1. Many congratulations - 101 years strong! The Hanoverian horse has changed from the original cavalry and carriage horses of a century ago to medal-winners and a lengthy list of household names, such as Deister, Gladstone, Ratina Z, The Natural, Dollar Girl, For Pleasure, Shutterfly, Gigolo FRH, Salinero, Showtime FRH, Desparados FRH and fischerChipmunk FRH to name just some.

What do you think has been the highlight of the Hannoveraner Verband in recent years?

In the end, if you don’t have success, no-one will recognise that you’re breeding horses. Then you cannot sell your horses and your breeders are not lucky. So I think the highlight is to keep the whole thing in balance: successful horses, successful breeders.

2. How did breeders change the Hanoverian phenotype?

The basis was already there for the more elegant, refined horse. We did that refining just with thoroughbred, Trakehner and a small number of Arabians.

The crossover from the carriage horse to the driving horse was not such a big step for the Hannoverian studbook as it was for others, as we always had a lighter horse. The Hanoverian was not as heavy as the old Holsteiner or Oldenburger horse.

Even in this area, we always had a more modern horse, a little more thoroughbred influence and so that was not such a big step.

So you could say the movement from the carriage horse to the sport horse, that was our big success too. In 1928 at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam, we had a Hanoverian gold medal winner [dressage] and if you look at his picture, he’s not that un-modern, not that unlike our horses today.

3. Has the breeder profile changed too?

Thirty years ago, our breeders were more farmers. Now, that has changed more from a farmer to a businessman. A farmer is an animal breeder, he knows ‘that not every animal I breed is perfect’, he knows there will be good years, bad years with livestock and harvests, and he can deal with it.

Some of our modern horse breeders cannot deal with this, that is a little more difficult.

4. Baloutinue, Count Me In, Franziskus FRH, fischerChipmunk FRH - would you regard these as the most successful current ‘Hannoverian ambassadors’ in show jumping, dressage and eventing?

At the moment, yes. I was in Dublin Horse Show with my family last year when Count Me In won the Nations Cup. And that was really a great experience to see Conor Swail bringing home the Nations Cup in Dublin on a Hanoverian! That was a great feeling!

5. Does the Hanoverian Verband own stallions?

The Verband does not own stallions. We have of course a big co-operation with the state stud at Celle but we have no stallions. The only Verband that now owns stallions is Holstein at Elmshorn.

6. How many colts/stallions are put forward each year for approval?

Last year, we had 250 dressage stallions and just over 100 jumping stallions. That number is really going down in the past 20 years. When I started here, we selected from over 800 stallions/young colts for licensing. Now its 350 colts, so less than half.

7. Is that because breeders prefer established, commercial stallions?

That’s not so much the reason. What changed was the pre-selection is done better by the breeder.

Twenty years ago, you presented young stallions that you knew they would not be selected but the owner thought, ‘Maybe I can sell at the pre-selection because someone who is interested in my horse is coming’ and that has changed a little bit. It’s not so profitable for the normal horse [to undergo licensing] so you leave him in the field.

And, of course, some big players buy a number of foals, they show us maybe just the best three. Their fourth, fifth and sixth best would have been shown by another owner, they may think they have a great horse but the big stud will say, ‘We’ll take just three’ and so that’s why the numbers are going down.

8. How much does it cost to register a foal with the Hannoveraner Verband? And what is the process, e.g. does a vet carry out the DNA sample/markings?

To get a passport, to make the DNA and registration, all together €152. New membership is €80 and an annual fee of €30 for each mare.

No vet! Normally, our people and the State Stud employees do that for us. They go out to the farmer, to the breeders. That’s traditionally done because until 2018, we branded the foals.

That is not allowed anymore and we wanted to keep that tradition that we do the registration because we want to keep that contact with the breeder, that’s really important for us.

We get feedback from the State Stud, from our people, we wouldn’t get that feedback from the vet. If there is something wrong with that breeder, we have to look at him. The vet wouldn’t call us and tell us, he would just do his job. So it’s really important for us to keep that contact with the breeder.

