CE Toreador

CE Toreador, known at home as Tintin, is by Secret Secret out of our second-generation homebred mare CE Da Vinci’s Red Red Wine (Rummi). His pedigree brings together some particularly exciting modern dressage bloodlines alongside generations of proven performance on both sides. Already highly regarded as a foal, Tintin has been retained as a potential stallion prospect and is a horse we are incredibly excited about for the future.

Tintin’s sire, Secret Secret, is by Secret out of a mare by Hochmeister. Secret Secret demonstrated considerable quality as a young horse himself, achieving an exceptional 95% in a British Dressage four-year-old class before later being gelded and sold overseas. Although this brought his breeding career to an early end, his performance under saddle provided an exciting demonstration of the quality, movement and rideability within his pedigree.

Through Secret Secret’s sire, Tintin carries the highly successful Secret–Sezuan–Zack line. Secret enjoyed an outstanding career as a young dressage horse, becoming Vice World Champion as a five-year-old before going on to win the World Championship for six-year-old dressage horses. He subsequently established himself as a highly influential breeding stallion.

Behind Secret sits Sezuan, one of the most successful young dressage horses of his generation. Sezuan achieved the remarkable feat of winning the World Young Horse Championships at five, six and seven years old. His sire, Zack, progressed to international Grand Prix, represented Denmark at championship level and became an enormously influential dressage sire. This gives Tintin successive generations in which exceptional young-horse quality has been accompanied by proven performance at the highest levels of the sport.

Secret Secret’s maternal line adds another particularly interesting dimension through Hochmeister, a son of Hohenstein I. Hohenstein, by Caprimond, became an important influence within dressage breeding and is particularly associated with rideability, type and quality. The continuing relevance of this bloodline can be seen in modern international dressage pedigrees, including Zonik Plus, who is out of a Hohenstein mare and has gone on to compete successfully at international Grand Prix level.

Behind Hohenstein sits Caprimond, another hugely influential Trakehner stallion whose performance and breeding legacy helped establish a line renowned for rideability and dressage aptitude. This gives Secret Secret an interesting balance between the modern Secret–Sezuan–Zack blood through his sire and the established Hochmeister–Hohenstein–Caprimond line through his dam.

Tintin’s dam, Rummi, adds further depth to the pedigree. One of our first second-generation homebred broodmares, Rummi is by our own CE Sir Fidermeyer out of CE Idonae. Through CE Sir Fidermeyer, Tintin carries the German influence of Sir Fidergold, Sarkozy, Fidermark and Weltmeyer, adding another established branch of German dressage breeding.

The maternal line through CE Idonae introduces a strong Dutch performance influence. Idonae is by UB40 out of a Junior STV mare. UB40 became an influential sire and is particularly well known as the sire of international Grand Prix stallion Apache. Further back, Junior STV combined outstanding young-horse performance with success at international Grand Prix with Anky van Grunsven. Having won the Pavo Cup as both a four- and five-year-old, he progressed through the levels to the highest level of the sport. His sire, Uniform, was subsequently awarded the KWPN Preferent predicate.

Tintin therefore brings together an unusually deep collection of performance and breeding influences. Secret, Sezuan and Zack provide some of the most successful modern young-horse and Grand Prix blood on his sire line, complemented by the established Hochmeister, Hohenstein and Caprimond influence. Through Rummi, this is combined with Sir Fidergold, Sarkozy, Fidermark, Weltmeyer, UB40 and Junior STV.

Importantly, Tintin is already beginning to add achievements of his own to that pedigree. He achieved the highest foal grading score at the 2025 AES grading, an incredibly exciting result for us and an early indication of the quality we hoped the mating would produce.

His result is also part of an increasingly encouraging production record for Rummi. She has produced three foals to date, all of which have been of exceptional quality, with CE Ecstasy of Gold, by Morricone III, achieving a High Premium grading in 2026. Seeing Rummi produce highly regarded offspring from different stallions gives us increasing confidence in her ability to consistently pass on quality and makes this maternal family particularly important to the future of our breeding programme.

Tintin has therefore been retained as a potential stallion prospect. Our immediate aim is to present him at the BEF Futurity in 2027, giving us another opportunity to assess his development as a young horse. Providing he continues to mature as we hope, the longer-term plan is to produce him carefully towards the appropriate young horse classes in the years that follow, allowing his movement, temperament, trainability and eventually his ridden performance to contribute to decisions about his future.

There is still plenty for Tintin to prove before we make any decision about presenting him for stallion licensing. For us, his pedigree and foal grading are an exciting starting point rather than the finished article. We want to see him develop into a quality performance horse in his own right and, if he continues to demonstrate the qualities we hope for, potentially earn his place as part of the next generation of stallions within our breeding programme.