Jeannette Haazen's former small tour champion Rockefeller van de Zelm has passed away. The 23-year old Belgian warmblood was euthanized.
Rockefeller van de Zelm was a 1994 born Belgian warmblood stallion by Rosenkavalier out of Hinde (by Wendekreis x Saffier van het Goor). He was bred by Koen and Matti Geerts from De Zelmhoeve in Mol, Belgium.
Under Stefan van Ingelgem Rockefeller won the 1999 Belgian Young Horse Show circuit and the pair were finalists at the 1999 World Young Horse Championships in Arnheim In 2000, owner Geerts sold a half-share in Rockefeller to Jeannette Haazen.
Under Haazen the stallion won the M-level division at the 2002 Dutch Championships and 2003 Dutch Winter Championships. In 2003 they were the Dutch Small Tour Champions. Internationally they only competed at a few events. They contested the small tour at the 2003 CDI's in Mondorf-Les-Bains, Rotterdam, and Ksiaz, the 2004 CDI Strassen, but they returned regularly to the Zwolle International Stallion Show (2003, 2004, 2005). In 2006 they did one CDI in Eindhoven. The pair's last significant competition were the 2006 Dutch Dressage Championships where Haazen and Rockfeller finished 14th in the Grand Prix Special.
Co-owner Geerts started breeding Rockefeller when the stallion hit Grand Prix, but this led to a disagreement as Haazen did not want to go for a combination of sport and breeding with the already "stalliony" bay stallion. This ended their collaboration and Haazen gave up the ride.
Rockefeller van de Zelm was licensed with the AES and SBS society and bred only a little in Belgium. His most successful offspring was probably Belgian warmblood Dynamite van 't Molenvondel (by Rockefeller van de Zelm x Fortuin Z), who won silver in the junior division at the 2013 Belgian Dressage Championships.
"Rockefeller was not an easy horse at the start. He was very dominant and yet insecure and afraid," Haazen explained. "Once we built trust and confidence in each other, we won pretty much everything, also internationally. I won two Dutch titles with him and three sub-top titles. When he went Grand Prix, he started to breed."
Photo © Koenraad Cappon
Related Links
Eurodressage Photo Database: Rockefeller van de Zelm
Schulkens, Haazen, Hanzon and Callaghan 2003 Dutch Indoor Champions
Haazen and Rockefeller van de Zelm Do It Again at 2003 Zwolle International Stallion Show
Jeanette Haazen and Rockefeller van de Zelm, 2002 Dutch ZZ-Licht Champion
Sentio, Rockefeller and Quavarotti win 1999 Young Dressage Horse Circuit