In this issue:
EDITORIAL
Editor's Note
COMPETITION NEWS
News & Results
EVENTS
Sweden Equestrian Tour 2009
FROM OUR MEMBERS
Article by Georgia Langsam
The Joys of Motherhood by Jo McCracken
SWANA Member seeks FEI North American Young Rider Horse
Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event CCI**** 2009 by Bo Crabo
TRANSFERS REPORT

Editorial
Editor's Note
I know that it has been awhile but being in the midst of the financial crisis I have been really busy in my "real" job. Talking about the financial crisis, how are you fellow breeders finding the breeding business in this environment? I spoke to a large scale breeding organization in Maryland the other day and I was told that their breeding coverage was down 25% this year. Here are my two cents, despite the downturn, breeding now is probably a good idea since demand is likely to pick up will once the economy turns around.

On a good note, I have received results and two stories around breeding and performance accomplishments earned by our dear Swedish horses. I apologize for the late submission and therefore dated information, however good news is worth waiting for.

Competition News
News & Results
HSBC FEI World Cup Eventing now moves to Europe, as a new and stellar cast of riders prepare for the third qualifier, at Marbach in Germany this weekend (8-10 May), with riders traveling from as far afield as Italy to capitalize on their first chance of qualifying for the HSBC FEI World Cup Eventing Final at Strzegom (POL) in August.

Notably, it will be the first international outing this season for the reigning Olympic Champions, Hinrich Romeike (GER) and his wonderful 16-year-old grey horse, Marius Voigt-Logistik, who have represented Germany in every Championship since 2003, always going clear across country.

Linda Algotsson (SWE) will be bringing her equally amazing horse, Stand By Me. Now 19, the home-bred Swedish Warmblood won the very first FEI World Cup Eventing Final, in 2003, as well as individual silver medals at both the 1999 and 2003 European Championships.

The winner of the Swedish Warmblood high point award at the Del Mar National horse show April 23-26, 2009 was Charman, registration # 04-95-3260, sire Chapman 757, dam Emilia 20260, damsire Eminent 585, owner Nancy McCormick Barney, rider To, Valter, Grand Prix 57.660%

Eveready II – 15.3-hand 12-year-old Dark Bay Swedish Warmblood gelding, owned by Crabo. Recent Highlights: Fourth place at Rebecca Farm CIC3* in 2008; won Copper Meadows at Advanced in 2008; completed Fair Hill CCI3* in 2008, 10th at Galway Downs CIC3* in 2009

Congratulations to Georgia Langsam, who received 4 Top CDS Breeder Awards:
Gauguin’s Impression was named the 2008 CDS Stallion/Gelding Sporthorse Res. Champion. He is a 2007 yearling colt by my SWB stallion, Gauguin du Cheval 9054 out of a Canadian bred TB mare named Flaming Pheonix.
Gauguin’s Brush won a yearling colt Sporthorse award, he is out of Briggs (Bellini) a SWB mare that won a CDS Mature Mare Sporthorse award in 2004 and by Gauguin du Cheval 9054.
Weltfrieden TG, 2007, out of Orinda (Wanroij x Poppy) by Weltmeyer also won a yearling colt Sporthorse award.
Sandro’s Vannina, 2006, was awarded a 2 year old filly Sporthorse award out of Orinda by Sandro Hit.

Events
Sweden Equestrian Tour 2009
This year, SWANA and ASVH will be hosting another Equestrian Tour of Sweden, similar to our highly successful tour in 2007.

Details for this tour are still being worked out, but to get a better idea of what it will include, see the itinerary of the 2007 tour (PDF format) and read this write-up by Anette Sånesson.

Please contact the office if you are interested in attending. Spaces will be limited.

From our Members
Article by Georgia Langsam
The CDS annual awards banquet was held at the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel on Saturday, January 31, 2009, in conjunction with the CDS Annual Meeting.

