German Horse Breeding in 2017 Confirms Recovery

7 years ago StraightArrow Comments Off on German Horse Breeding in 2017 Confirms Recovery
Desperados FRH, son of the great sire De Niro, ridden by Kristina Bröring-Sprehe of Germany to: 2016 Olympic team gold and individual bronze, 2012 Olympic team silver, 2014 World Equestrian Games team gold, individual bronze, 2013 European Champions team gold, 2015 Europeans team bronze, individual and freestyle silver medals. Kristina is scheduled to return the 17-year-old Desperados to the competition arena later this month after a break of more than a year. © 2015 Ken Braddick/dressage-news.com

WARENDORF, Germany, Mar. 14, 2018–German horse breeding showed more signs of improving in 2017 especially with increases in warmbloods that the national federation described Wednesday as “a trend reversal” from the low levels four years ago.

Overall, the number of mares continued to decline, falling by 0.8 percent from 81,075 to 80,416 from 2016 to 2017. The number of registered stallions also decreased, down 2.6 per cent to 7,610 last year compared to 7,816 in 2016.

The increase in coverages and foals, was up 3.8 per cent to 37,080 foals against 35,718 in 2016 while coverage figures were 44,978 mares, 1.7 per cent more than 44,233 in 2016.

Development in German warmblood breeding helped drive the number of coverings in warmblood mares again climbed to 31,109, the first year above 30,000 since 2013.

The number of registered foals was 24,460, an increase of 2.9 percent over the 2016 total of 23,775.

For the first time, there were more broodmares–51,114 in 2017, 0.2 percent more than in the previous year’s 50,995.

“A positive development, also with regard to the tournament sport,” said Theodor Leuchten, chairman of the German federation breeding division. “There, the decline in cover has had a significant impact, especially in the last two years, as far as the number of newly registered competition horses and the number of young horse tests are concerned.”