Hippomundo was curious to study the pedigrees of the showjumping horses and found that the 12 stallions that had more than one offspring at the Olympic Games were all in the top 20 of the stallion ranking for 2021. Remarkable is that the three stallions with the most offspring at the Olympic Games competed in the Olympic Games themselves: Chacco-Blue (London, 2008), Casall ASK (London, 2008) and VDL Cardento (2004, Athens).
Chacco-Blue, number one in the stallion ranking, was the leader at the Olympics with six offspring. After Chacco-Blue himself participated at the Olympic Games in London in 2008, six descendants continued in their father’s footsteps, each representing a different country. The most famous offspring was of course Explosion W, who under the saddle of Ben Maher for Great Britain jumped to individual gold in Tokyo. The dam’s sire of Explosion W is Baloubet du Rouet. This combination seems to be very successful as, besides Explosion W, also Chalou from Emanuele Gaudiane is a son of Chacco-Blue out of a Baloubet du Rouet mother.
Chacco-Blue was not the only stallion with multiple offspring at the Olympics. The Olympic stallion Casall ASK also had four delegated offspring. Casall ASK stood in third place in the overall Hippomundo stallion ranking in the lead-up to the Olympics. Carlitos Way was the reserve for the Brazilian team with Rodrigo Pessoa; Istanbull van het Ooievaarsnest appeared under the Moroccan rider Albdelkebir Ouaddar; and Cinca 3 appeared at the start with Daniel Meech for New Zealand. Finally, the approved stallion Chopin VA competed under the Sri Lankan flag with Mathilda Karlsson.
The fourth ranked sire in the overall stallion ranking, VDL Cardento was the sire of three horses and the dam’s sire of one horse selected to the Olympic Games. Cardento is the sire of Kilkenny, ridden by Irish rider Cian O’Connor; Dolinn N.O.P, ridden by Dutch rider Harrie Smolders; and Dubai, ridden by Chilean rider Samuel Parot. Finally Casinos was crossed with Cardento, out of which Emir was born. Emir is ridden by Fabian Sejanes, who represents Argentina.
Three descendants of the stallions Diamant de Semilly, Kashmir van het Schuttershof and Verdi TN also competed at the Olympic Games.
This story is made available to The Plaid Horse by the data at Hippomundo, the online source for breeding and sport data. Hippomundo’s mission is to establish one central database in order to bring the necessary transparency to the equestrian world and to make life easier for people in the horse industry. To dive deeper into the data, subscribe to one of their available memberships.