9. In Ireland, there is widespread opposition to a breeder’s prefix later being removed from a horse’s name, e.g. if a subsequent owner pays the FEI change of name fee. Do Hanoverian Verband members give their horses prefixes?

No prefixes. Some breeders will use a different letter of the alphabet each year or the first letter of the parents’ name if they want, of course, but we have no prefixes. Historically, a foal normally has no name, our horses do not get names before they are used for breeding.

When we do the registration, you can say, ‘I want to have a name for my horse’ but normally we do not, the normal Hanoverian breeder does not do it.

The big discussion we have at the moment, even with the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH), is who is the rightful breeder? That’s the hard discussion we’re having at the moment because, from our point of view, the rightful breeder is the one who did the mating. The one who had the idea to cover that mare with that stallion.

If the breeder sells the in-foal mare in Germany, it’s no problem. We have a document going with the mare, it’s called ‘decksheine’ that says this covering is made by this person. [For us] the breeder is the one who had the idea, not the owner of the mare at the time of foaling.

10. Do breeders and the Verband receive any government support or funding?

No. None. We [Verband] are totally self-funding, from registration and selling horses from the Verden auctions, that’s part of the Verband as well.

11. The coveted Horse and Mare of the Year awards are amongst the Hanoverian Verband breeders awards and there’s the FRH suffix, given to the best to encourage keeping such horses for German teams?

Yes, for example, Havanna (Heraldik) the mother of fischerChipmunk FRH (Contendro I), she was the Hanoverian Mare of the Year two years ago. So that was a big occasion, we do that prize giving always at the licensing when the arena is full.

And last year, Franziskus got FRH, that was a big honour as well for the breeder at the gala show the day before the Elite Auction in October.

There was a ceremony for that with the breeder and Franziskus was here. And Franziskus hates shows! He’s a competitor at his best but he can decide ‘It’s a show or it’s a competition.’ He’s such a great horse but when it’s a competition! There was one corner he didn’t like and he would not go there, Ingrid [Klimke] was just smiling, ‘Okay, we do not go there today!’, she knows the horse so well.

12. Ingrid Klimke has competed many world-class Hanoverians such as Madeleine Winter Schulz’s double gold Olympic horse FRH Butts Abraxxas, by the famous thoroughbred Heraldik. Thoroughbred sires ... where do they fit into current Hanoverian breeding?

We have a really small number.

I think for the breeder it’s more interesting to find a really good thoroughbred mare and use a jumping stallion to produce eventing horses … that could be, for the moment, the idea with the most chance of success.

At last year’s eventing day here, we had a really big discussion about the thoroughbred needed, breeding eventing horses. And that was really, really interesting because the riders said for the five-star competitions, we need thoroughbred.

Not for the small competitions but when we go in the higher classes, we need thoroughbred.

But our horses are now refined to the top end, we need to refine the mind and make them quicker in their head, to shorten the distance between the rider’s leg and the horse’s head, the reflexes.

For that we need thoroughbred but we need another kind of thoroughbred than we needed in the past.

We need thoroughbreds with good conformation. Normally a thoroughbred has a good brain - that’s not the problem! - but we need thoroughbreds with good conformation and good, stable limbs. And that is difficult to find.

That was one of the reasons I went to Dublin Horse Show because I wanted to see the thoroughbred stallions there and that was really interesting. We made our summer holiday in Ireland and combined four days in Dublin. When you’re in Dublin with a horse family when the Horse Show is on, then you have to go there.

I told our kids about the problem and at first, we had no catalogue, we didn’t know the identity. So then my kids selected: ‘You don’t need that one, you don’t need that one,” and then afterwards when we looked at the catalogue, they were thoroughbreds from Germany!

So the ones they selected were Irish, they were that little big heavier and that was really interesting to see. Jack The Robin is in Belgium. I will go to [Jack The Robin’s current owner] Wim Schoukens in March with some other breeding managers, to make a decision for that stallion.

13. Jack The Robin stood in Wexford with the Lambert family, maybe Ireland’s loss will be the continent’s gain?

He is beautiful. He moves like a warmblood, he’s jumping like a warmblood and that’s the kind of thoroughbred that we need.

