2013 Hanoverian Stallion Licensing - Furstenball triumph

  • Posted On: Sunday 27th of October 2013

I had to watch the Hanoverian licensing for two year old dressage and jumping stallions on TV this year instead of going :-( , but it looked like a fabulous event with 53 colts achieving approval out of the 103 presented; with 19 of these being awarded coveted premium status.  The stand out takeaway for me, having followed the career of Furstenball since he was a record breaking auction foal and having used him this year on our Hotline mare (see Furst Dance), was that five, yes five, of his sons were selected for licensing from this, his second, crop.  Of these five, FOUR successfully licensed and two additionally received the Premium Stallion award.  No other sire achieved anything close to this as an outcome during the event.  

Although the aim is not to select an overall champion - the designations are 'licensed', 'not licensed', and finally 'premium licensed' - the one the crowd were quite clearly behind was the glorious black Furstenball/Wei Weltmeyer son, who went on to earn one of these two Premium awards.  This beautiful colt was not being offered for sale however, and so did not appear at auction the following day.

Saturday's auction highlights included the following: E580,000 for an almost as stunning black St. Moritz Jr/Don Schufro son; E460,000 for the other Premium Stallion by Furstenball out of a Dacaprio mare - an athletic, supple bay colt; E350,000 for a Dancier/Weltmeyer colt; and E240,00 for a Diamond Hit/Lauries Crusador colt.  An Premium Ampere colt made E130,000; and a premium Desperados son made a little shy of E100,000.

But it wasn't all applause.  You could actually hear booing when the licensing of the first ever Totilas colt was an announced - a rather chunky rather than elegant type; and laughter for a United/Stedinger colt.