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CINCINATTI

The Sire, Cicero was purchased from the Verband and immediately became a sensation in the US. Bred to a variety of mares, Cicero has consistently thrown beauty, legginess, super shoulders, gorgeous heads and absolutely flawless movement.

His progeny have gone on to become Champion Mare, Elite Mare Show, Elmshorn, Germany (equivalent to being champion stallion at the stallion approvals), Champion colt at Devon, Champion 5yo and younger for the entire USDF Region 9, and in 1998 Cicero produced the Reserve Champion 6yo jumper at the German National Championships.

In his Performance Test Cicero scored highly receiving 9 for type, 7 topline, 7 depth of body, 7 front legs, 7 hind legs, 7 movement, and 8 for brilliance and impulsion. He was awarded Reserve Champion of his Approval in Holstein.

Cicero is by leading sire Cor de la Bryère. Cor de la Bryère has stamped mark on the world scene producing top-class performers across all three disciplines. He is also a world class sire of sires with excess of 50 approved sons at stud worldwide including Corlandus, Chanel K, Classic Touch, Calvaro, Caletto I and II, Corlando and Cordeka.

Cor de la Bryère was by the Anglo Irish thoroughbred and top-class race horse Rantzau. On the track Rantzau won the Caeserwich Stakes, the Goodwood Cup and the Jockey Club Gold Cup twice. He went on to be a leading sire of showjumpers in France.

On his dam-side Cicero contains Elite mare Ligustra (HSP), who was registered in the Elite section of the Holstein Studbook because of her success at stud, producing six top performing off spring, mostly by Cor de la Bryère. Her progeny includes two other sons at stud, one of which is outstanding sire Cavalier, which stands in Ireland. Vamara, a full sister to Cicero is also producing top performing stock in Switzerland, especially the eight-year-old stallion Courage for Leslie Mc Naught. Ligustra's family also contains three of the most famous bloodlines in the word, namely Ladykiller and Cottage Son, both Irish TBs, and Aldato. Through their sons and daughters these three have produced such stars such as Libero H, Lugano, Ratina Z, and Taggi.

Ladykiller xx embodies the powerful type of the thoroughbred. He was a strikingly handsome stallion with pronounced masculine attributes. He had an excellent mastery of the three basic gaits and was imbued with the very best character and temperament values. Of the enormous number of thoroughbreds that were applied in breeding in the 1960ies and the early 1970ies, he turned out to be the best by far. The sires who came before him such as Anblick xx and Cottage Son xx and partly also those who performed stud duty as contemporaries of Ladykiller xx like the stallions Manometer xx and Marlon xx, also founded their own stallion lines. None however was as convincing on such a broad basis as Ladykiller xx. He clearly transmitted himself, his marked type, the magnificent head, correct and powerful foundation and excellent jumping ability in regard to capacity, manner of jumping, leg technique and above all spirit. A number of his progeny were conspicuous because of their light tan colour with “green” legs, as well as the occasionally open kidney region. His chestnuts were consistently even more noble than his bay progeny. Particular successes were achieved by mating with mares who were also of noble blood. Thus his best stallion sons by far, Landgraf I and Lord were both bred out of mares who themselves had significant proportions of the best thoroughbred blood.

Landgraf I became the most important sire of showjumpers of the twentieth century. The Holstein Breeder’s Association erected a life-sized bronze monument in his honour on the precincts of the association centre in Elmshorn, the unveiling of which Landgraf I attended personally. Lord was approvals champion and likewise sent a whole armada of progeny to victory on the great showjumping courses around the globe. The fact that he was a three-quarter bred may be the reason why his hereditary transmission was not always of a completely harmonious type. Even though Ladykiller did not really sire dressage horses, he produced a son Lido whose forte in hereditary transmission was exactly in the field of dressage. It would be hard to find another Holsteiner who procreated dressage horses for the very highest demands as this stallion. In the Netherlands, the Ladykiller xx son Heidelberg, who was named after his damsire became the pacemaker of the breed. The sires Lorenz, Lagos, Ladalco and Lamour all also went to Holland following their successful above average covering periods in Holstein. Today it is almost a necessity of fashion in Holstein, that a horse carries Ladykiller xx blood at least two or three times, whereby it occurs from time to time, that horses in the first generations are inbred five or six times to this invaluable foundation sire. All along, a certain measure of inbreeding has been a regular formula for success in Holstein breeding.