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The sport Knabstruppers, like that of the original classic riding type, must be balanced without being too heavy and resembles a warmblood type. They must have expressive, but also good quality movement using the whole body. The horse’s temperament is of the utmost importance with a willingness to work and learn. The head should be in good proportion to the body and the colour pattern should preferably be that of full leopard spot or solid. These foals can either be of high Knabstrupper linage or infused with approved warmblood breeding. Certain outcross breeds, of suitable riding type, are allowed upon approval, but it is still the responsibility of the breeder to select horses that fulfil the stud’s unique criteria. The reason behind allowing outcrossing to certain breed approved individuals is to avoid future inbreeding that could lead to inbreed depression characteristics by maintaining a manageable effective population size of the Knabstrupper with ample genetic diversity. Diversity offers breeders’ across the globe selection options to incorporate certain unique characteristics within their own breeding program. For instance in South Africa our environmental conditions can be harsh to European bred horses, where one would select for more pigment for sun exposure or courser hair for high insect loads.

The Baroque type has to for fill the same requirements as the above, but may have a slightly thicker/course look when refereeing to the body and head, but offers the distinct advantage of a good genetic base with minimal outcrossing and are prone to be less sensitive to external stimuli. These horses are suitable for mastery training and ask for a person whom knows horses by heart.

Horses, of different age groups, will endure evaluation tests suitable for their age. Young stock (6 months to 3 years) will be evaluated for conformation and movement on hard and soft service. While older horses under saddle can complete full performance testing which includes conformation and soundness evaluation, loose movement and free-jumping, ridden dressage and jumping tests with rider and appointed test after the initial full vet examination and identification. The last part of the performance evaluation is the endurance phase, a unique test to the breed. The endurance phase being the non-obvious evaluation, but invaluable since the indirect results of fatigue are the main reason why most athletes discontinue an active career in competition. Each of these tests is compromised out of list of set criteria marked on a scale from 1 to 10_10 being the highest. Temperament being a very important requirement for a good mark during performance testing, a critic point that are often left as less important in some breed evaluation schemes. A accredited equine vet as well as a test rider would be requested on the day of evaluation together with two international Danish judges, the same judges whom does these evaluations in other parts of the world.

Prospective buyers have the opportunity to gain through performance testing since their future competition horse can be selected at a younger age based on early known potential predictions. This is a proven system that has been implemented with great success in some of our other top competition horses like the Hanoverian and KWPN.A potential buyer can process the obtained inspection marks during the evaluation tests to establish whether the foal or horse will meet its requirements depending on the buyers’ objective in mind. With older horses that have had a full performance evaluation done the marks become indicative of the potential for a specific sporting discipline. If it is a young horse the scores will give you a good indication of correctness of conformation and the quality of movement. The best part of it being that the potential buyer does not have to be and expert since the experts has done the job on the breeders account. These marks are also on an international scoring system which means is that a foal that has scored an overall 9 branding it as a first premium, (8 and 9 for the individual critic points) in South Africa will be of the same quality as the foal in Europe scoring an overall 9.

Each and every foal bred by the stud needs that special “person” whom will value the uniqueness and quality the foal has to offer. These foals cannot be compared to other sport horse foals since they come from a long lineage of proven genetics that asks for a true horseman and not just another horse owner. Apart from the genetic factor we raise these foals in a unique environment that cannot be duplicated by any other stud. We only breed a very limited number of foals each year to enable us to raise every foal according to its needs to grow into a balanced individual. Our years of experience are invaluable, which is the other part of this golden recipe at stud to produce these individuals. Future homes are of course chosen and they cannot “just” be bought since this newly founded relationship, between owner and horse, is our stud’s future advertisement. We prefer the potential buyer to come and spend time with us here at the stud to guarantee the correct pairing of horse and owner.

Foals can be sold at any age depending on the information gathered from the owner. We prefer to raise our own foals since it is a stress free experience with a horse safe environment with enough space, home-grown good quality roughage, top quality homemade concentrates and enough social interaction. We raise our foals and have a set routine we put them through in terms of performance testing, the new owner can choose to be part of the journey or decide to buy a backed and going already tested individual.

Foals are registered with the ‘Knabstrupperforeningen for Danmark’and when of age licensed with the KNN that travels to countries outside of the EU. This governing body regulates the breeding and exploitation of the Knabstrupper breed world-wide. The breed is conserved by a set of distinct breed criteria which is maintained by means of breed evaluation and performance testing on a non-biased manner through the same judges traveling the globe. All foals come with an EU passport and registration number.