DWB Top of Europe 2013 - Dansk Varmblod

20 Dansk VarmblodBetty Rasmussen, 80, stillbreeds high performing DanishWarmblood horses and takesgreat pleasure in following hermany successful products.TheGrandof Danish BreedingAs one of the fewbreeders in the world BettyRasmussen has succeeded inbreeding not only one Olympicmedal winning horse buttwo – one in show jumpingand one in dressage!In the late 1970’s Betty Rasmussen and her familydecided to sell their riding horses in order to purchasesome first class breeding stock. At the timegood broodmares were not easy find, and they werenot cheap either.Betty found her two dream mares, but they werehard to get and the sale of their nine riding horses didnot even pay for the two mares Sonita by Marcellusand Vanessa by Elizar. Both mares were Danish bred,medal awarded at the Elite Show and out of very strongSwedish dam lines. Betty knew she had to have them,and her persistence paid off. Within a few years shewas a highly successful breeder.The family of SonitaA daughter of Sonita produced the licensed stallionLando by Lancier/Raimondo which became part of theDutch show jumping team for the 2000 Olympics inSydney. Under Albert Voorn the very expressive Landowent all the way to the finals where he captured individualsilver. Lando continued his international sportcareer under German Otto Becker and stood at studa couple of seasons at Schockemöhle before he wassuccessfully introduced into the French studbook ofSelle Français.Sonita produced numerous highly decorated maresand successful dressage horses. Her son Ragant byRaimondo was on the German long list for the 2000Olympics with Tanja Traupe, and her son RubinsternHøjris by Rubinstein was a successful Grand Prix horsein the UK.At the Danish Warmblood stallion licensing in Herningin 2012 the young stallion Zorba Højris by Blue HorsZack/Blue Hors Romanov became the young licensingchampion among the dressage colts and went on topass the performance test with flying colours. Zorba isowned by a Danish Grand Prix rider and he representsfourth generation out of Sonita.The family of VanessaVanessa is out of the famous Swedish damline “F2Spinda” which among many top sport horses in dressageas well as show jumping has produced the legendarydressage stallion Briar. The extensive successof Vanessa in Betty Rasmussen’s breeding programmegoes through her daughter Virginia by Ibsen.Virginia produced, among several very successfuldressage horses, one of the world’s best - MistralHøjris by Michellino. This spectacular mover was successfullytrained by its first owners, Ernst Jessen andHasse Hoffmann, up to the highest level before it wassold to the British young rider Laura Bechtolsheimer,now Tomlinson.Mistral (known as Alf) and Laura have won it all. Atthe 2010 WEG in Lexington they claimed two individualsilver medals on top of the British team silver medal,and at the 2011 Europeans in Rotterdam they playeda significant role on the British gold winning team,and they also claimed individual bronze. At the 2012Olympics in London they smashed it on home turf bywinning team gold and claiming individual bronze inthe Grand Prix Special.