From Pride of Poland to the European Championships

In the summer, Arabian Essence TV made the videos available for all of the 21 horses consigned to the Pride of Poland sale. I watched all the videos and very quickly, made a list of my favorite horses:

1. Anawera (Piaff x Altamira)
2. Cheronea (QR Marc x Chimera)
3. Potentilla ( Ekstern x Panonia)
4. Karola (QR Marc x Karolina)
5. Pianova (Eden C x Pianissima)

I watched the videos some more, studied the pedigree of each horse, went back to the video and frame-by-frame, evaluated conformation, movement and overall breed type. Only then, was I able to refine my selections further, hoping to identify the one or two horse(s) in the sale, that if given the resources to do so, would be the mare(s) that I would purchase. It's an exercise that develops and sharpens the skills needed for selection, similar to the process judges must work through, while on assignment at a show.

It wasn't easy, I mean, these are all beautiful mares and any one of them would be a treasure to bring back home and build a viable breeding program. However, not every horse possesses that little something that places it ever closer to the image I carry in my head of the perfect horse. So I worked some more on the list, looked at it, scratched a horse, went back, added the horse back in, went back to the list, scratched that horse and then another, went back and added the horse that I scratched already two times, back in...it went like this for the rest of the afternoon. For the next few days, I thought about each mare, comparing/contrasting them in my mind, weighing heavily their merits against their minuses. A few days later  I came up with a shorter list but still, unable to get it down to only one or two horses:

1. Cheronea (QR Marc x Chimera)
2. Anawera (Piaff x Altamira)
3. Potentilla ( Ekstern x Panonia)

The Ekstern daughter, Potentilla, was my favorite mare, hands down. She is a strong-bodied mare and very correct, with outstanding Arabian horse type, not extreme or exotic but clean, dry and elegant. Her dam, Panonia, is a *Eukaliptus daughter and in my opinion, the cross of Ekstern on *Eukaliptus daughters results in outrageously beautiful horses. It's one of my favorite crosses. Also, the mare family that Panonia belongs to, is one of the most enduring families in Polish breeding. Potentilla traces in her tail female line to the 1810 mare, Szamrajówka, bred by one of the oldest of the Polish studfarms, Count Branicki's Biala Cerkiew Stud and is the foundress of Polish female family number 12, which is known as the family of the "P" named horses, hence her name-"P"-otentilla. What sold me the most on Potentilla is her movement...she trots like her sire. There is a moment of hesitation to her gait, a suspension,  when she powerfully pushes her body up and forward. She is airborne in that moment, all four feet are off the ground. It's a unique and rare style of moving that over the years, I have only observed in a few horses, not only in the Arabian horse breed, but other breeds of horses as well. When I see it, it brings joy to my heart and a yearning to own a horse like that. It's one of the most beautiful things that horses can do.

Selecting a second horse from the Pride of Poland offering was much tougher, as I found myself flip-flopping between the Piaff daughter, Anawera, who is out of the Ekstern daughter, Altamira. Her dam line includes the legendary Polish mares like the *Fawor daughter, Albigowa, the Celebes daughter, Algeria and the Pietuszok daughter, Algonkina. Her pure Polish pedigree is what makes this mare, like Potentilla,  the diamonds, among all the precious gems in the sale. Interestingly, her maternal sister, Adelita (by Kahil Al Shaqab) was also listed in the sale.

The QR Marc daughter,  Cheronea, very similar in phenotyoe to Potentilla, is out of the mare, Chimera, an Emigrant daughter who traces in her tail female line to Milordka, who physically, possessed such overwhelmingly Saqlawi strain characteristics that noted author, founder and first Secretary of the Polish Arabian Horse Society, Dr. Edward Skorkowski, while lacking the strain classification for her on paper, made the decision to catalogue her as a Saqlawi-strain horse because of her phenotype:

As I type this blog today, I am still agonizing the choice of Cheronea over Anawera, who is a beautiful mare, very classic type and yet, she has the substance that I like to see in mares. Plus, her dam is an Ekstern daughter. If you follow this blog and you read my post on Ekstern, then you already know who I picked as number 2. For me, after having watched the videos a few more times, it came down to the two bay-colored mares, lot #4, the QR Marc sired Cheronea (out of the Emigrant sired Chimera) and Potentilla. However, if it came down to choosing only one horse, without hesitation, it would be Potentilla, because I know of the influence that Ekstern exerts through his exceptional daughters. 

So, on this last Sunday morning of October, a dark, rainy, damp and cold morning made especially for hot cups of coffee and video watching, I found the newest videos that Arabian Essence TV uploaded from the European Championships, which were held this past weekend in Verona, Italy. Much to my surprise, guess which horses competed in Class 7, the 7-9 year old mare class? My one,two pick from the Pride of Poland sale!

Potentilla earned a 2nd place in the class, having earned a score of 91.90. She moved forward to the Senior mare championships but unfortunately she placed 7th in the Championship class:

While Cheronea placed 6th, earning a score of 90.90:

Congratulations to the new owners of these beautiful mares and best wishes to you, as you move forward with these wonderful mares in your respective breeding programs.