Netto

Recently, a regular reader emailed me and asked if I would comment on this stallion in my journal. Here goes. I've only seen him once; he was presented at the Stallion Show last year. At the time, I knew nothing about him. My initial impression was, wow, he's cool. For some reason, however, his rider chose to only show him in piaffe and passage--we never saw him canter. When a friend of mine in Holland told me he had bred his mare to Netto, I asked, "Does he have a canter?"

I wasn't being snide. Why would you show your Grand Prix stallion in front of thousands of potential breeders and only piaffe and passage?  Evidently, Netto does have a canter--I just haven't seen it.

As a breeding stallion, I'm not sure about him.  He's obviously a really talented and powerful dressage horse who has made it to Grand Prix, so, right there, he's worth breeding to on some level.  However, as a young horse, he was presented to the KWPN and refused.  I don't know the reason, but I can surmise that his sire, Negro, hadn't yet made his splash, so the weakness in the mareline and type of Netto couldn't be overlooked.  Now, everyone is Negro crazy--hence, a powerful, expressive stallion son who is at Grand Prix looks pretty good, regardless of his motherline and how he looked as a young horse.

The motherline has some good stallions, but there's only one good mare that I can see, his granddam. His mother has produced a number of offspring, but most of them are foalbook or studbook.  The mareline is known as a jumper line--that could be another reason Netto wasn't interesting to the KWPN when he was first presented; he's bred to be an all rounder, and the KWPN shifted to specialists right around the time he would have been presented.  This being said, he's got Purioso, Nimmerdor, and Courville xx as sires his mareline--all good to very good stallions.

So, as you can see, my opinion is all over the place on this stallion.  My guess is that he's not going to be a super consistent producer of type or keuring horses, but that doesn't mean he won't produce sport horses, especially since he himself has made it to Grand Prix.  Personally, I'm going to wait a bit and see what he produces.  I know I'm in the minority, but I'm not a huge Negro fan.  I'm happier breeding to Everdale or Fairytale--they're a little more removed from Negro himself and more interesting in the mareline than Netto.