Leading the pack in the award category was Gauguin’s Impression. He is a 2007 yearling colt by my SWB stallion, Gauguin du Cheval 9054 out of a Canadian bred TB mare named Flaming Pheonix. Impy, as he is known, was named the 2008 CDS Stallion/Gelding Sporthorse Res. Champion. Impy was a Class One SWB foal and will have a career in sport – he has fabulous gaits, perfect conformation (and you can’t beat the 4 white stockings and big blaze), plus he is a really good jumper. I am keeping him a stallion and intend to present him for stallion approval in 2010.

Next, another of my 2007 yearling colts, Gauguin’s Brush, out of Briggs (Bellini) a SWB mare that won a CDS Mature Mare Sporthorse award in 2004 (as well as coming in 6th place in the 2004 USDF HOY standings for Mature Mares), by my stallion, Gauguin du Cheval 9054 won a yearling colt Sporthorse award. He was also a Class One SWB foal and is grey like his sire. Snipper, as he is known, is bold as brass, is afraid of nothing and has a fabulous canter with easy changes. I am also keeping him a stallion and intend to present him for stallion approval in 2010.

Finishing up my 2007 yearling colt’s awards, Weltfrieden TG, out of Orinda (Wanroij x Poppy – half sister to my stallion and the first horse I bred) by Weltmeyer won a yearling colt Sporthorse award. Snicklefritz, as he is known, is a tall, leggy, impressive chestnut with fabulous gaits, including a natural piaffe and passage who looks exactly like his famous sire, only with longer legs! He was also a Class One SWB foal. Snicklefritz is very sweet, tall (pushing 16 hands at 18 months of age – think Isabel Werth’s Hannes at 17.3 hands) and is destined to be a dressage star. He has such strength in his gaits that he takes my breath away. I am also keeping him a stallion and intend to present him for stallion approval in 2010. My intention is to keep him as a cross-out stallion to breed to my stallion’s fillies.

And lest you think I only raise stallions, my 2006 filly, Sandro’s Vannina, was awarded a 2 year old filly Sporthorse award. Nini as she is known at the barn, was a Class One SWB filly and is out of Orinda by Sandro Hit. Nini is a very feminine, tall girl and stands 16.2 hands at 30 months. She is a lovely blood bay and closely resembles her famous sire. Nini is a very sweet, sensitive girl who loves attention and has beautiful, correct gaits. She is a fabulous jumper, very athletic and I will keep her as a future broodmare, but also intend to show her in dressage or, if she wants, as a jumper. Her sire, Sandro Hit was bred to be a jumper by his breeder, Paul Schockemohle, but after he won the FEI 6 y.o. Dressage World Championships, became a prolific sire of athletic dressage horses, giving credence to the breeding principal followed by some that to breed a good dressage horse you must add some jumper blood.

I am expecting 3 foals in 2009 – all the same breeding crosses as the three 2007 colts. My fingers are crossed that I’ll get some fillies!

What made me most proud was the fact that all of them were so well behaved, happy and healthy. Roxie (Coming Attraction), even though a bit overwhelmed, being in an European style indoor with people placed above her took it like a champ! She is thriving and the horse of my dreams, has had one foal already and is currently showing at first level. This was the second show for Bella and she scored in the 70’s at training level. I kept Bella’s first foal, Gevalia (Juan Valdez de Carolina/Bella/Briar), who will hopefully begin our sixth generation in a couple of years. I am certain that Rouen also will be doing well. This experience really made my year! The great scores were just the icing on the cake!

I’m going to another show in May, where I’ll get to watch another baby, Gabriella (Vermouth/Labriana/Cicero), a beautiful 3 year old filly, in her first outing with mom, Kim Long. I hope this dream never ends!

For more information, see her resume (PDF format).

It seemed likely that Barbara, my daughter-in-law, was going to be qualified to ride the Rolex Kentucky 4-star event 2009. At first she humbly acknowledged that "Eveready", the home bred 10- year-old Swedish Warmblood embryo transplant out of her dear and now 20 years old TB mare with the show name "Batteries Not Included", would likely fare well of spending another season at the 3-star level before trying Rolex Kentucky. However, she concluded - heck if "Ready" is qualified, we will go - nobody knows what may happen in a year. So we made hotel reservations in January but prepared to cancel if anything would happen between then and April 22. Well, FEI rules changed and Barb needed to ride a clean cross country at the Galway CIC*** event March 27-29 in addition to what had been enough to qualify. There Barb and "Ready" had a run out at a corner and we were devastated. FEI rules say that she could have had one run out at a CCI*** but not at a CIC*** event. A phone call from the organizers on Tuesday after Galway affirmed that they had determined at a Monday FEI meeting that she was in.

