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A
little background about Bel-Air
Janet
Starr, of New York, imported Swedish Warmblood stallion prospects
from Sweden in recent years, a cremello, Banquo, and two palominos,
Bel-Air and Beltane. She co-owns Banquo who is also an Approved,
Foundation stallion with SHOC.
Here's
a short story about these rare Swedish Warmblood stallions
and how they got to the U.S., as told by Janet Starr: "In
1991, I went to Sweden to look for a stallion prospect. I
was specifically looking for a son of Flamingo. While there
I looked up the breeders of a stallion that I already owned
named Lucullus, "Luke." ... I took some video footage of an
18 month old colt which happened to be a palomino - Bel-Air!
I purchased a colt by Flamingo (Flamenco) and returned to
the US. When my husband saw the footage of Bel-Air he thought
that we should purchase him as well....this was when Art Deco
was making a tremendous influence on the breeding market and
there were virtually no palomino warmbloods. I made a call
over to Sweden and purchased Bel-Air. He arrived here that
fall. Bel-Air is out of a Cremello mare named Belle-Rose.
I learned from the breeder that every chestnut stallion he
bred her to always produced a palomino. A couple of years
later I called to Sweden thinking that I would look for a
palomino mare to breed to Bel-Air to produce a cremello. I
figured that it would take several years to make my own cremello.
The mare had been sold to a woman who agreed to breed the
mare for me and sell me the resulting foal. We bred the mare
to Nactus that year but she did not get pregnant. (She was
almost 20 at that time.) I asked her to return the mare the
next season and I agreed to buy the offspring. In the meantime
she went to a farm and found the cremello colt "Banquo, "
called me and told me his bloodlines and I bought him sight
unseen. He was just 10 days old at the time. I couldn't believe
my good fortune. The following season Belle-Rose conceived
to the stallion Nactus. Since I had agreed to buy the resulting
offspring I ended up importing the colt Beltane."
Bel-Air,
a gorgeous, nearly chocolate color, dappled, Palomino Swedish
Warmblood, co-owned by Nicole Imbriglio and his trainer, Pierre
Belanger, was successfully eventing prior to Nicole acquiring
him. Nicole reports that Bel-Air enjoyed jumping and was shown
in February 2000 at a couple of "A" shows in low jumpers and
got two firsts. He won one of the classes by 9 seconds! He
competed in Southern Pines twice and at unrecognized shows,
winning all of those classes too. They were at 4'3." He was
slated to begin showing again in the fall of 2000 doing mini-prixs...
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