HERITAGE STALLIONS OF THE NZ WARMBLOOD BREED
Dynamit and Wesserwolf
In these articles we will shine the spotlight on some of the stallions that helped shape the NZWB horse, and their owners that had the foresight to import them.
Berny Maubach and Jutta Rosenblatt from Vollrath Stud tell us about two of the many stallions that have stood at their Whanganui Stud.
Dynamit, the black Hanoverian stallion imported by Vollrath Stud in 1992, died following a fracture of the humerus in November 1998. Berny shot his beloved stallion after he collapsed the morning following the accident. Ironically, he received the hairline fracture delivering a free service donated for a raffle of the Hanoverian Society.
Dynamit was purchased in July 1991 and he arrived on the 16th of January 1992 as an 11 year old to a full book of mares! Dr Wilkens, the breeding manager of the Hanoverian Verband in Germany at the time, stated at a visit to NZ and Vollrath Stud that the State Stud in Celle had wanted to buy him as a young horse but couldn’t afford him.
Dynamit was bred for dual purpose - dressage and show-jumping - with a solid jumping background and left one licensed stallion in Germany. His sire Dynamo was a noted producer of International Dressage and Jumping horses with arguably his most prolific offspring the legendary Dollar Girl ridden by Nick Skelton.
In NZ, Dynamit was used extensively, and while he produced some top competition horses, mainly in the pairing with Distelfink, his legacy lies in the number of prolific broodmares who served as foundation mares for NZ Hanoverian and Warmblood breeders.
Particularly in connection with Anamour and later with Worldwide and Lessing (and coming off the back of Distelfink and Witzbold) there have been some noticeable offspring.
Our top dressage riders value horses with Dynamit in the dam line (KH Arvan, Arawn, Andreas, Avantgarde, Angeleen, Vollrath Lauretta, Jax Johnson, NRM Prequel etc.) and the lineage with Dynamit is widely and successfully used by NZ breeders, including David Woolly, CHS, Tuahu Station and Vollrath Stud.
Several foundation mares with the Dynamit/Distelfink cross bred by Vollrath Stud live on through their daughters and granddaughters.
Carrying almost no blood himself, Dynamit was known to inject good bone and general warmblood traits into NZ TB mares. He produced a solid type with plenty of scope but often lacking the rideability and amenable temperament he himself possessed. In NZ he was never competed, but served as Berny’s pleasure horse, carrying him anywhere from rides into town to frolics on the beach to where he walked, trotted and cantered by way of a 12 km trip along a busy road there and back.
Bombproof but active and alert, he was the best horse Berny had ever ridden as well as his best mate.
To this day, Berny is full of praise and admiration for Dynamit’s temperament. He was so easy-going and level-headed that he could be put together with his youngsters and mares in a paddock to graze.
Dynamit lacked any kind of aggression stallions normally exhibit but was equally eager to serve a mare or have his semen collected.
Berny still misses his mate but is somewhat comforted by the knowledge that Dynamit has left a legacy in NZ through providing a solid foundation for our perpetually improving Warmblood breeding.
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Weserwolf was another stallion who stood for some time at Vollrath.
He was imported as a 2 year old in 1991 by Berny from Australia after a drunken night with Holger Schmorl from Kinnordy Stud.
The horse was by Winterkoenig and didn’t really leave his mark in NZ. Weserwolf was a large chestnut horse, tall and rather coarse with limited scope and lacking presence and athleticism.
There are still some mares with his blood, most noticeable again from Tuahu Station, who stood the stallion after he was broken in but all in all he was a disappointment.
Gaye Withers rated him as a riding horse (he was broken in to ride by the local racehorse trainer who called Berny to pick up the horse ready to ride after three days!) but Weserwolf was never competed.
He did leave some good dressage and jumping horses (it is a good trait of a stallion if he leaves better offspring than he is himself) but unfortunately quite a few of them had some kind of soundness issues.
He does live on in a handful of daughters and granddaughters and therefore provides a valuable link to the Hanoverian W line.
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