Rivendell Beijing

D.O.B  23/12/2023

Beijing is a bay filly with elegant long legs, an extremely feminine presence and a very queit and yet confident demeanour.  She is possibly most like her dam Dageraad Blossem in many ways.  The other amazing part of this filly is her sire Diamonit, who I have used several times with great success.

Diamonit was the most coveted horse at the 2009 PSI Auction, and was impressive even as a young horse, completing his licensing tests as premium stallion. In his 30-day test, he achieved high scores of up to 9.75 and, in 2007, he was the stunning Oldenburg Regional Champion. This exceptional mover is now competing successfully in Grand Prix dressage classes.

Sire, Diamond Hit, successful at Grand Prix level, produced offspring that sold for high prices at auctions in 2009 and he consistently sired top-level competition horses. Diamond Hit’s progeny have collectively won nearly EUR 80,000, ten have already won advanced level classes and over 22 of his stallion offspring are approved. Maternal grandsire, Santander H, combines the outstanding genes of heroes Sandro and Contender, and produces remarkably versatile horses with both dressage and jumping abilities.

Diamonit’s foals are absolutely beautiful with a dry and aesthetic conformation, athletic build and impressive movements. The best example is the premium stallion “Diatano” at the licensing in Westphalia in 2009.

Diamonit’s sire is the stallion Diamond Hit.  At the 2012 Oldenburg Stallion Days, the two-time Reserve World Young Horse Champion and successful Grand Prix dressage stallion, Diamond Hit, was honored in an emotional ceremony marking his retirement from sport under rider Emma Hindle of Great Britain. With Emma, Diamond Hit achieved 16 placings at Grand Prix and qualified for the 2008 Olympic Games.

In the same ceremony, Diamond Hit’s remarkable 25 year old dam, El.St. Loretta, was also presented and honored. In addition to Diamond Hit, this Elite mare produced the legendary dressage sire, Sandro Hit (Sandro Song), and the Premium stallion, Royal Hit (Royal Dance). Her damsire, Welt As, was also the sire of Bonfire who, under Anky van Grunsven, was one of the most successful dressage horses in history having won the World Cup five times along with individual Olympic silver (1996) and gold (2000).

Diamond Hit’s sire, Don Schufro, is an exceptional dressage stallion who, under Andreas Helgestrand,  participated in the 2004 Olympic Games after having a great deal of international success at Grand Prix. As a sire, Don Schufro is even more impressive. His 2012 FN Breeding Value Index is 170/96% which places him first on the FN’s Dressage Sire list of the year.

Diamond Hit’s abilities as a sire are also outstanding. He has produced 46 licensed stallions, over 40 States Premium Mares/Candidates, and 37 dressage horses competing at the highest S Level in Germany including Dark Diamond who placed 3rd under Hubertus Schmidt at the Stuttgart CDI5*. Two other Grand Prix horses are Diamantina ridden by Maree Tomkinson and Loxana ridden by Maria Anita Andersen. The Nurnberg Burgpokal finalist, Della Cavalleria, also owes her talent to her sire, Diamond Hit.

Diamond Hit has also produced a tremdous amount of talent for the auctions, the Bundeschampionate, and the World Championships for young dressage horses. Every year, numerous offspring compete in Warendorf. Diamond Hit’s licensed son Donavan was the 2005 Bundeschampion of the four-year old stallions and his daughter Loxana was the sovereign champion of the Oldenburg Elite Mare show in Rastede where ten Diamond Hit daughters were named State Premium Mares.

Diamonit’s damsire Santander is by the stallion Sandro, who was the only son of the cross of Sacramento Song xx and Wahnfried, which proved to be an extremely valuable one.

According to that great expert on Holstein breeding, Jasper Nissen in a fascinating article in Z Magazine (August 2004): “Sacramento Song’s career in Holstein seriously suffered from the fact that he was not studbook owned but privately owned and was active precisely in the period in which the Thoroughbred had fallen into complete disgrace with the studbook. In addition, he was not stationed in the best breeding district. Nevertheless, he soon proved himself a top class sire.