My wife Margareta and I drove to Lexington with the dachshunds and there we became the airport shuttle, on Wednesday evening picking up our son Martin, 5 year old granddaughter Jordan and brought them to Barb's trailer on the camp grounds, and Barb's mother Judith. Martin's non-horsy brother Lars with wife Carolyn flew in from Seattle on Thursday evening. We stayed at a hotel within a few miles of the Horse Park and could all conveniently fit in our little Volvo for the short commute to the beautiful show grounds. Barbara's support group at Rolex included several of her students and borders, one of which served as her groom along with Martin, as well as a contingent from Alice Sarno's event barn in Cave Creek, Arizona. Their excuse for coming was "Barb at Rolex is like your football buddy from Junior High has gone to the Super Bowl". The group was appreciatively loud in its support both after the dressage and during cross country. Barbara treated her family members and a few others to "Competitor Guest" passes which gave us general entry every day and access to the competitors' bleacher having access also to the warm-up. We thought that it might be crowded during show jumping on the last day so we invested in Grandstand tickets (@ $35) but it proved to be unnecessary. It was much fun to see the other top riders from 9 countries around the world and their grooms and family members interacting and we felt very special.

Barbara's dressage time was in the afternoon on Friday (second day). We in Barb's gang all sat down together to proudly watch her enter the ring on a shining, fit, and beautifully turned out horse. The test lasted six long and tense minutes. Anything can happen in the ring. The rider before Barb was a French officer riding in uniform. We had watched his extremely elegant Belgian Warmblood being worked on the arena by the barns for almost two hours the previous day. We felt that "Ready" would be at an disadvantage starting immediately behind this marvel of elegance, having not exactly a dressage pedigree (by Irco Mena 763, leading producer of jumpers in the Swedish breed, out of Bat, a relatively small TB mare). But he surprised us. The dressage score was the best "Ready" ever got at the FEI level and in the ball park of what we had hoped for: 57.8 penalty points. (The score means that the average of the three judges was 61.44% for you dressage people). This placed him in 33rd place of the 50 participants completing the dressage test of the 56 starters listed before dressage. (The start list showed that 68 had intended to start but much fewer showed up, and two horses were withdrawn at the first inspection.)

The judges agreed closely on "Ready's" performance but differed as much as 10.67% between the high and the low judge for the French officer, placing him in a tie for 17th. A similar difference of more than 6% was seen for only two other horses, one of them being the fantastic 18 year old Irish Sport Horse "Ringwood Cockatoo" which with German Bettina Hoy received 28.8 penalty points despite one low score by judge Marilyn Payne from the USA. (The New Zealand judge was low in the other two cases.) Ringwood Cockatoo's score was said to be the highest ever given at Rolex Kentucky and maybe in the 4-star circuit of 5 shows worldwide and very likely put her rider anticipating to win the $80,000 in addition to the honor but time penalties on the cross country phase shattered that dream.

There were two Swedish Warmbloods competing, the other one being the Canadian Olympic mount "Colombo", Swedish bred by Eighty Eight Keys out of Colette, which with his rider Selena O'Hanlon, Ontario, finished their second Rolex Kentucky in 18th place.

Margareta and I started to walk the cross country course somewhere in the middle on the day before Barb's dressage. Margareta didn't particularly like the huge obstacles on this "champion course". She definitely took aversion against fence 23, the "Keeper's brush". It is described as 4'7"high and with a spread of 9'. It looked so intimidating because of most of the spread was in a deep grave in front of it. Barbara expressed more concerns over the "Sunken road" which was being rebuilt as we watched. Margareta decided that she was not going to see more of the course before Barb's ride. Afterwards she should be in a much better position to see it without worrying over what could happen over each of the fences that had scared her. So we walked the 6,270 meters (3.9 miles) long course without Margareta several times with Barb's expert opinion how to ride as well as without. Barb walked the course once with Amy Tryon from the Seattle area for additional experienced advice. The speed was to be 570 meters per minute (21.26 miles per hour) if you didn't want to get time penalties. There were 30 numbered fences with together 40 jump efforts.

