Back from Holland
We are back from our trip!  2 weeks is a long time to be away and I'm more than happy to get home.  Holland was fun, but tiring.  It wasn't the best therapy on my knee sitting at the shows or sitting in the car.  So, I am very happy to be home where I can get back into an exercise program again.  But, I am glad to have gone and always I learn so much.  It is way too much to go over all the fabulous bloodlines and stallions that we saw.  Here are some hilights:

Jumping Amsterdam
Jumping Amsterdam was fun.  I think the best part for me was seeing Edward Gal riding Gestion Lingh by Flemmingh.  Lingh is an incredible horse and Edward is a fabulous rider. He is on the Olympic team so I'm sure we will hear more about him in the future!  Jumping Amsterdam was quite a big show with 3 rings running when I went last. Evidently they shut it down due to money problems.  I was looking forward to a huge trade show like I had seen in the past, but it had been reduced to a smaller one.  They also went to the one ring in the RAI center.  While this made it nice to not have to jump between 3 rings, I missed seeing some of the lower level horses compete.  I hope that it continues to grow and it was financially a success.  They did a super job getting it going again and there was top riders there.  Although, I could have done without the clowns and children's show for family promotion.  It was especially nice to watch the World Cup qualifiers in both dressage and jumping.  We had to leave before the Sunday night show, so I was disappointed to hear we missed 4 Pas de Duexs with all family and son/daughter riders.  We missed seeing Lancet riding Grand Prix!  But, by the 4th day, we were ready to get on the road and go see my Polansky colt and had a 2 hour drive to the next hotel.  I highly recommend going to this show in the future if anyone gets a chance.  It is fabulous to see the top riders and top horses compete at the highest level and both dressage and jumping.

Stallion Show
Thanks to VDL we had 2 tables right in front just behind and to the right of the judges.  It was great.  We were so close that at times the arena dirt came up on the table.  Yikes!  But, we could see the horses up close and it was good to see the conformation of them and evaluate things that we could not at a distance.  We had a lot of fun and a wonderful group of people.   There is a lot to be learned about people when we go as a group like this.  I never knew that Linda spooned her muffins.  She will never live that one down.  ha! It is nice to have old and new friends from the trip and it makes it more special.  I will work on some good pictures for the web soon!

Both nights the show went well past midnight.  We were exhausted and it was hard to get to sleep at night with so much to think about and knowing we had to get up early for a start of another day.  Even though Colleen used 2 pillows to my 1, I have to say I still won the pillow fight. hahahaha

Thanks to Martha Haley for helping out with transporting people to the stallion show from the Hotel.  VDL was a big help this year with the tables and hotel and buffet reservations.  Kudos to them for helping us all out.  It worked out nice how things went this year and I was able to enjoy the show myself too.  Already we have people who will for sure do it again next year.

International Meeting
The KWPN held it's first International meeting.  They hosted us from all the foreign countries with free drinks from the bar and a buffet dinner.  They did a super presentation and gave us a super opportunity to ask questions.  I was thrilled to be sitting next to the breeder of Glasgow by Emilion.  He was from Scotland and a very nice man.  It was really nice of the KWPN to give Barb, Ko G. (former Admin head of the KWPN) and myself credit for starting these meetings in Holland.    I did ask one question at the meeting and they all tried to get me to sing.  ha!  If they ever heard me sing, they would never ask that.  Here is some points that were told to us at the meeting:

- The breeding decisions the KWPN will show affect in the offspring 10 years down the line
-  The KWPN has 30,000 members in Holland, 1500 foreign members and 1300 affiliate members (NAWPN & Scotland).  Each year there is 10,000 breeders, 12,000 foals and there is approximately 200 approved stallions.
- The KWPN is working on an English website.  The kwpnstallion.com website is being updated continuously and the latest indexes are now published on there.
- We got the first copy of Horse International with the insert of the KWPN pages and it looks great! 
- The stallions must have >50% motility to be acceptable to the KWPN for approval.
- To be a Keur stallion, the stallions are at least 7 years old and must have an index above 140 with 85% reliability and offspring performing at the GP level.
- To be a Preferent stallion, the stallions must have approved sons and essentially starting their own "line".
- Stallions have many ways to get into approvals.  Including this selection process that we just saw with the 2.5 year olds going to the 70 day testing, but also they can come later under saddle or prove themselves in sport.  Many stallions come in by that route.
- Stallions must pass xrays including artosis, bone spavin, navicular bone and osteochondrosis. They also have to pass scoping and not be roarers.
- About 20 stallions will get approved from the 70 day test each year.  Stallions must then do 2 years of stallion competitions, have 15-20 foals inspected and acceptable (afstammelingenkeuring) and have offspring inspected at age 3 for conformation, age 7 for conformation and performance and age 11 for performance before the stallions will receive approval for life.  Anytime before that they can lose their approval status.
- The KWPN goals are to produce horses that will perform at the highest Grand Prix level, with durability, good functional conformation and appealing.
- For dressage they look for self carriage, extension, collection, clarity, balance, willingness, impulsion and suppleness.
- For jumping they look for scope, movement, technique and willingness.
- The KWPN keeps an eye opene on world wide developments and many of the Holland breeders bring in stallions and bloodlines for outside to continuously improve the breed.  They like this.
- The KWPN keeps a leading position in dressage and show jumping through this strict selection process.   This shows if you look at the KWPN horses listed in the top ten rankings in the world sport rankings.