He produced a large number of first class showjumping horses, several event horses, no dressage horses. He often passed on his own type. He was a purebred bay, often with a dark shade, he produced tall horses, somewhat light in the bones, with an excellent character and eager workers with an energetic temperament, often a little hot. Geldings and stallions lasted longer in the sport than his daughters, who often needed ‘instructions for handling’. Many of his daughters however, proved quality broodmares. Unfortunately, his only licensed son, Symphatico (licensed for his results in showjumping) died after one breeding season. Another son who proved himself in the sport was Sandro, stationed in Oldenburg.”

Certainly it is through Sandro that the line is becoming increasingly influential – both in jumping and in dressage.

Sacramento Song stood in Holstein from 1973 until his early death in 1979. He is described in Dr Dietrich Rossow’s Stallion Book of the Holsteiner Warmblood Breed as: “A classically bred, English Thoroughbred, with beautiful, smoothly harmonious topline. Beautiful head, rather low set on neck, impressive shoulder with good coupling to the croup. Well-muscled, strong legs and feet, sufficient gaits. Tremendous jumping ability, very tight with front end and good with knees.”

Dr Rossow was of the opinion that he bred: ‘Very good temperaments, keen, energetic dispositions, often rather hot. Stallions and geldings steadier in competition than mares, who were often ‘witchy’. Top jumper sire!’

After his death, three exceptional sons were licensed on the grounds of their competition results: Sympatico, Sacramento Son and Sandro. And it is through Sandro, that the influence of Sacramento Song lives on…

Bent Neergaard is a respected Danish breeder, he is also the man who ‘discovered’ Sandro.

“I first saw Sandro when he was two and a half years old, he was presented at the Holsteiner stallion selection and was not accepted. So with one of my friends we bought him and took him to Denmark,” he told me. “We presented him at the licensing and he was approved and then did a very good 100 days test. A couple of years later he went over to the famous eventing rider, Nils Haagensen. He did quite well with him, but he was probably better for showjumping, so he was handed over to my partner who took him jumping internationally.”

“In Denmark, he was based at Fumen, but it wasn’t really the right place for him. There were a lot of old Oldenburger heavy horses – we thought it would be the right place for him but it wasn’t. Then he moved to the southern area of Jutland, close to Germany, a Holsteiner area. He covered some Holsteiner mares and with them, he was really good. But still he wasn’t accepted all over Denmark – he only had a few progeny from the first years and it wasn’t easy to get him accepted by the breeding association or the breeders.”

“He was sold to Paul Schockemöhle, and he understood the quality of the horse. There is quite a lot of Thoroughbred in this horse, and they can be a little bit loose in front, but it was a modern horse. I think he was ten years in advance of his time, even in Denmark. Schockemöhle could see exactly the potential of that horse, the modern type with long legs, good riding capability – and he mixed him with the right mares, the mares with the German ‘G’ blood. Now you can see Sandro blood in all the major breeding associations all over the world.”

What caught your eye?

“I had been in the army for many years, and also worked with horses for many years. I liked lighter horses than most of the breeders in those days. I liked his eyes and his beautiful head, I liked this very fine looking horse – and I liked the blood also, I thought he could be a very good performance horse. In those days, the breeders didn’t look enough at performance, and I thought he would bring in some performance.”

“In a stallion the most important thing is performance. But as a breeder you cannot sell horses unless you have good-looking horses. So you have to look for performance, for a good-looking horse, and you have to look for a horse that is very calm and good in the head as well. You cannot say ‘only performance’ or ‘only beautiful’ or ‘only temperament’ – you need all these things.”

When he moved to Paul Schockemöhle’s stud, Sandro also met up with Franke Sloothaak who continued his jumping career for lifetime winnings of DM55,000.

