Atlas is an impressive young colt, by Aquilan Calypso out of our grand prix mare Arielka. With both his parents being so impeccably bred and so successful in their own individual careers, we are currently planning to keep "lester" as a stallion prospect. This colt, is not less than impressive, in both his presense and his quality. We are very excited to see how he develops. In September 2016, Atlas was the high scoring stallion at the CWHBA stallion inspection, earning himself a license with them. We have always loved this boy and we are excited to breed him to select mares in 2017.
Ace has been a hardworking guy his whole life, jumping in over a hundred grand prixs. We are his retirement home, and we love having him. His babies are sweet, kind and easy to train. They also have his elegant, cadenced movement. Ace’s dad is Ahorn Z. Ahorn Z became an international jumping legend with the Dutch team competing in many World Cups and Grand Prix. He is famous for producing international show jumpers and breeding stallions, including Acord I, Acord II, and Acord III. Ahorn Z transmits courage, determined character and sincere force and structure without removing class. Ahorn's dam, Heureka, competed internationally and had many wins in Hamburg, Aachen, Bruxelles, Noerten-Hardenberg, Vienna, and Berlin, and won the Grand Prix of Aachen. She was one of the most successful international jumpers in the period 1969-71, and is ranked as one of the best broodmares in the world. Ace’s mom is by Calypso I. Calypso I produced both dressage stars as well as international jumpers. He is said to be one of the most significant sires and most uniform producer of elegant performance horses. He is considered an important pre-potent sire that consistently produced fabulous gaits and scopey movements in his get. He has 10 stallion sons and over 140 approved daughters.
Arielka is a very special mare. She is built to jump, an incredibly powerful horse. She has come to us after a long and distinguished career. She has competed in 1.50m + competitions under several riders, including a period with Will Simpson as his Nations Cup horse. Her sire is Argentinus. Argentinus--a living legend! It has been over a quarter of a century since Argentinus took up residence in Klein Roscharden as a sire. And today, this trademark stallion still bursting with energy. His son, Arko ESI, brought 130,000 Euro, making him the most expensive warmblood foal ever sold at an auction in Germany. A full brother of this price record breaker, Arko III, was the most successful show jumper in the world twice under Nick Skelton. But Argentinus' many other internationally successful off-spring document why he remains such a popular sire: Anka, under Marcus Ehning, won the competition in Spangenberg and took home a ribbon from Geneva the end of this year. Nations Cup winner Asti Spumanti under Thomal Mühlbauer had another great season. As the sire, so the off-spring: honest, willing to perform and born with a genius talent for jumping. The list of Argentinus' achievements during the course of his long career is long – Champion Stallion in Oldenburg, Stallion of the Year in Hanover – but the statistics on his internationally successful off-spring show the true dimensions of his greatness. Special Ed, for example, participated in the World Equestrian Games in Aachen under Jill Henslewood. In spite of their enormous talent for jumping, Argentinus' children are always good movers as well and thanks to their 1a characters, they are the perfect partners for all equestrian sports.
Her mom’s dad is Darco. Darco, is a combination of 2 pillars of the Belgian breeding business : Lugano and Codex. The sire Lugano van La Roche has had a splendid breeding record. The Lugano son, La Ina, ridden by Peter Charles, won the European Championship in 1995. Flugel daughters crossed with Lugano proved the match of the era, generating world eminences such as Porche, Pluco, Pico and Egano which won Olympic medals, top Grand Prix and championships. After his Flugel period, Lugano enthusiastically devoted himself to partners from the lineage of Holstein Cottage Son.Codex was a top class sport horse producer himself, and it can be no surprise that this combination produced phenomena such as Darco, or the super fast Isaura vd Helle. Also in his female offspring Lugano has done well, as demonstrated by his daughters producing, for example, Forester, Fidelgo, Goliath and Joli Fleur de Lys, all with good international sport reputations. Amongst Darco’s many successes are: Champion of Belgium as a 5 year old. Winner of the Belgian Championship as a 6 year old. Winner Volvo World Cup in London 1988 and in Hertogenbosch in 1989. 6th in the World Championships in Stockholm in 1990 and 7th place in the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and 2nd in the richest Grand Prix in the world at Calgary. Darco has produced many offspring jumping successfully around the world. He currently has seven representatives in the BCM World Ranking for Showjumping of which King Darco is the leader.Darco has proven to be very consistent in breeding his youngstock, three of which have reached the Top 15 of the finals of the Belgian Classic Young Horse Championships, Nabucco Verdi and Trudo N-Iljarco doing extremely well recently.His many other successful offspring include Indigo van de Hoenrik, 4th in the 4 year old Belgian Championships, Imoza, Incu, Ivory Snatcher, Isidoor Laureats, Hazard, Harco, Hilda, Helenus, Happy Hannover, Happy Boy, to name a few. He has sired the promising stallion Fedor and King Darco, who competed in the Atlanta Olympics with Ludo Philipearts.
With this star studded cast of characters in the pedigree, we expect great things from Atlas.