A FEW NOTES ABOUT BREEDING IN GENERAL AND BREEDING KNABSTRUPPERS IN PARTICULAR
Copyright Gwendolyn Gregorio

Breeding means being responsible that a successful mating produces a foal which either finds a new owner or is good enough to be used for breeding itself. This means that, first of all, one must know precisely what one intends to breed; and secondly, one must select the stallion carefully without sweeping the mare's faults under the carpet. One must be able to recognize her faults and then select the stallion who will eliminate just these faults or at least improves on them.

To breed just for color is doomed to failure right from the start if one disregards quality. What becomes of the poor foal if it does not have the desired color and has poor quality? Either it brings in very little money, if one is fortunate enough to find a buyer, or it ends up at the butcher's sooner or later. I was told by a Paint breeder that she hides her solid colored foals or lets them starve to death. I also heard of Knabstrupper breeders who personally take their solid colored horses to the slaughterhouse. Unfortunately many "color breeders" close their eyes to these facts, but it is vital that this issue be addressed. Breeding means attempting to bring a good "product" on the market which, even without being multi-colored, causes people to react with "Ah"s and "Oh"s. The color breeder therefore has a dual responsibility when he breeds his mare: he must pay attention to two criteria, quality and color.

Now let's look specifically at the breeding of Knabstruppers. First I would like to do away with the commonly held misconception that a Knabstrupper has to be a baroque horse. Decades ago in Denmark, where the Knabstrupper originally comes from, attempts were made to produce a more noble horse and a horse that was able to perform better by crossing in Arabs and Thoroughbreds. Whoever it was who invented the state-
ment that the Knabstrupper must be exclusively baroque, has never really examined the history of this breed and was probably representing only his or her own interests.

The Knabstrupper received its name because its cradle was the Knabstrup farm in Denmark, and it was created from a chestnut mare with some white hair in her coat, which a Spanish officer left in Denmark after his war imprisonment. This chestnut mare was of roan or frost color which also often occurs in the Appaloosa breed. This mare now was bred to Frederiksborg stallions.

At his Frederiksborg Castle, King Frederik II of Denmark established a stud farm that later became one of the most famous stud farms in the world. Goal and purpose of the royal stud was to produce the most beautiful and most noble horses, to compete with the very best of all the other horse breeds. The Frederiksborger horse resulted from Spanish and Neapolitan blood and breeding was strongly directed toward color. This made the breed widely known since everyone wanted to have a horse of unusual color in front of his carriage or under his saddle. There were stud farm divisions for blue grays, horses with dark heads, cremellos, slate grays, dark palominos, blacks, bays, and chestnuts. Today there are only chestnuts. Emphasis was placed on an elegant exterior, lively but well behaved temperament and powerful, ground-covering and high action. The Frederiksborger had a lasting influence on the Lipizzan breed and on the Orlov Trotter. The Pluto and Deflorata lines of the Lipizzans are of Danish origin. Old engravings and paintings often show leopard markings among the Lipizzans. The Frederiksborger also had much Arabian and Thoroughbred blood crossed in in order to refine it. It was never intended for this breed to be baroque. The Knabstrupper is recognized as a separate breed, but actually it is a color sub-division of the Frederiksborger breed. It has
only been in existence since the middle of the last century. As the Frederiksborger was refined, this also had an impact on the Knabstrupper breed. In addition, the Knabstrupper breeders used more Arabians and Thoroughbreds as refiners. This produced better movement and more endurance. The Knabstrupper was never a breed of baroque horses but, for reasons of the preference for horses of color, a pure color breed. That was the reason why in Denmark outside blood was crossed in again and again in order to prevent inbreeding as the number of available horses was much too small and the basic object was to preserve the Knabstrupper as a cultural treasure.