14. A Pan-European studbook … bloodlines and sometimes studbooks are constantly merging. Do you think there will ever be just one European studbook or is diversity better? We need competition so I don’t think so!

15. Do you like your job?

Yes, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t like it! I can do things to look after horses, go to shows to get an idea of the breeding scene and discuss and develop horse breeding. That’s also big fun.

By the numbers

Up to 2.9 million – riders in Germany.

€2,010,000 – The highest price at the Verden post-licensing auction paid for a dressage stallion by Vivaldi.

Two million - website visitors from 100 countries during the annual Elite autumn auction and stallion licensing each October.

100,000 - visitors per annum from around the world to Hannoveraner Verband events.

80,000 - riders in Germany have a competition licence.

14,540 - Hanoverian mare registration numbers (2022).

11,230 - Total number of Hanoverian Verband members (2022).

8,635 - mares covered (2022).

7,332 - Hanoverian Verband active members (2022).

7,055 - registered foals (2022).

Timeline

1735 - the State Stud at Celle was established.

1841 - 73 out of 207 stallions at Celle were thoroughbreds, the highest number for the breed in the history of the state stud.

1846 - The first mare show took place in Otterndorf.

1867 - “The upbringing of a strong, big horse, a powerful pulling horse and besides that a useful military horse” - the first breeding goal for the breed.

1872 - the date of the oldest dam line - that of Note’s family.

1888 - The ‘Hannoveraner Studbook for Noble Warmbloods’ is founded with 1,415 registered mares.

1922 - The Association of Hannoveraner Warmblood Breeders - the forerunner of the Hanoverian Verband - is founded with 5,400 members and 60 horse breeding clubs.

1936 - All stallions must undergo licensing.

1941 - Central licensing of stallions began at one base: Verden.

1949 - Hans Joachim Köhler founds Verden auctions.

1953 - The Hannoveraner brand becomes a registered trademark.

1971 - Construction begins on the Niedersachsenhalle complex at the current Hannoverian Verband headquarters on Lindhooper Straße.

1972 - Verden auctions move to the Niedersachsenhalle.

1973 - The State Stud at Celle builds an artificial insemination station.

1975 - A stallion index is introduced based on their performance test.

1978 - The American Hanoverian Society is founded with its headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky.

1979 - The Verband’s first mare show takes place in Verden where the coveted ‘Dieta-Statue’, awarded for the best mare family, is presented for the first time.

1984 - Hans Joachim Köhler retires at the Spring Gala auction.

1985 - Office buildings are constructed beside Niedersachsenhalle and the Association’s headquarters move here from Hannover. In the same year, the FRH - a supporter’s club for world-calibre Hanoverian horses - was founded and the FRH suffix is now synonymous with multiple champions.

1987 - The Hannoveraner Young Breeders programme is created.

1988 - Germany’s dressage and show jumping championships, also a selection trial for the Seoul Olympics, are hosted at Verden.

1992 - The British Hanoverian Horse Society is founded.

2000 - Three Hannoverian horses are on the German gold medal show jumping team at Sydney: For Pleasure, Esprit FRH and Goldfever.

2005 - The Hannoveraner Verband and Association of Hessian Horse Breeders merge.

2007 - Shutterfly’s dam - Famm - is crowned the first Hannoveraner Mare of the Year. In the same year, the Association of Hannoveraner Warmblood Breeders formally changes its name to the Hannoveraner Verband.

2011 - The statue of the famous Hanoverian mare Dieta, by Deister’s sire Diskant, is unveiled at the Verband office building.

2014 - Another merger. This time its between the Hannoveraner Verband and Rheinische Pferdestammbuch.

2016 - Showtime FRH and Desperados FRH are on Germany’s gold medal dressage team at the Rio Olympics.

2018 - Hanoverian foals are no longer branded.

2020 - Baloutinue is on Team USA’s silver medal trio at the Tokyo Olympics

2021 - Brexit ends the Verband’s activities in Great Britain.

2022 - Centenary celebrations for the Hannoveraner Verband.