• Afire Bey V x ES Gianalli

 

With the arrival of this special colt, Maplewood goes back to the beginning. G is the fifth generation deriving from our first mare we purchased, in the 80’s under the guidance of Greg Fratt – then working as the Patterson’s breeding manager.

Galia (*Chazar x Gildia) was a treasure, with beauty that transcended to each offspring. We purchased her together with Gambria, her Negatraz daughter. I’ll never forget the day we walked into the seller’s barn and saw both mares turn their focus to our entry over the top of the stall dividers. Their HUGE, black, intelligent eyes captivating and engaging who ever they met. Their presence was always sophisticated.

We subsequently bred Gambria to *Pepi (Celebes), imported by Magness Arabians. We were already moving towards the desire for athleticism – which *Pepi possessed. The result of this cross produced Giaa who was later sold with a breeding to our stallion Balagan. Infusing many layers of size, strength and English-type motion produced a rare combination in the mare ES Gianalli. We bought her back as a mature mare in 2008 to build a fortress of Balagan blood similar to our stallion Erykk.

We felt to complete the circle for today’s show horse we should go back to Afire Bey V who had found a niche in our program. This would be our third AFBV foal. By crossing Erykk’s paternal sisters (we bred both of them to AFBV) we would prove our belief that this cross was a good bet. As it turns out – G underscores the compatibility of generations of Polish warhorse breeding of might-and-bone matched with the elegance of Afire Bey V’s predictable “front end”. One look at G and we know he inherited both.

G’s neck is so perfectly structured to wear a bridle his early days were made difficult to wear even the smallest foal halter. His neck bent so tightly at the poll and his head nestled so perpendicularly that even a knotted baby halter would fall to the base of his neck and restrict his freedom to exercise. This is unusual and indicative of an ‘outlier’ in breeding – otherwise known as a ‘black swan.’ We love freakish extremes and have found these breeding exceptions are the nuggets of success to build your program around.

G will be carefully nurtured to represent Maplewood at the highest levels of competition in the coming years. He is nominated as an Arabian English Pleasure Yearling Futurity entry!