Kate Landon
Connect with Kate on Facebook!
How did you get started breeding dressage horses?
Hi, my name is Kate Landon. I own an eighty five acre farm in Yreka, CA, a small town 20 miles south of the border with Oregon, right off Interstate 5. I grew up here, where my parents bred, raised, and raced Thoroughbreds from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s. From a very young age, I was interested in bloodlines and breeding nicks which were known for producing the best racehorses. I loved, more than anything, working with the mares and foals, from foaling out to getting them ready for the yearling sales and training the ones who were not sold, to gallop on our half of a mile training track. The ones who were too slow or unsuccessful as race horses came home, where I rode and trained them as hunter/jumpers and traveled up and down the west coast showing and selling them.
At the age of 29, when one of the too slow Thoroughbreds, didn’t jump well enough to be a hunter or jumper, I wanted to see if he was more suited to being a dressage horse. Knowing nothing about dressage, I signed up to go to a clinic with Eicke Von Veltheim. Little did I know, it turned out to be a life changing event for me! He became my coach and mentor for the next eighteen years, and instilled in me, a love for all things dressage.
Because I was not wealthy enough to go to Germany to buy a top horse to ride and because I had a nice farm and experience raising young horses, I started breeding my own riding horses.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I used Thoroughbred mares and bred them to the warmblood stallions in the US available with fresh chilled semen. At the time, there were not very many good stallions here and there were very few, if any, nicely bred, well conformed and moving warmblood mares in the country. You would never see an expensive imported horse in the warmup arenas at the shows. People just didn’t have or were not willing to spend the money on such a horse just to earn a blue ribbon. Since then, dressage in the US has grown in leaps and bounds. The quality of the horses, both at the shows and what breeders are producing, has gone up considerably.
What is one of your proudest moments as a breeder?
I am very proud to own mares from some of the very best damlines in Germany and Holland. To name a few of my mares, I have a KWPN daughter of Flemmingh, who is a half sister to the dam of the internationally successful and former number four dressage horse in the world, Scandic; a gold medal premium Westphalian daughter of Sir Donnerhall, who stems from the Aricia damline, which has produced over 45 approved stallions and a large number of successful riding horses; a KWPN daughter of Negro, who is a half sister to an international up and coming Grand Prix horse, and stems from the Edoste damline; a KWPN daughter of Rousseau, who comes from Bryolieta damline, which dates back to 1937, with all mares receiving predicates for the successes of their offspring; and an Oldenburg daughter of Brentano II, who descends from the Dutch Kieni damline, another very well established line in Holland.
My mares aren’t perfect, there is no such thing as a perfect mare, however, I believe by combining their bloodlines with stallions who can, for instance, improve the type on an older fashioned mare, or add height to a smaller mare, or more knee to a flatter moving mare, I should be able to make excellent horses for the top of our sport. It is my goal and my dream!
Left: Kate Landon’s mare Summertime KR, Gold medal premium Westphalian mare, by Sir Donnerhall I x Verband Premium Florestan I, shown here with her 2021 colt by Totilas, who was awarded Elite foal and stallion prospect by the GOV last summer. The judges also made the comment that he was the best Totilas foal they had seen, in the both the US and Europe! | Center: Kate Landon’s mare Kefiera LH, Negro x Johnson, just after she arrived two and a half years ago, at five years of age. She has filled out a lot since then and looks like a mommy now! She a very easy keeper. She is expecting a foal by Total Hope next spring. | Right: Kate Landon’s mare Gelita O, Ster, Prok. IBOP, By Rousseau x Boy B x Damiro. she is expecting her first foal for me next spring, by Vitalos
How have your goals for your program changed over the years?
Throughout the years, my goal of producing nice riding horses has not changed. However, with the vast quantity of information available to us via the internet, as well as access to the top stallions using frozen semen, I have been able to upgrade my mares and make better selections on which stallions to use on each mare.
My main priority in selecting the mares I have today is the damline. The damline is so important to the breeders in Europe as well as with the Thoroughbred breeders in my past. Indeed, the KWPN, will not select young stallions for the approvals, unless they are out of a well established damline. A damline, which has produced top competition horses for generations upon generations, bodes well for the future offspring from the line. I would tell anyone who is looking to start a breeding program to always research the damline. There are so many mares by good stallions, but unless they are out of a very good damline, they are not mares I am or would be interested in as a broodmare.
What is your plan for next season?
For next year, I have five foals coming.
Vitalos, a very promising Vitalis son who just won the silver medal in the five year old division at the YHWC, out of my Ster, Prok, IBOP Rousseau daughter.
Va’Pensiero, another top five year old Vitalis son, who won the Hanoverian Championships and was favored to place very high at the YHWC, but unfortunately, had a small injury, which kept him from being able to compete. This foal is out of my Sir Donnerhall mare.
McLaren, a gorgeous son of Morricone, who won all of the young horse competitions early this year in Holland, out of my Flemmingh daughter.
Gorgeous Latino, by Toto Jr. out a super successful damline in Holland. He is the best six year old this year in the US, and I expect he will continue to shine in part due to having one of the best riders, Sabine Kerry, as his trainer. The dam of this one is a beautiful Royal Doruto daughter from the very successful Flattopia damline.
Total Hope, the Totilas x Weihegold son, who is already winning at international Grand Prix level at nine years of age, out of my Negro mare.
As for the future and what my plans will be, stallions who are having a huge influence on our sport currently, seem to be Sezuan, Vivaldi, Gribaldi, and Escolar. I know I am leaving out quite a few very good stallions as there are just too many of them! However, I will be using sons and grandsons of the above mentioned stallions next spring.
What advice do you have for buyers who are interested in buying young horses?
My advice to people looking to buy foals is, first of all, look here before looking abroad. We have many very serious breeders who have excellent mares and breed to the very best stallions. Most of us are not wealthy and the costs to raise foals and the up keep on mares is extremely high. If we have no buyers, or the buyers would rather buy in Europe, we will not be able to continue to produce foals and without the breeders, there will be no riding horses in the future.
Do your homework and buy foals from breeders with a good reputation for raising and handling foals. No one wants to get a highly anticipated foal off a van that is hard to catch and put a halter on.
My guarantee to anyone interested in my foals, is that each one of them will receive the very best of care. They will be friendly, well mannered foals on a good deworming, vaccination and farrier schedule.
Left: Kate Landon’s 2022 foal by Ibiza | Right: Kate Landon’s 2022 foal by Le Formidable