As a sire, Sandro has also been a considerable success, with three of his progeny competing at the 1994 WEG in The Hague – Sandro Song (Ante Smlesa), Safari (Michael Abo) and Paradiso (Rolf-Göran Bengtsson). Sandro is the sire of more than 40 licensed sons, the most successful being Silvio 1 and II, Sandro Song, Sao Paulo, Sandro Boy and Salido Z.

Sandro is unique in that he is the only stallion son of the cross of Sacramento Song and Wahnfried – a cross that has also been very successful in producing dams of stallions. The stallions Lavell I and II, Atlantas Z and Campione, as well as international jumping horses, Cathleen (Meredith Beerbaum – then Michaels) and Zigeunerin (Rodrigo Pessoa) all came from that cross. Sandro’s dam, Dürte is the full sister of one of the most successful Puissance horses ever – Wabbs. Durte is also the dam of Harvey Smith’s Salvador.

What is slightly more surprising is Sandro’s influence on dressage breeding. If we look at the stallions represented in the 2008/9 Eylers’ German Stallion book, we find there were 19 stallion great grandsons promoted as dressage sires – all sons of World Young Horse Dressage Champion, Sandro Hit. There are also two stallion grand-sons promoted in Eylers’ book.

Of Sandro’s dressage descendents, Isabell Werth’s Satchmo by the Sandro son, Sao Paulo, is the most successful.

Sandro – re-christened Sandro Z – stood the last years of his life at the Zangersheide stud, where he died in August 2005.

The 2007 World Breeding Championship for Sport Horses saw firsts for the Hanoverian studbook in both jumping and dressage, with Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum’s Shutterfly (Silvio / Forrest xx) the number one in the jumping rankings, and Isabell Werth’s Satchmo (Sao Paulo / Legat) number one in the dressage. What a triumph for Sandro, the grand-sire of both the champions!

In the survey of the world’s top 75 jumping sires that appears in the French publication, Monneron 2007-2008, Sandro is 37th with 8 CSI winners including World Cup Champion, Sandro Boy. His best stallion son, Silvio I is 56th with 6 CSI winners, including World Cup Final winner, Shutterfly.

Blossom is sired by the talented KWPN Stallion Sandreo, who combines in his pedigree the best of European Dressage blood. Sire Sandro Hit (Sandro Song) gained world fame when, under Dr. Ulf Moller, he won the title for six-year-olds at the World Championships for young dressage horses in Verden. The impressive Sandro Hit daughter Poetin, followed, four years later, in her famous father’s footsteps and won that much-desired World Title.

As well as this, with a short period of time, Sandro Hit established a stallion line with more than 20 licensed sons. On his dam’s side Sandreo carries the valuable dressage blood of FlemmingH (Lacapo). This Holstein stallion produced a series of successful dressage horses of which Lingh (Edward Gal) and Krack C (Anky van Grunsven) are the most well known.

Sandreo’s dam line goes back, via the stallions Ahorn, Zevenster and Oracle, to a renowned Gelders family (NL mares line 003). This famous ‘prestatie’ stock also produced the International and National Dressage hoses Benno (Pericles xx) and Kasjmir (Clavecimbel) as well as the stallions Havidoff (Clavecimbel), Caritas (Vanitas), Bredero (Notaris) and Fighting Alpha (Fruhling).

Sandreo more than confirmed the value of his pedigree. As a 4-year-old he won the PAVO-Cup in convincing manner. His guest rider Rien van der Schaft awarded the stallion even as many as 95 points. Then Sandreo continued his success by winning the Stallion Competition. Also Sandreo’s offspring are more than noteworthy at selections and foal auctions. The Stallion received a fine offspring report, which mentions ‘a uniform group of high-legged, riding-type foals with great charisma, who display a lot of self carriage and suppleness in action’.

Blossem’s dam Linda was an imported mare by the stallion Landwind.