Statesman OLD Passed Away

Breeding

Oldenburg

The internationally competed small tour horse and Oldenburg licensed Statesman OLD passed away on 7 January 2021. He was 17 years old.

Statesman OLD was born in 2005 and sired by Stedinger out of Weissendra (by Donnerschwee x Titus).

Licensed Stallion

Statesman was bred by American Ann Kitchel, but born at Clemens von Merveldt's Gut Fuchtel in Vechta, Germany.

He was was licensed at the spring approval for the Oldenburg and Brandenburg breed society on 29 April 2008. In 2009 he got licensed for the Hanoverian society. He did his 30-day Stallion Performance Test at the end of 2008 and scored 9.03 for dressage and 7.44 for show jumping, finishing on a total of 8.39 points. He stood at stud at Gestut Vorwerk in Cappeln, Germany.

He was first competed as a 3-year old by Clemens von Merveldt at a local show in Ahlhorn, after which the ride was allocated to Heiko Klausing. The nw pair won bronze with the stallion at the 2008 Bundeschampionate in Warendorf.

Auction Price Highlight

Statesman in the Oldenburg Elite Auction

One month after earning the bronze medal, Statesman sold for the record price of 400,000 euro to LUX- Dressage, the company behind Christof Umbach, Michel Waehnert, Verena Waehnert-Heinz and Sascha Schulz. Later on Verena Heinz became the sole owner of the horse.

Heike Klausing retained the ride and won the 2009 Oldenburg Young Horse Championships in Rastede with the stallion and returned to the Bundeschampionate in 2009 to finish 6th in the 4-year old division.

In the autumn of 2009 Verena Heinz showed the dark bay stallion in her first tests at young horse level, but in the spring of 2010 the ride was allocated to John Mc Cormack.

Mc Cormack qualified the stallion for the 2010 Bundeschampionate, but did not compete in Warendorf.

Move to Luxembourg

The stallion moved to his home base in Luxembourg and after a year of no shows in 2011 he was allocated to the Luxembourg based Danish rider Fie Skarsoe in 2012. She first showed him in M-level and small tour level classes at local events in the summer of 2012, before making a CDI debut in March 2013 in Stadl Paura, Austria. They placed second in the Intermediaire I with 69.684%. Skarsoe also rode the horse in Compiegne, Perl and Roosendaal that year.

In 2014, Statesman was shown by Verena at some small events, while in 2015 Statesman moved to Hof Kasselmann, where Spaniard Victor Alfonso Pomares rode him and competed him at the 2015 CDI Hagen in the small tour as well as two local shows before Verena hopped back on in the summer of 2015.

Heinz' Small Tour Partner

Statesman never moved up to Grand Prix level, but became Verena's steady small tour partner. He was also gelded.

Between 2016 and 2017 they competed regularly at international shows in Nieuw en St. Joosland, Hagen, Compiegne, and Le Mans with mixed results. Their international high score was 66.079% in the Prix St Georges at the horse's last CDI in his career, in Compiegne in 2017.

The next two years Verena preferred to show the gelding at national level and they finished their career together, winning bronze at the Luxembourg Small Tour Championship in September 2019. It was the horse's last show.

Legacy

Heinz and Statesman at the 2017 CDIO Compiegne

The 17-year old Oldenburg began struggling with eye sight problems.

"With a heavy heart we had to euthanize Statesman OLD today," Christof Umbach told Eurodressage, a close friend and coach of Heinz. "After several eye operations, Statesman went blind and unfortunately had to be redeemed today after many efforts."

As a breeding stallion, Statesman has 42 offspring registered for sport with the German equestrian federation, one of them competing at S-level. He sired one licensed son (States Wonder) and two state premium daughters.

His most famous offspring is Status Royal, now competing in the U.S.A. at Grand Prix level under American Olympian Jan Ebeling.