The continuity of the Ramzes bloodline through Romedio.

When we purchased Romedio in 1976 we, like many in Germany, did not understand just what they had sold us and what we had bought in relation to the bloodline and genetic makeup of this stallion. We had asked for a tall, modern type, performance tested stallion of the new generation of Holsteiners, and of the highest standard available. A number of horses were offered to us, none of them we felt were suitable for our purpose. We wanted a stallion that would improve on the offspring that were being produced by the stallions Flaneur, King and Duellshultz in Australia, just as they were working on the old bloodlines in Europe.

Negotiations stopped for a while as no horse of high enough standard was offered and we then announced that we would look at Westphalians and Hanoverians as it seemed the Holsteiner Verband did not have a horse to suit us. Two weeks later Mr Maas Hell, secretary of the Holsteiner Verband rang us to say that they would sell us their highest qualified, performance tested young stallion but we would have to meet their price. We agreed on their price, less 10% as there were no agents involved, and agreed that they would still have to stallion for breeding for the rest of the season.  We would send one third deposit upon receiving a written contract.  Herr Hell informed us that this would be up to the committee, not just him as secretary. We thought this would take a week or more but he rang back within half an hour that it was accepted.  They must have been in a meeting at that time.

Papers would be couriered to us immediately and money sent by electronic bank transfer straight after signing of the papers and had been matched to the horse by our agent.

As my uncle lived only three hours away across the border in Holland and also was involved with horses this was accomplished the next few days. At the end of July 1977, Romedio stepped of the truck at Brokeford near Sale where he had been eagerly awaited. So what did we get for our persuasion and money?

A 17hh grey stallion with a snippet and star and four white socks and a grandson of Ramzes.  It was fantastic to actually have him at our place. It is exactly 33 years this week since I first saw Romedio standing there looking at us with an elevated head carriage and stance that conveyed to us to keep in mind his breeding and performance. He impressed upon me the he was the important gentleman of stature and ability. I will never forget that he instilled the realization into me with just his presence that he was more than worthy of the titles bestowed upon him. That he was premier .champion foal in 1972. That he was premier champion colt in 1973, and that he was awarded the Premier at the colt selection trials for performance testing.   That he was the highest scoring  performance tested stallion in existence at that tine coming out of the government overseen testing station, no wonder then that they wanted to buy him back three months after we had paid for him and he was still in  Germany.

We started breeding with him that year and were much more than pliantly surprised at the quality of his foals.

The quality young stock as we suspected came more often from the mares whose sires were Warmbloods than those from mares of TB breeding. The problem was that the strong genetic makeup of the TB mares were more inclined to produce offspring that were more TB than warmblood. In Germany however it was the other way around. Most of the WB mares put to a TB stallion produced Warmblood type horses. This was due to the fact that because of past utilization of Tb stallions they knew which if the old blood was more suited to their purpose. The number of suitable TB to match with the WB is about one in forty.  It is much easier to find a TB stallion to put to a dozen WB mares in a predominant WB breeding state finding a dozen Tb mares is a different kettle of fish. You may have to test breed 200 Tb  mares before you find the twelve you want We were going  well with our program and in 1981 on a trip to Europe via some time in the USA Louise met up with Mr Emile  Jung the then world champion  four in hand coach driving champion she spent some time in Lexington Virginia with him and he informed her the he was privy to the proposal and sale of Romedio.

He told her that the stallion was offered to us because the Verband needed a substantial amount of money for their new riding hall building program. The price put on the horse was substantial and they firmly believed that they that nobody would take them up on it.  Well we did and there was quite some discussion on it. They could not go back on their word as this was an international deal. They were certain they would undoubtedly breed another one out of the dam or her sister. Unfortunately the mare died some three months later, hence the offer to buy him back and the sister never produced a worthwhile stallion .

By this time in 1982, we had some magnificent horses coming on: Ashleigh Brigadier, Mountbatten, Rembrandt, Romboli, Rubens, Rousseau, Renault, Roanoak, Rabalais and many more. While a lot of horses stayed in Australia manu others were exported to USA, NZ, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. Many of the mares have gone out and competed at international level Now in the 21st century nearly all our mares carry Romedio an both the paternal and maternal lines yet only 5 and 6 generations from Ramzes, to find stallions of outside blood carrying the Ramzes line in the background is now becoming extremely difficult.  Now by using stallions of the highest calibre and competing at the world top events we also have a number of youngsters from our top mares.

Grand Prix dressage stallion Roanoke.

These are by Lord Sinclair, Rosario, Robino, Renegade z, Steadinger and others. And as stated all having Ramzes blood in the background and consolidating the Ramzes genetic line. Young upstanding horses of stallion material such as Rego, Steady, Roosendaal and Rhade.

There are of course a number of exquisite young females ready to start breeding with this year, out of our mares that have bred the by stallions far enough remove from the bloodlines the new colts carry, stallions such as Danone, Lordanos, Budweiser and some others that will let us be in control of their offspring genetic make up as much .as one could control it. Some six fillies are proposed to be bred this season to our own stallion. Next season when they have had a foal we will put them to the best stallions available  ,but they will be very carefully matched to the young mares.

Should we not find a stallion that is absolutely perfect this year, there is always next year and even the year after that.

The horses that we do not need for our breeding program will be  broken to saddle and trained up to competition level before being offered for sale It is an absolute marvel the way that some of the young stock have turned out. We will be writing some essays about some of the young horses about to be broken in and their progress can during the months to come be followed on our website

It will be a daily or weekly report on some of the young horses that will be used for breeding mare and stallion as well as the ones put under saddle.

Look at our blog pages for more information, photos, bloodlines and pedigrees of our Holsteiner horses.

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