12/05/2026
GRAFENSTOLZ arrived in the UK in 2009, when I bought him from Thomas Casper at Birkhof.
So the first British generations were born in 2010, 2011 and 2012. These foals went on to lay waste to the British breeding Futurity classes, leaving Grafenstolz as the leading sire across all disciples during those years. The judges just knew the breeding as the foals trotted into the ring. They didn’t have look at their sheets.
Graf and his stable mate ROYALDIK, equally laid waste to all the stallion shows/parades during that time, with displays at Badminton, Burghley and Belton. With scope that had never been seen and movement at GP dressage level, ridden by Sarah Cutteridge, Alex Hua Tian, Ginny Howe and Lara de Leidekerke amongst others. They were great days, fun days, even with stacks of s**t thrown at me and Graf by some of the dreadful people that infect our industry.
I remember the very first stallion show that Graf did at Belton and one stallion owner walking past a big eventing breeder, saying “I think I’ve just seen the end of my stallions’ career!”. Quite a thing to say. It wasn’t quite but it did reduce their numbers.
Those generations moved on to the 2016 finals of the Burghley young event horse, with 80 finalists across the two age groups, and GRAFENSTOLZ being sure of 8 of them, and he certainly hadn’t covered ten percent of the mares.
Several years later those three years generations went onto Lion d’Angers world championships and I think Graf had four in one of the age classes.
All of those four have now competed at Badminton, one of them has won it three times.
You can say I’m biased if you like but the numbers don’t lie: use a stallion that can do the job better than anyone else and produce better than anyone else, and your pathway to five star isn’t guaranteed, but it’s way easier.
Now we’re watching big numbers for Grafenstolz again, so we’ll talk again in 12 years time when we’ll be seeing exactly the same level of performances and success.
I understand that Ros has at least two other Graf kids in her stables, coming through…………..
