Two forces | De Niro

چهار نعل: Two forces | De Niro

De Niro was a black colt that was born in 1993 in the breeding stable of Brigitte Pahl in Fockbek, Germany; a son of the legendary Donnerhall and the mare…

De Niro was born at Brigitte Pahl’s stable in Fockbek, in the state of Holstein, Germany, by Donnerhall out of Alicante (a daughter of Akzent II). In 1995, he was approved at the stallion licensing in Verden and was bought at the auction of the same event by two university friends, Burkhard Wahler and Tönne Böckmann. He spent his entire breeding career at Klosterhof Medingen, the Wahler stable in Bad Bevensen.

At the stallion performance test in 1996 in Adelheidsdorf, De Niro placed second among the 50 stallions entered, with a score of 141.93; a score of which a significant part was the striking 145.00 in the dressage test. This marked the beginning of a path that turned De Niro from a promising stallion into one of the most outstanding breeding horses in the history of dressage.

Unlike many top stallions who are known only in a breeding role, De Niro also followed a serious competition career. Under Dolf-Dietram Keller, he progressed to Grand Prix level, won the Otto Lörke Award for the best national Grand Prix newcomer in 2000, captured the German championship for professional riders in 2001, and became champion at the German Dressage Derby in Hamburg in 2003. In the final years of his competition career, Theresa Wahler, the young daughter of the stable owner, took the reins and guided him to the Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire levels, until he made his final competition appearance in 2009 at CDR Sandbostel.

But it was as a breeding stallion that De Niro became a legend. In 2008 he earned the title of Hanoverian Stallion of the Year, and went on to sit time and again at the top of the WBFSH world rankings for the best dressage stallions; first in 2012, and then in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 — six times in total, an achievement unmatched among his contemporaries (only in 2014 did Gribaldi take first place).

De Niro’s legacy is also reflected in the numbers: in Germany alone, 86 licensed stallions and 193 elite state premium mares descended from him, more than 1,245 broodmares in Germany and more than 2,600 offspring worldwide carry his bloodline. His offspring earned nearly three million euros in prize money, 434 of his offspring reached advanced dressage levels, and more than 215 horses competed at S level in Germany. His dressage breeding index reached 147 points, one of the highest figures recorded at the time; and as a sire of dams, by the mid-2000s his name appeared behind about thirty percent of the top-ranked mares in the Hanoverian society.

De Niro’s offspring is a list of the shining names of global dressage: Desperados FRH, Dancier, D'Agostino, Dablino, Delgado, Daily Pleasure, Deveraux, Daintree, Dandelion, Disneyworld and Danone I, each under a different rider, reached Grand Prix level or international championship arenas. Dancier, who was the most expensive foal sold at the 2004 auction in Medingen, himself became an elite licensed stallion and extended the De Niro bloodline to another generation of elite stallions.

De Niro retired from breeding in 2016 due to age-related health decline, including chronic hoof lameness, and ultimately died on 11 October 2017 at Klosterhof Medingen, at the age of 24. The world of dressage remembered him, in eurodressage’s words, as “the world’s number one producer of Grand Prix dressage horses”; a horse who, together with his sire Donnerhall, rewrote the definition of the modern dressage stallion — both a champion in the arena and a foundation sire whose legacy continues to live on through sons, descendants, and thousands of broodmares around the world.

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