United Touch S ed Ermitage Kalone
Luca Paparelli
United Touch S and Ermitage Kalone, two super performer stallions and top breeders already.
They are supported by two different ‘schools of thought’ but above all by their extraordinary quality.
Sports have always epochal champions and, for show jumping, this is the era of United Touch S and Ermitage Kalone, two phenomenal stallions with offspring already following in their footsteps.
But while there is general agreement in the world of breeding, among professionals therefore, that their show jumping results are extraordinary, people are divided over a preference for ‘the dark one’ or ‘the blond one’, as the stallions are referred to, precisely to highlight their differences and preferences.
Indeed United Touch S and Ermitage Kalone are dissimilar in terms of their genetics, conformation, size and appearance, but they share an innate style and the disarming ease with which they can clear any kind of jump.
The dark one
United Touch S is unique and special thanks also to his ancestry with the inbreeding to Classic Touch (Caletto II x Landgraf I), Olympic gold at Barcelona.
Through his twice granddam Cantate Touch (Capitol I / Classic Touch), a high level jumper with Ben Schroder, United Touch S is in fact on both paternal and maternal sides a descendant of Ludger Beerbaum’s great international winner.
Some believe that this consanguinity constitutes a limit to his use at stud. Others, on the contrary, feel that the availability of top-level genetics like his, ‘concentrated’ and confirmed in competitions, provides a rare opportunity compared to the male lines that have been predominant and dominant commercially for over two decades.
The blond one
Ermitage Kalone is the performer stallion of the moment with thousands of mares from all of the European studbooks being bred by him.
Everyone is talking about him, everyone wants him, but it is the figures that actually forecast him to be one of the top producing stallions of the next few years: indeed, almost 450 of his offspring are registered in the Selle Francais studbook, his original studbook, and over 800 are registered in the BWP, in Belgium, where he was imported at the age of three and where he has been awarded the title of ‘Ambassador.’
A large-framed stallion, but well-proportioned, elegant and with exceptional elasticity, he is of classic ancestry but at the same time an ‘outsider’.
His sire Catoki and his maternal grandsire Kannan indeed confirm his position within the range of top modern sports genetics, while he gets his solidity and foundation from the French AA damline that has produced some of the best Anglo-Arab international winners.