Wilhelm Rüscher-Konermann is dead

The message is brief: “Rest in peace” is written above a photo of Wilhelm Rüscher-Konermann. But there is a lot to say about this horseman, who had the idea of turning his parents’ farm into a stallion station as a child. His dream became reality in 1985. The stallion Playboy by Platon was the first stallion to move into the newly established breeding station. Three years later, Labrador brought the Landgraf I bloodline to Westphalia. The popularity of the great Holsteiner’s offspring was reflected in the covering figures. Within one breeding season, 90 mares were bred to Labrador by natural breeding (!).

Philosophy: Breeding and sport

The first home-bred stallion to enrich the station was the Frühlingsball-Ramiro son Feuertanz, who himself was highly successful in sport with Annette Rüscher-Konermann and also produced several advanced (S) level show jumpers.

It was no coincidence that Feuerglanz was also used in sport alongside his duties as a stallion. A number of Rüscher-Konermann stallions have also proven themselves in sport, such as Floresco NRW. He was brought into international sport by Patrik Kittel and took part in the 2008 Olympic Games with him. He was later the trainer for Moroccan rider Yessin Rahmouni. This Florestan son was an example of Wilhelm Rüscher-Konermann’s horse sense, as he discovered him as a weanling with breeder Konrad Langhorst.

However, the foundation stone for the dressage enthusiasm was laid by another stallion who was already successful at Grand Prix level when he moved into his stall as a sire in Greven: the Trakehner Biotop by Blesk, the last great success horse of Dr. Reiner Klimke before he died far too early.

One stallion who combined dressage talent with jumping genes was the Hanoverian Lissaro van de Helle, a son of Lissabon, who had moved in with the Rüscher-Konermann family in 2006. However, Lissaro had already been born a year earlier at Jürgen Dittmer’s stables. He became a premium stallion at his licensing and was available to breeders via the Rüscher-Konermann station from 2008. In the same year, he and the Stedinger son Schumacher made the name Rüscher-Konermann known far beyond the borders of Westphalia. