BOLERO

1975 – 1987, 16.11/2. Chestnut
Breeder: Heinrich Behmann
Stood at Landesbrück 1979 until his death from heart failure in 1987 at the age of 12.

Bolero was one of the new dressage sires in the Hannoverian studbook, with his abundance of Thoroughbred blood contributing to the elegant quality of his descendants. Actually his breeding was officially prohibited by the Hanoverian Stud Book regulations of the time, which regulated against the breeding of a mare by a Thoroughbred to a Thoroughbred stallion.

Bolero was by the elegant English Thoroughbred, Black Sky, imported to Germany in 1972. Bolero’s dam, Baroness is by another English Thoroughbred, Bleep (described as ‘unusually large framed for a Thoroughbred’) who traces on her dam’s side, to Hyperion and then of course to Bay Ronald. Her dam’s sire Athos was regarded as a good sire of dressage broodmares.

At his performance test, Bolero performed only moderately, placing 6th out of 30 stallions in his 100 day test at Adelheidsdorf with a score of 111.

In his lifetime Bolero was a useful sire in a career cut short far too quickly, but he is now proving a wonderful sire of broodmares. In his nine seasons at stud, he sired 47 licensed stallions, including the champion of his year, Buenos Aires. His most influential stallion sons have been Brentano II and Bismarck. His son Beltain was the sire of the Champion Six year old horse at the 2005 Bundeschampionate, Bellissimo.

Bolero was the sire of 316 registered broodmares, of whom 98 were awarded State Premium status. The mare Baccarole was the Champion mare at the Louis-Wiegels Show in 1989, and European Champion mare at Brussels in 1990. Baltengracie was again Champion of the Louis-Wiegels Show in 1991.

Bolero sired three winners in the three year old Riding Horse class at the Bundeschampionate: Boruschkin (1984), Bini Bo (1987) and Bocaccio (1988). All three went on to advanced level dressage. The gelding son, Borsalino was a successful Grand Prix horse with Heike Kemmer, while another son, Bossanova looked sensational in Grand Prix classes with Anna Merveldt-Steffan before his untimely death.

As of the year 2002, which was the last year he appeared in the Hanoverian Stalliion book, Bolero was represented by 417 competition horses, with collective winnings of DM1,418,273.