CE So You Think You Can Dance

CE So You Think You Can Dance is an important mare within our breeding programme, by So Unique out of a Londonderry mare. Her pedigree brings together some of the most influential names in modern European dressage breeding, combining the Sezuan and Zack blood behind So Unique with the proven Hanoverian influence of Londonderry and Lauries Crusador xx on her maternal side.

Her sire, So Unique, attracted attention from a young age for his exceptional movement and quality. By Sezuan, he carries one of the most influential modern dressage lines of recent years. Sezuan combined an outstanding young-horse career with considerable success as a breeding stallion, becoming particularly renowned for producing expressive, athletic dressage horses.

Behind Sezuan is Zack, adding further depth to the pedigree. Zack developed through to international Grand Prix himself and became enormously influential in modern dressage breeding, with his blood now appearing throughout successful international sport and breeding pedigrees.

The maternal side of CE So You Think You Can Dance's pedigree provides an interesting complement to this modern Dutch and Danish influence. Her dam is by Londonderry, bringing the highly regarded blood of Lauries Crusador xx into the pedigree.

Londonderry became an important Hanoverian breeding stallion and was particularly valued for the type, elegance and rideability he passed to his offspring. The Thoroughbred influence of Lauries Crusador xx behind him adds another dimension to the pedigree, bringing refinement and athleticism alongside the more powerful modern dressage blood on the paternal side.

For us, this balance is one of the particularly interesting aspects of CE So You Think You Can Dance's breeding. She combines the expression and movement associated with So Unique, Sezuan and Zack with the refinement and established maternal influence of Londonderry and Lauries Crusador xx.

More importantly, she is now beginning to establish a family of her own within our breeding programme.

With Fürst Romancier, she produced CE Fürst Unique Romance (Louis) and his full sister CE Fürst Unique Love (Flo). The mating adds the influential Fürst Heinrich and Florestan blood behind Fürst Romancier to an already strong dressage pedigree.

Louis is a particularly laid-back young horse with a huge amount of range and is expected to mature into a big horse. Because of this, he will be given plenty of time to grow and strengthen before being asked for more physically. His temperament and scope make him an exciting horse for us to watch develop.

His full sister Flo gives us another opportunity to assess the consistency of the Fürst Romancier combination. As a filly, she is also particularly interesting for the future of the family, with the potential to carry this maternal line forward within our breeding programme once she has had the opportunity to prove herself in her own right.

CE So You Think You Can Dance has also produced CE Toto Étoile en Pointe (Betty), by Glock’s Toto Jr. This mating brings the blood of Totilas and Desperados FRH into the family, creating another combination packed with proven international dressage performance.

Betty is particularly interesting to us because she represents a different cross from Louis and Flo while retaining the same maternal foundation. As these horses mature, we will be able to see which characteristics CE So You Think You Can Dance consistently contributes across different stallions rather than judging her influence from a single mating.

This is ultimately what we want to achieve with our broodmares. An impressive pedigree is important, but our aim is to build recognisable maternal families over multiple generations, learning which qualities each mare reliably passes on and which stallion combinations complement them best.

Through Louis, Flo and Betty, CE So You Think You Can Dance is beginning to establish exactly that sort of family for us. With three young horses from two very different sire lines, we are excited to follow their development through the coming years and see how the qualities within her So Unique, Sezuan, Zack and Londonderry pedigree translate into performance, temperament and ultimately the next generation of our breeding programme.