Super-stallion’s semen is talk of the day in Finnish equestrian circles

Finnish mare one of the first horses to be inseminated with dressage champion’s semen

print this

By Katja Kuokkanen
     
      Admittedly, that is quite some headline up there, but the story backs it up.
      The latest equestrian celebrity gossip has got Finland’s horse breeding circles thrilled beyond words.
      A mare called Asherah Ishtar from the Kirkkonummi-based RH Team is the only horse in Finland that has been deemed sufficiently worthy - together with 99 other quality mares worldwide - to receive seminal fluid from the Dutch super-stallion Moorlands Totilas.
     
Some may ask "Moorlands Who?", but in the international media Moorlands Totilas has been described as a dressage sensation and the priciest horse of all time. If he were for sale, the price-tag for the ten-year-old stallion, "Toto" to his friends, would read EUR 25 million.
      With that amount of money one could buy, for example, approximately 860 Škoda Superb Combi family estate cars.
     
“The stallion is a triple Dressage World Champion. The percentages it has achieved its victories with have been in a league all their own. Normally, at the Olympic level, the top dressage horses receive around 80 per cent of the maximum points. This one has been awarded scores of over 90 per cent”, gasps Tarja Malmström, the owner of the lucky mare.
      Finnish Breeders' Association Chairman of the Board Håkan Wahlman seems equally impressed with the uniqueness of the offered breeding possibility.
      “We have high expectations. Totilas is an exceptional individual, one that has impressed the entire dressage world with his moves”, Wahlman gushes.
     
It's all true, too. The partnership of rider Edward Gal and the wonderhorse is a force of nature in the dressage ring.
      Last December they set a new freestyle world record of 92.3% at the Olympia Horse Show.
      The performance can be seen in the YouTube videos below.
     
One portion of frozen semen of Moorlands Totilas, who now makes his debut at stud, costs a cool EUR 5,500.
      “There will be three insemination attempts. There is a kind of limited 'no foal, no fee' arrangement. If the mare does not become pregnant, we can get 25 per cent of the money back, or use another stallion from the same team”, Malmström explains.
      Of the selected 100 mares, 60 are from the stallion’s home country of The Netherlands, and the remaining 40 come from various corners of the world.
     
According to the owner, the big drawing card with Asherah Ishtar - who was brought to Finland from Germany - was her “extremely good lineage”.
      The 10-y-o mare is by Dream of Glory out of Graefin, and competed with some success in national dressage events in Finland before being put out as a brood mare.
      Asherah Ishtar is currently in foal to another stallion, but this foal is expected in May, and thereafter it will be an exciting wait until the summer of 2011 to see what kind of an infant prodigy the new foal by Moorlands Totilas will be.
     
“Breeders all over Finland will be looking forward to witnessing this. I have no idea how much the offspring would cost, for instance as a yearling, but buying bids might come in even from oil sheiks”, Malmström predicts.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.3.2010


Links:
  YouTube: Moorlands Totilas sets an earlier world´s best of 90.7% at the 2009 European Championships
  RH Team: Asherah Ishtar (Website in Finnish)
  Dressage (Wikipedia)
  Moorlands Totilas
  Horse and Hound, December 2009: Moorlands Totilas sets another world record at Olympia Horse Show
  YouTube: Moorlands Totilas at Olympia

KATJA KUOKKANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
katja.kuokkanen@hs.fi