VDL Success with the Stallion Selections
VDL had 4 stallions selected for the 70 day test:
Ultimate VDL (Indoctro x Landgraf),
VDL Up to Date (Orame x Nimmerdor)
Urvano (Silvano N x Flemmingh)
5-years old VDL Empire (Emillion x Lord Calando) # 5 for Jumping stallions in the championships!

My favorite was the Silvano N x Flemmingh.  He was quite nice.  Now to just keep our fingers crossed that he gets approved and then frozen semen for next year!

I am pretty excited about Up to Date as he is the same bloodlines as our Urame (Orame x Nimmerdor) who is looking so good here as a stallion!  Woohoo!

72 stallions have been selected for the 70 test in Ermelo. This was the first year for Orame and French Buffet for their offspring and good results with 2 Orame sons going to the testing and one French Buffet.  Also 2 Indoctro sons and 1 Emilion.   We'll have news as the testing goes this spring and fall.

007 and Polansky
Polansky had a son selection.  We were disappointed they put out the 007 x Bentley in the 3rd round.  He was not showing as good as the 1st round.  I am told he will come back and try again under saddle.  He was definatley one that was worth a try.  We all agreed the 007 offspring looked very good.

Stallion Competition Final
Also at the Stallion Show is the final Stallion competition.  All approved stallions are required to compete in this series for 2 years to keep their approvals.  It is a super competition and quite interesting to see so many nice stallions competing at a young age.  Prestige (Silvano N x Goodtimes) showed a great test. The jury admired Prestige's powerful movements and was the Champion of the dressage competition at Z level (4th).  Prestige is quite an impressive stallion and super for those that want to add power, bone and substance and knee and hock action.  We saw his first foal in Holland.  He was quite spectacular.  I look forward to hear about the others born here. Pacific, Matterhorn, Orame, Hold Up Premier, Radisson, Silverstone, Sydney and Sheraton all jumped super with clear rounds in the competition.  The competition was quite exciting and everyone was on the edge of their seat cheering.  Jumping is quite fun to watch.  These stallions are quite handy, careful and went very fast in the jump offs!  I still would like to take Sheraton  by Indoctro home and if all goes well we will be breeding Larinette to Sheraton this year. The new stallion Tenerife by Rafael impressed all in our group.  I would breed to him this year but he is too close to our blood lines and guess which motherline he comes from?  Yup, the LOMA lines! So that rules out breeding him to Miloma, Taloma and Uloma!  And he has Ahorn in him and rules him out for Larinette.  Maybe another year as I think his offspring will be quite nice.  If anyone is interesting in breeding to him, let me know as we will be ordering his first frozen semen soon.  The other stallions we have in stock already and ready to ship anytime.

For those Goodtimes fans...Sydney by Goodtimes is quite nice!  I think we will hear more about him and his offspring too in the future.   Silverstone and Radisson look really good.  Silverstone missed being #1 by 1/2 point!  Colleen still wants to take Orame home, but Weipke says we need 300 breedings to bring him to the USA!   We need to start a vote on who would commit in advance to what VDL stallion to get a count and encourage them to send another one!  We love Navarone but we'd like to have another choice for breeders for a backup.  In the meantime, Colleen will have to work on smuggling Orame home in a suitcase.  ha!

Visiting the Majestic Gaits horses in Holland
We managed to get to visit our yearling stallion prospects in Holland.  Washington by Orame who is owned by Linda Ross and me was looking fabulous!  He had grown a lot since I saw him in November.  And Welmingh (Flemmingh x Cocktail) was looking super nice too.  VDL has him at a very good place where they get good attention and care.  We thank them for providing that for us and looking out for our horses.  I will have pictures soon I hope for the web.

We also visited U (Polansky x Goodtimes) who is doing very well.  He is staying at a very good place that is a professional opfokkstal (raising youngsters).  Koen Brinkman has taken good care of him for me.  Koen was a super host for our visit to Hans Horn.  I will have new video on U ready to send out soon for the interested buyers.

Losing a Passport
I managed to lose my wallet the day before we were to come home.  I stopped at a gas station to fill up, stopped at VDL and then dropped people at the airport.  Coming back from the airport I stopped for a drink and noticed my wallet missing with my passport, credit card, money and drivers license.  Yikes!  You can imagine I had the whole world searching for it.  VDL was searched even though I never took it out there.  We went back to the gas station several times and even checked the trash cans.  Filed a police report at the airport and with Lost and Found there.  Lost and Found is useless, they don't report things on their list until 24-48 hours later.  So, now I had to get an emergency passport to come home.  I was told I had to go to the American Consolate in Amsterdam and they can take care of it.   So, we found our way there Monday morning.  Guards are heavy there with high fencing and you have to go through a medal detector to come in. I had to go get my picture taken and pay $100 and a lot of waiting, but we managed to get a new passport that was temporary with an ugly picture of course!  But, I was just glad to be able to get it done and get on the flight to go home.  We even had a short amount of time to pick up cheese and coffee for those at home.  On the way to the airport, I got a call from VDL that the police had called them and found my wallet.  It had everything it seems but the money in it, which was about 200 euros.  Oh well, I will just be glad to get my license and passport back.

Kathy