Highlights of the Keuring Tour and Pictures

Our site in Lexington, KY was at the incredible new facility of Spy Coast Farm located next to the Ky Horse Park. Our gracious host, Lisa Lourie, presented 18 mares to the BWP this year including her 2008 Olympic mare, Rolette. The BWP/NAD mare base has certainly grown in terms of quality and volume.

In Lexington we also inspected and approved Wiebke Van de Lageweg and Ricardo Villa's, VDL Bubalu, who will be on his way in September to compete in Belgium in the "Sire's of the World" championship at Zangersheide. This will be our first NAD approved stallion to compete in this competition! 

Boudewijn, Kelly, Spy Coast Farm's Lisa Lourie, Etienne & Chris	BWP Superstar "Sapphire"

We ended up driving (thank you Kelly for driving!) to Brewster, NY to inspect and approve Sapphire's "little brother" Domino. We got to meet Sapphire herself and present "Sara" (her barn name) with a BWP Bred to Perform halter and got lots of good photo ops with her, thank you Erica Hill and Jean Brown from Blue Chip Bloodstock!

During the tour, we were  privileged to witness Boudewjin ride a Tennessee Walker, BWP Stallions Tailored Fortune, Figaro B, Blue Bayou B, and a Bull! Julia, Boudewijn and Etienne had a big time at the Fort Worth Stockyards (thank you Nicole!

Julia, Etienne, Boudewijn and Nicole from October Hill Farm at the Stockyards (above)

Boudewjin on BWP Stallion, Blue Bayou B (above)

We approved a stallion (F-Darco's Legacy)out of our first Elite Mare in the U.S, Mistery, owned by Rose Sullivan. Many of the stallions approved in Beligium each year are out of Elite Mares. We branched into Canada again this year in Ontario (thank you Amber Anderson) and Vancouver (thank you Isauro Flores). We hope to broaden our presence there for the future!

Throughout the tour our gracious hosts treated us to wonderful meals either grilled out or at great restaurants and took wonderful care of us during our visits! We'd like to thank all of our gracious hosts Diana Greenwell in Miami, Andras Szieberth in Wellborn, Paula Quinn in Jacksonville, Laura Trumbower in Chapin, Lisa Lourie in Lexington, Carolyn Rice & Karen Severns in Mount Airy, Jean Brown and Erica Hill in Brewster, Amber Anderson in Norwood, Dee Drott in North Branch, Kathy & Gordon Peterson in Highland, Stef Collier in Indianapolis, Allyn & Fletcher McCracken in Patricksburg, Nancy Maloney in Hartford,  Hilda Lanaux in Folsom, Lucy Meyer and Ronda Stavisky in Georgetown, Wendy Gerrish in Weatherford, Kate & Dave Earl in Care Free, Mary Slouka in Newport Beach, Rose Sullivan in Camarillo, Janet Sally in Arroyo Grande, Linda Bobrik in Galt, Lori & Bill Wilton in Sherwood, Isauro Flores in Vancouver and Debbie Morrison in Kansas City. Thank you all for your wonderful hospitality and putting on great keurings for all our breeders!

October Hill Farm - Weatherford, TX above

This year we introduced the "H-Label" for the Hunter Book and had three sites Jacksonville, Florida,  Mount Airy, MD and Hartford, WI to host our "pilot" program. We had 24 horses participate and receive their "H-Label" judged by well known Hunter Judges, Joyce Ainsworth in Mount Airy, David Erlandson in Jacksonville, and John Berkos in Hartford.We would like to thank our H-Label Hosts, Karen Severns & Carolyn Rice, Nancy Maloney, and Paula Quinn and each of the Hunter Judges from our pilot sites this year!

The 2009 BWP/NAD pilot program for the Hunter Label, took place at 3 Keuring sites: Florida, Maryland and Wisconsin.  Twenty-four BWP horses participated and received their H-Label.    The purpose of this program was to recognize those BWP horses, with potential for the U.S. Hunter Ring, and/or to produce Hunter type horses.  The "Hunter" is unique to the U.S., and represents nearly 50% of our show horses.  The Hunter differs from the tradition European style dressage horse or jumper, in  conformation, way of going and style of jumping.   With those differences in mind, a USEF Hunter or USEF Hunter Breeding Judges officiated for the Hunter Label.

BWP H-Label Stallion Ironrule

The Hunter Judges and BWP Judges did a great job explaining the similarities and differences that each look for in terms of conformation and movement. They both concurred that good conformation is necessary for good performance in any discipline and looked for very similar qualities overall. Belgium has been very supportive of our pursuit to develop and grow the Hunter program here in the States.

We are very excited about this pilot program, which is the only Hunter program of its type currently offered by a registry in the U.S.  We hope to move forward and expand to more Keuring sites for 2010. This program will give the BWP/NAD the ability to offer U.S. Hunters a performance based registry to join and contribute their excellent bloodlines. Feedback, on the program, was extremely positive and the desire to host an H-Label was expressed at several sites.  The format for the H-Label class was similar to a Hunter Breeding Class. Judges filled out a very thorough evaluation form, which allowed participants to gain feedback and learn from this experience.  It also allowed participants to compare the views of both the Keuring Judges and the USEF Judges points of view on their horses.