Kees Van Den Oetelaar: "AES scores with full fledged stallion grading in Schijndel"
"AES scores with full fledged stallion grading in Schijndel"
Friday April 4 the AES grading in Schijndel was scheduled in Riding School De Molenheide. Kees Van Den Oetelaar showed to be a successful new leader for the studbook. He left the judges' table and moved to the secretary table to organize things. His efforts were highly respected by the public. Not less than fifty stallions were presented. The champions Black Bird and Gletsjer helped to raise the studbook to a higher level.
AES has great ambitions. Also the stallion gradings is in progression. It's still a small-scale event, but they thought about all the details. They used a new ring, in which the horses jumped loose and two new judges entered the inspection team. Bernard Demets and Maikel Van der Vleuten debuted and both were enthusiast about the quality. Bernard Demets: 'I followed all of the approvals in Europe and I remarked that AES has just the same quality as any other studbook.' Maikel Van der Vleuten replaced his father Eric for the first time and felt comfortable judging aswell. 'I don't look so much at the pedigree. I just like a horse that can jump, no matter which pedigree it has. And those jumpers I really remarked today.
Dressage rider Wilma Van der Steen is the owner of the new crowned dressage champion Gletsjer, a nice and modern bay horse with elegant moves. The owner doesn't have a stud, so she's still not sure what will happen to her horse in the future. 'I want to sell him because I don't have a stud. Horses are not my job. I just ride dressage until intermediaire level. I do it for pleasure, but this horse is capable to do more.' Wilma bought the horse as a foal. He's always had the looks from when he was born.
Kees Van Den Oetelaar is super happy with the new champions and also with the average quality at this gradings. 'A few years ago at AES you sometimes saw simple or not correct horses, but those we didn't see any more today. We were very delighted with the lot of dressage horses. We could license and approve ten of them. In the past we often had not enough dressage blood on the list.
Another stallion presenter came with a horse, previously not approved in another studbook. 'I hope they take him here. Then I can do the stallion competition next year and then the judges that disapproved him will hopefully see that they made a huge mistake.' Other stallion owners stated they chose AES because the public gradings here are much cheaper.