About Finnish Dressage riding and breeding

The Finnish Equestrian Federation was established in 1930, so its 70th anniversary will be in the year 2000. The Riding Federation has approximately 20 000 members, the number of members has increased quite a lot during the last two years. The riding sport as a whole has grown very rapidly in the last 10 years and I assume that Kyra Kyrklund's international success has had a big influence in this.

The studbook for Finnish Warmblood Horses (FWB) is rather small. As in so many European countries the breeding of riding horses decreased quite a lot, when the cavalry was put down. That happened in Finland in the 60's. But Finnish breeding is on its way. Today the FWB - studbook consists of 1000 mares and 20 stallions.

The most famous horse in the Finnish studbook is naturally the stallion Matador II. His father is May Sherif, which is also the sire of Andiamo on which Otto Hofer and Sven Rothenberger competed. Andiamo won the World cup in 1990 and Matador in 1991. Matador came to Finland as a three years old. As you know Matador was sold to Japan in 1991.

Before Matador changed owner he was trained and competed by Kyra Kyrklund. On their merit list is a 5:th place in Seoul Olympics,88, 2nd place in Stockholm ,WEG 90 and World Cup Winner 1991. After that Kyra continued her career with the Russian trakehner stallion Edinburg finishing 5th in Barcelona Olympics, 92 and 4th in the European Championships in 93. After Edinburg came the stallion Flyinge Amiral (bred by Flyinge Studfarm from Sweden).

Matador has left a lot of foals in Finland, but unfortunately they have not been as good as their father was. Naturally there have been some good individuals:
The gelding Maradona won the first Finnish Breeders Prize for six year old horses in 1993. He is now competing the national small tour ,Prix. St.Georges and Intermediare I. The stallion Conquistador S is seven years old and a very promising horse. He is trained and competed by Janne Bergh, who is one of our best trainers and riders and trained by Kyra Kyrklund. Kyra is nowadays living in England, and when she left Finland, Janne took over her work in the Riding Center at Ruskeasuo in Helsinki. Janne Bergh is a member of the Finnish national dressage team and has represented Finland in the European Championships in 1997, the World Equestrian Games in 1998 and in the European Championships in 1999. Her Grand Prix-horse is a Russian gelding called Chimkent.

There are some FWB-horses which have competed internationally . Cetus, as you all know, has competed in Japan. SG Oberon is a World Champion in carrige driving singles . GG Barock has competed in show jumping and Janne Bergh has competed with the mare La Bella in dressage on the small tour with international placings.

La Bella and Janne Bergh
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This is the Finnish riding sport in short . We are all waiting for the Finnish Championships which will be held at the end of August. The dressage championships are ridden on Intermediare level. (Intermediare I, Intermediare I+ and as a final Intermediare I+ Kur. Intemediare I + (one plus) is a national test used in Finland and Sweden. It includes passage and piaff, but the piaff is only done from walk and there is no transitions between passage and piaff. At the moment we do not have so many horses and riders who can compete properly on Grand Prix-level. By lowering the standard of the Finnish Championships we get more competitors and the competition become more exciting.

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