"The weekend has brought a flurry of breeding enquiries. The sunshine does remind us that the foaling season is nigh for the warmbloods, with the foals coming and imminent coverings, very wise breeders have done their homework long before their foals are born.

When choosing a stallion it is wise to consider which breed society he is approved with. The higher up the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) ranking the stud book is then usually the more popular and widely recognised the passport will be. The passport you select can influence the price of your foal and the size of your market if you decide to sell him or her. It is worth mentioning stud books producing FEI point scoring offspring must be selecting the right stallions for breeding.

It is a huge consideration for breeders in Europe as to which breed society they follow for their breeding goals. They pay attention only to stallions registered with their chosen breed society, the most successful stud books host highly popular stallion selections with people coming from every corner of the world to see the stallions being presented and to see the return of already approved stallions successful in the sport who do wonderful displays. These events have a great atmosphere and are enjoyed by everyone. Mooiman HFD was invited to the 2009 stallion show in Den Bosche, Holland.

Stud book preference is all very relevant to us at the moment. Every stud looks to grow and develop, reinvesting and introducing new blood to the already successful breeding programs. We hope to expand our stallion barn for the 2010 season, so on Monday we flew out to Holland and Germany to see a selection of stallions approved with the top three most successful stud books in the world with the prospect of one of them coming to Holden Fold to join the other stallions at stud. We arrived back late on Tuesday night with some very interesting options in mind and very, very tired.

During our trip, we kept close to hand the breeding values taken from the stud books while observing the stallions presented to us. They become a template for breeders to reference back to. I had a question emailed to H&C a couple of weeks ago, which I believe the answer to which can be found by referencing back to this same template.

In short, I was asked for advice on how to condition the top line in two months.

The KWPN stud book refers to the top line of the horse as the upper beam. The criteria for a dressage horse is that the neck should be long, raised and arched with muscling in the 'top line'. He should have a strongly muscled and strongly built back/loin formation. This is slightly different for the jumping horse, where the neck is required to be only slightly raised. These values are applied to the two-and-a-half-year-old stallions. When presented for approval, these horses carry very little excess weight, so we can safely say that the top line is primarily a compliment inherited from good breeding and is a natural part of the horses conformation.

However, we must also educate ourselves on what muscle formation makes up the top line and what movements the horse can do to use these muscles in order to develop them in a correct way. To name but a few, the neck hosts the rhomboidious/splenius and trapeziums muscle group. Coming to the back, we have the huge latissimus dorsi leading to the mass of gluteal muscles in the hind quarters. It is well know that contraction and expansion of muscle groups encourage development and growth combined with a balanced diet.

A complex combination of exercises including bending/flexion/expansion of the frame using rhythm changes and developing outline variations while moving all contribute to top line developement. Much responsibility is on the shoulders of the rider to be in such good balance and well educated as not to have a negative influence when performing this work, so it is quite impossible to answer this question lightly and without proper assessment of the horse and his rider, but I hope this form of reply goes someway to point you in the right direction to find a way forward. What I can say is that outline development can not be achieved in just two months.

On Wednesday, we had a hopeful breeder travel many hours from deepest darkest Devon to veiw one of the stud yearlings. This is not a task for the faint hearted. Every breeder knows the most disproportionate stage of the horses developement is the one and two-year-old phase. The youngsters were a little too fresh, galloping wildly but with the weather interrupting area use they have not had as much leg stretch as we would usually like, but despite all this we liked what we saw. It is nice to be pleased with how your youngstock are looking."