The
Beltain-story is one of my favourite stallion stories even though or maybe just
because it does carry an ironical, if not tragic moment to it. During his entire
lifetime Beltain never gained the recognition and respect amongst the breeder
community he should have. Maybe that was due to the fact that – despite his most
famous but entirely hannoverian origin – he never got to live within the
hannoverian equestrian scene where he surely would have gained the recognition
he deserved – in line with his closely related family-fellows such as brentano
II, wolkenstein II, brentina, beauvalais etc – horses everybody speaks about.
Stationed in westfalia people would barely understand what prestigous damline
this sire came from, neither would they fully acknowledge his individual
qualities in both, a super performance dressage horse and a great breeding
stallion. The ironie lies in the fact that only with the appearance of
his son, beautiful Bundeschampion
Belissimo on the (westfalian) scene(pictures at the bottom of this
page), people all of a
sudden were full of respect for beltain and would praise him as what he was: an
exceptional stallion. Only that he had alreadydied by then.right: Brentano II age 22
Beltain was owned by
the
Karsten
family,
close friends of mine. Beltain is
nearly
blood-identical to
Brentano
II, their dams were
full sisters. Meaning: he comes from
dr. max schulz, a breeder who
has been providing the world with record dressage horses and stallions (brentina,
beauvalais, brentano I&II, wolkenstein I ,II&III, garibaldi I&II and many many
more) they all have one in common:
A very well manfisted exquisit old
hannoverian damline, mainly based on combinations of bolero and grande with
ferdinand, wendekreis, marcio and duellant-blood.
Beltain
was same age with weltmeyer and back then it was beltain who was the pre-spoken
winner of their respective licensing for obvious reasons (convincing movement in
all three gates a n d the combination of best bloodlines)
Short before the licensing beltain had
an accident and needed strong surgeries. It was not clear if he ever would be
ridable. Only that was the reason my friends were able to buy him. (and the door
was open for Weltmeyer to succeed...)
Beltain recovered from his accident and
was ridden. He went to petra epping (riders tour finalist 2002 with giselle),
rudolf zeilinger and later on jo hinnemann where leonie bramall showed him up to
grand prix and he finally got licensed due to his success in sports when he was
already 10 or so – which i find most remarkable since in those days you could
count those stallions who got licensed for breeding due to their sports
performances on a single hand...
He then went to the warendorf statestud
as a lease stallion but wasn’t highly frequented. Because bolero blood was not
well looked at in westfalia (for whatever reasons). It could happen that soemone
went to the stud and asked for beltain and people there would recommand a
different stallion because „what do you want with this bolero stallion -?
don't we have other stallions?“As
a matter of fact, a couple of years ago i went to the westfalian verband and
asked one of theirofficials for information on
sport-licensed stallions in general, beltain specifically, since i was going to
write a report about sport licensed stallions for a local magazin. The answer
was: beltain? Why would you want to write about him? He hasn’t done any good yet
and there are other stallions in warendorf that deserve a report much better.“above: Beltain and Leonie Bramall
Blame
it all to westfalian ignorance
and pure lack of
knowledge about what this
respective bloodline had already done in hannover.
Consequently, the main mares beltain got were the ones of my friends (all of
hannoverian origin) and people somehow related to them.
I had a few chances to get to ride
beltain myself those days and hadn’t i already been convinced by his offspring
(the ones i knew from our local area) – his riding abilities and the way he made
me feel in the saddle would have convinced me right away. He was the „teaching“horse
everyone is dreaming of, he taught me that extended trott has nothing to do
with pushing them forward but develops slowly from behind and simply carries you
away – he taught me how to sit flying changes in canter and how to ride a
pirouette. I was simply greatful. All that came along with the best character
you can imagine: we would ride out for walks and my friend would sit on her 4
year old mare who tended to behave little undisciplined – beltain was peace and
happiness in itself. Far away from any behaviour you would expect a breeding
stallion to show when ridden next to a mare.I was more than greatful – again.Still, i was one of a very few lonely
believers since the official „westfalian“ opinion on beltain predominantly
none existing to say the least.
My friend svenja and i had already bought Wallery K
from the Karsten family when Beltain had died his tragical death in 2002. It was
more than clear to us that should the frozen seman of Beltain not last long
enough to breed Wallery to him any futher it would be Brentano II, who is
bloodidentical to Beltain, who should become the sire to our future foals.
"Beautiful Belissimo" by Beltain x Romadour II, at the Warendorf
Bundeschampionship 2005 - "the Champion of the Hearts" who truly lost Gold and thus
won Silver...
The
Beltain-story is one of my favourite stallion stories even though or maybe just
because it does carry an ironical, if not tragic moment to it. During his entire
lifetime Beltain never gained the recognition and respect amongst the breeder
community he should have. Maybe that was due to the fact that – despite his most
famous but entirely hannoverian origin – he never got to live within the
hannoverian equestrian scene where he surely would have gained the recognition
he deserved – in line with his closely related family-fellows such as brentano
II, wolkenstein II, brentina, beauvalais etc – horses everybody speaks about.
Stationed in westfalia people would barely understand what prestigous damline
this sire came from, neither would they fully acknowledge his individual
qualities in both, a super performance dressage horse and a great breeding
stallion. The ironie lies in the fact that only with the appearance of
his son, beautiful Bundeschampion
Belissimo on the (westfalian) scene (pictures at the bottom of this
page), people all of a
sudden were full of respect for beltain and would praise him as what he was: an
exceptional stallion. Only that he had already died by then.
right: Brentano II age 22 
Beltain was owned by 
Beltain recovered from his accident and
was ridden. He went to petra epping (riders tour finalist 2002 with giselle),
rudolf zeilinger and later on jo hinnemann where leonie bramall showed him up to
grand prix and he finally got licensed due to his success in sports when he was
already 10 or so – which i find most remarkable since in those days you could
count those stallions who got licensed for breeding due to their sports
performances on a single hand...
Blame
it all to westfalian 
