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If you have read the HISTORY page you can see how we began our research. When we started seriously breeding for the market ( our first class was foaled in 1994 ) , I had as much to learn about marketing as I did about breeding Warmbloods. Since we were starting with the Thoroughbred mares that I had used for track breeding I wanted to start with a stallion that I felt would add bone ,substance and jumping ability and that stallion was Darco. I mistakenly thought that American Vets would know how to handle the frozen semen and multiple doses were purchased from a reputable vet in Belgium www.hofterleeuwe.be. It was not to be and only one filly was produced with all that semen and my husband thought I was crazy. It was a struggle to figure what bloodlines would produce the best horses for the USA market as opposed to the overseas market where buyers are much more knowledgeble about bloodlines.
Because most sport horses are tracked by the stallions it was very important in the beginning to purchase semen from stallions that were already successful in producing sporthorses so we weren't going by something that was just hot for the moment. We needed some names that would be a sort of guarantee of both jumping ability and marketability. I was very knowledgeable about breeding for the soundness factor from breeding Thoroughbreds because track horses are made and trained for the track at a very young age and their careers may be over by age 3 whereby sport horses take a very long time to learn their craft and therefore must be sound enough to have a long career. At this point I was beginning to think that fresh might be the only answer for the time being so I purchased from the stallion auctions while I worked on getting some frozen semen from a stallion I liked as well as one that had good frozen results. I picked Olympic Concorde and Rebel IZ . Later we bred to Olympic Ferro , Pavarotti , Capone I and Couleur Rubin .
I also learned the hard way that Americans like pretty horses with good temperaments as most of the buyers out in the in the H/J and dressage markets are adult women. This left out Jus de Pomme as I thought he was seriously ugly ( I changed my mind after the Atlanta Olympics ).
Fletch and I finally thought best to go look at Non Stop , a son of Darco that our frozen semen dealer was recommending and whose free jumping ability I had much admired at the stallion selections. This stallion had a joy in his jumping that I had not detected in many horses his age and he had the added feature of being black ( the absolutely very best selling color ). Still in 2007 at age 17 Non Stop breeds over 200 mares per year. We went during the Christmas vacation and Eric Degeneffe took us around and shared a table with us at the Mechlen Horse Show. When we went to the Berkenbroeck farm to look at Non Stop's foals they took us to a barn where there were about 20 black colts . Some were bred by the Spaas family and some had been purchased to see if there were stallion prospects among them. I had already selected the bloodlines I thought I wanted from the motherline and there were two prospects, Simsalabim and Semsaladem. Sim came to the USA to be our stallion prospect and Sem was gelded and is now an International jumper that shows up in the results column of major European shows from time to time.
Neither Fletch nor I had any stallion experience whatsoever so Sim was always a work in progress. Fortunately we had plenty of help and lots of patience and after he went through what would be a boy's teenage years he became sweet tempered without loosing his libido . He is however ( in his own mind ) the manager of everything that goes on and nothing escapes his notice. There are so many stories to tell about him that I could fill pages and bore everyone to death.
The one thing that I will caution everyone about raising a sport horse stallion and getting him approved into a registry is that the performance requirements are both difficult and expensive to accomplish. It took two years of training and showing and for that we thank Stefanie Collier of Collier's Lane in Indianapolis, IN as she did that for Simsalabim. She was his only rider and all of the pictures of Sim under saddle are with Stefanie aboard.
After Sim was well on his way to doing his performance requirements we heard that the first stallion that we had bred to was for sale and I tried to put together a syndicate to own him and have someone else stand him . I thought I had the job done ,but then people started pulling out and I asked Fletch if he wanted to be my partner and he said " I thought you said we would never need a stallion and now we are going to have two ????? " He finally agreed with the idea and we purchased Branco ( Rothschild X Ugonda / Amor ). The Darco / Ramiro Z had been proving to be a great cross so our stallions would compliment each other. As it has turned our Branco seems to produce more fillies for broodmares and Simsalabim produces more colts for sport so it works out. We purchased Branco at age 16 and he lived until he was 23 . His semen was the best semen vets had ever seen and his frozen is as good as his fresh so we will have his influence around for many years.
We always continue to breed to the very best outside stallions we can obtain for broodmare prospects , but sometimes we end up getting colts . As a result we have produced several stallion prospects ; Cielo B ( Simsalabim X Montana / Ahorn ) and Deja Blue B ( Ferro X Song Sung Blue B / Branco ) are already provisionally approved BWP stallions and are owned by Rising Star Farm in Texas ( www.risingstarfarm.net ) . Figaro B ( Pavarotti X Rianne / Wellington ) is owned by Bobburk Farm in California and will be inspected next year ; Grand Slam B ( Couleur Rubin X Rianne / Wellington ) is owned by Swept Away Farm ( www.sweptawayfarm.com ) in New Hampshire and will be inspected in several years ; Blue Bayou B ( Simsalabim X Song Sung Blue B / Branco ) owned by Great Strides Farm in Clayton,IN is already provisionally approved BWP , and Concorde B ( Olympic Concorde X Treasure B / Eros ) owned by the Concorde B Group of which Bannockburn Farm LLC is a part has also been provisionally approved BWP. In some instances these stallions have been sold with some breedings to come back to Bannockburn Farm in the future.
We are always looking for outstanding stallions to improve our mare herd and have to balance between fresh and frozen . Some mares just do not get along with frozen semen and also we like to use stallions standing in the USA if we can. We have several mares that go Equine Medical Services in Columbia ,Mo for Embryo Transfer and some go because Dr. Foss does deep horn insemination with the hard to use and usually expensive frozen semen .