s, clearing big fences was the main task facing horse and rider in the major competitions.

Since then, increasingly technical course design and the importance of the indoor circuit has put a premium on talents in addition to pure jumping ability. No matter how high a horse can jump, he is unlikely to win a World Cup if he cannot turn on a penny to save those extra split seconds in a jump-off. This, in turn, has an effect on the breeding of showjumpers.

Therefore, the first section of this book sets out a brief account of the development and organisation of equestrian sports, and showjumping in particular.

In the second section, I will give some background information on the evolution of sport horse breeding in general. Then, after some comments on the statistical evaluation of performances, comes the heart of this book, the story of the making of the modern showjumper.

Lastly, this has always been a fun project. It was never intended as a scientific study. When I started collecting the data on which this book is based, it was simply to keep abreast with developments in equestrian sports, and to get a deeper understanding why some horses are better than others. There have been a few discoveries along the way which surprised me, but not many. The basic conclusion, that by breeding from horses whose close relations have shown particular abilities one increases the likelihood of producing decent offspring, is so obvious to be trite.

Acknowledgements:

This book is dedicated to the memory of Dr Hans-Rudolf Haberbeck.
Many thanks to Amanda Bentley of Weatherbys; Kim Hall of Sport Horse Breeding UK Ltd; Clive Harper; Mewrens Inge of the BWP studbook; the staff at the Irish National Library; Karina Kalderon of the Stud Book Argentino; Bettina Kirberg of the Hanoverian association; Ilsemari Mackensen of the Pferdemuseum in Verden; Mareile Oellrich of the Oldenburger association; Hugh Robards MFH; the ever-helpful ladies and gentlemen at the Service des Haras, des Courses et de l’Equitation; Jord-Ann Ramoudt; Raul Silva of Brasileiro de Hipis-mo; Mark Torode; Jacques Verkerk of the KWPN studbook and to my wife Dahlia Rahaimy, for her patience while I was engaged in a pursuit which had no logical reason other than pure curiosity.

Abbreviations in pedigrees
g = gelding
m = mare
s = stallion
A-N = Anglo-Norman
AA = Anglo-Arab or Anglo-Arabe
Bav = Bavarian
Beb = Beberbeck
BW = Baden-Württemberg
BWP = Belgian warmblood
DWB = Danish warmblood
EP = East Prussian
h/b = half-bred
Han = Hanoverian
Holst = Holsteiner
ISH = Irish sport horse
KWPN = Dutch warmblood
Meck = Mecklenburger
Old = Oldenburger
ox = Arabian
Rhein = Rhineland
RID = Registered Irish draught
SF = Selle Français
TB = thoroughbred
TF = French trotter
Trak = Trakehner
West = Westphalian
YC = Yorkshire Coach
ZwB = Zweibrücken

INTRODUCTION
According to United Nations estimates, there are approximately 60 million horses in the world today. Only a few hundred compete at top level in racing and equestrian sports in any one year, and within each discipline they tend to come from relatively small gene pools.

Moreover, only a few regions in the world consistently produce the kind of horses which are capable of winning at top level. This is not accidental. Breeding horses for sport is not an exact science by any means, but carefully thought out matings, suitable environmental conditions and expert handling increase the likelihood of success to such a degree, that the chances of randomly bred horses are small indeed.

It all started less than 300 years ago. Of course, horses have played a vital role in human history for several thousand years, and were purpose-bred for whatever was required, such as pulling carts or ploughs, or to be ridden in battle.

However, when people in Britain and Ireland began to systematically breed racehorses, they created a breed which not only dominates racing all over the world, but which was also crucial in the development of all modern sport horse studbooks. This is the thoroughbred, of course.

Already before the thoroughbred evolved as a breed, various European territories had state studs which made available to breeders good stallions, with a view of improving and maintaining the quality of local stock, but the aim of such schemes was to guarantee a steady sup-ply of cavalry remounts and draught horses – nothing as frivolous as horses which would just run in races.

The first major international display of the quality of English blood horses took place on 18th June 1815, near the village of Waterloo in Belgium. Being primarily a sea power, the British were not known as a cavalry nation. Yet, when their forces teamed up with the Prussians to defeat Napoleon’s army, their horses impressed friend and enemy alike.

About 100 years of selective breeding by reference to performance orientated criteria, in this case races, had produced a breed which was far superior to what the other armies could field.
Within only a few years, English thoroughbreds were used extensively on the Continent, both as improvement sires and to perpetuate the breed.

Crosses of thoroughbreds with other horses are commonly referred to as half-breds, regardless of the products of such matings being 50, 75 or even more than 99 percent thoroughbred. This was also the practice in Germany until the early 20th century.

By then, certain of the country’s studbooks had developed sophisticated breeding policies of their own. Therefore, the term warmblood began to be used to describe their products, to emphasize that they were not just the result of crossing the odd thoroughbred stallion with local mares, but that these were like breeds in their own right.

At the time, and until World War II, the warmblood populations of Europe were still bred as workhorses and remounts. Some warmblood studbooks produced lighter horses than others, but even they were not focused on breeding horses just for sport. The change came of necessity, when mechanization made the large-scale breeding of draught horses and remounts superfluous. Fortunately for those who were still interested in breeding horses, a new market for horses was emerging in a leisure orientated context, under the broad umbrella of equestrian sports.

© Andreas Haberbeck, 1999 No part of this article can be reproduced without the written permission of Andreas Haberbeck