Clone of Jan Tops’ famous Top Gun to stand at Stud….
Soon, the clone of Jan Tops’ Top Gun la Silla (Grannus x Winnetou) will stand at stud in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. Owned by Joris de Brabander, the Top Gun clone is four years old and not yet approved as a stallion. Joris de Brabander is well know within the international community of show jumping and breeding. Joris owns a wide variety of well known stallions including World Equestrian Games Champion Vigo d’Arsouilles STX and Nabob de Reve.
The intention is that the clone of Top Gun will be approved by the Anglo European Studbook (AES). There is plenty of reasons to assume the stallion will be approved, as Joris was successful with the approval of the clone of the Quidam de Revel, who now stands at stud. Joris owns a number of stallions approved with AES, including Taran de la Pomme, the new grey stallion of Kevin Staut (FRA), and Golden Hawk (ex. Figo de Muze) of Ireland’s Shane Breen, Joris De Brabander already owns two half brothers of the Olympic sensation London (ridden by Gerco Schröder) approved with AES. Joris also has the AES approved clone of Quidam de Revel at stud. His youngest talents are Cadeau de Muze, the son of Nabab de Rêve and Atlanta (Katharina Offel), and also the four-year-old Denzel vh Meulenhof, by Marius Claudius and Narcotique IV de Muze (Ludo Philippaerts).
Top Gun La Silla was the top Olympic mount of famed Dutch rider Jan Tops. Together Jan and Top Gun won nine international/Championship Grand Prix titles, earning podium placings in 22 championship competitions from 1991 to 1998. The Hanoverian gelding, born in 1982, started competition with Great Britain’s Nick Skelton before being sold to Jan Tops and Alfonso Romo. Tops rode him to wins in the European Championships and to an Olympic Team Gold medal in Barcelona, Spain.
“I have ridden thousands of horses in my career, but there is only one Top Gun. The horse you get only once in a life,” says Jan Tops. Top Gun La Silla retired in 1999 to Jan Tops’ property in Valkensvaard, the Netherlands. His cells were banked with Cryozootech in 2002. He was one of the first horses to be banked by Cryozootech principal Eric Palmer.
The Hanoverian stallion Grannus is one of the greatest sires in the world, with progeny earnings of more than $3 million USD. His offspring includes more than 60 approved stallions and seven Olympic horses. He is the sire of many international performers, including Grannusch (John Whitaker), Almox Grand Plaisir (Ludger Beerbaum), and Remus Equo (AM Bauer).
Source: Equnews