This cultural treasure is not of the baroque type, instead the Knabstrupper is inescapably connected with leopard markings. How else could it be that a Knabstrupper of the "baroque type" but without leopard markings, that is of only one color, is not recognized as a Knabstrupper at all, but is one only on paper, while a leopard marked horse, no matter what type, is immediately called a Knabstrupper, regardless of whether it is one or not. To preserve the Knabstrupper as a cultural treasure it is therefore not necessary to have the "baroque" type, but the correct paintbrush which, if at all possible should create a horse with full leopard markings, as unfortunately the other variations of this color breed are not very popular. Of course this is not right, because when such a non-full-leopard marked horse is bred again he or she may very well produce the coveted leopard pattern again. Unfortunately, the Knabstrupper breed has only a small and closely related population available and one can come only to the conclusion that, in order to avoid inbreeding and to improve the riding horse quality, it is absolutely necessary to cross in outside blood. Aside from this, it has always been the custom in the Knabstrupper breed to cross in fresh blood and the results were then again Knabstruppers, since the emphasis was quality, color and the lovable character, with the mixed genes serving the purpose of attaining this goal.

It has been proven that in its home country Denmark the Knabstrupper was always bred to meet the requirements of the market, that is, the intent was first to breed a first class carriage horse, then a circus horse, and then the riding and sport horse, and all of course with the leopard markings. To achieve this goal of a modern Riding and Sport Horse for today's requirements, Denmark permits the crossing in of warmblood and refiner breeds (e.g., Oldenburger, Trakehner, Thoroughbred and Arabian) for the larger sport horse type, and the Welsh, New Forest, Connemara, Dartmoor, riding pony and Shetland pony breeds for the smaller (Pony) type. When stallions are accepted for approval, no demands are made whatsoever as to their percentage of Knabstrupper blood. The rules regarding registration of stallions and mares which may produce an approvable stallion have been adapted to EU rules. That means, approvable stallion candidates foaled in 1996 or later must have a dam, granddam and great-granddam registered in the stud book (a full pedigree of three generations). For stallion candidates foaled in 1997 or later, the dam, granddam, great-granddam and great-great-granddam must be registered (full pedigree of four generations).

I want to point out once more that in the Knabstrupper breed the word "baroque" means only that the Knabstrupper is a breed of horse in the sense of "traditional." The true purpose of this breed was color, why else would otherwise the poor solid-colored Knabstruppers be swept under the carpet? It should really be possible someday to approve a solid-colored Knabstrupper since he is just as able to pass on color as the multi-colored horse. It would also serve as proof that quality and not only color is important. It is incidentally not a condition that a Knabstrupper has to have the actual leopard pattern, as many people believe.

This brings us to the subject of color. There are 12 (twelve) variations of the color, and all of them may occur in the Knabstrupper as well as in the Appaloosa and other spotted breeds:

1. frost
2. white croup without spots
3. white blanket without spots
4. roan without spots
5. snowflake
6. mottled
7. white croup with spots
8. white blanket with spots
9. leopard
10. speckled
11. roan with spots
12. born white (few spot)

Added to this list should be the solid-colored horse. Solid colored Knabstruppers can be subdivided into
two further groups, those without any of the characteristics that usually go with the color, and those with. Characteristics are striped hooves, mottled skin, white sclera. Those solid horses with some or all of these characteristics carry the spotted gene and can therefor themselves produce the coat pattern they were born without. Because of its good character, its rideability and its performance capability today's Knabstrupper sport horse is suitable to be used in all disciplines of equestrian sports, but also for leisure purposes.

Regardless of what we are breeding, leisure horse, pony or sport horse, quality must be of primary importance and ponies or riding horses, as they are used for various purposes, in leisure activities, in shows or in competition, have nothing to do with type but only and solely with what the owner of the respective horse makes of it, for what purpose he uses the horse. Color should never be no more than the dab of whipped cream on the Irish Coffee.

Gwendolyn Gregorio
Master of Equestrian Business (Breeding and Husbandry)

translated by Petra Rüttiger