Barbara's camp site was ideally placed within 100 yards of the general entrance. We obtained an additional camp ground parking sticker for the Volvo and could not be parked better. On Saturday, the cross country day, there was a severe traffic jam going in to the show ground. The two-way road was made to be one way. A Kentucky state patrolman ordered us in to the general parking because we were in the right lane, not honoring our camp site parking sticker and instead rudely threatening to throw us in jail if we were to change lanes and go to the camp site. We followed his order and walked back to retrieve the car at lunch break.

By then, Canadian Mike Winter's Olympic horse "King Pin" was dead at the Trahkener (fence #10) from internal bleeding. There were several huge TV screens on top of generators here and there on the long course and we stood near one close to the Sunken road fence. There was a long delay and all sorts of rumors came out regarding the Canadian horse that died. I suddenly saw another horse without rider and that was another Canadian rider's horse. I realized that stood next to his parents who in panic ran away to see what had happened. Luckily nothing serious but Karl Slezak was eliminated according to the rules. It was a reality check.

Barb was the 3rd equipage to start after the lunch break, immediately following the French officer. He managed to fall off his horse in the second water and was eliminated. As a result we saw a considerable part of Barb's ride on the screen. She was fast, "Ready" jumped beautifully - and then came the Sunken Road. As she had feared - it did not go as planned. "Ready" stumbled on the up bank and went down on his knees with the nose touching the ground. The announcer had Barbara already out of the saddle and eliminated. But see - "Ready" stood up and Barbara slid back in the saddle, circled and jumped the 4th effort of the fence, the bench, beautifully. The first refusal was a fact but it didn't need to have been.

Lucinda Fredricks who on "Headly Britannia" won the Rolex for Australia (her 3rd 4-star win), had her ride planned in advance at this fence in case the horse was out of balance after the up-jump-up. Immediately after jumping up from the road, she made a hair pin move back and managed to jump the bench without crossing her track. It could have been possible to do for Barb but only if she had anticipated that something like that could happen. You see, I'm now playing Monday morning quarter back and describing a tremendously difficult split second decision! Well Barb then negotiated the Cordwood and the Head of the Lake complex fantastically, went over The Log Cabins, the Sheep Shelter, and the Hollow in fine style. Then came the Double Diamonds which riding the straight line appeared as two big corners. Margareta had dreaded watching this. All of us had seen the Sunken Road live, watched the head of the lake on the screen, seen Barb ride by over the Log Cabins at high speed. Now Lars, Carolyn and I ran towards the Double Diamonds, missed watching the screen - and as a result didn't understand what happened. A tired "Ready" jumped the first corner at the left but had a run-out on the second two strides later. Since Ready usually has no problems with corners, Barb tried the left side corner instead of doing the option - with another run out as result. The end. But Barb was allowed to take off and had no problems with the giant Keeper's Brush and the Tobacco Stripping Bench after which they took her off the course before the Normandy Bank.

So, we felt that Barb and Ready could have made it. We all went to a Japanese restaurant for sushi that evening to celebrate Martin's 46th birthday. Barb was a little disappointed and would so much have liked to ride the stadium on Sunday. We encouraged her because her ride over 80% of the fences was great and nothing to be embarrassed over. Next year both Barb and "Ready" will have so much more experience, not only from watching the competitors but from your own options on the course. We look forward to repeat this tremendous experience of attending the Rolex Kentucky among 80,000 other spectators. Lars and Carolyn expressed their admiration for the world's top riders and appreciated that there was so much walking. Wish us luck for Rolex 2010! We will try to be there!

Transfers Report
The transfers of ownership recorded between January 1, 2009 and May 22, 2009 can be viewed here.

We welcome your news, error reports and feedback! The SWANA Office can be contacted at office@swanaoffice.org. The editor of this newsletter can be e-mailed at editor@swanaoffice.org.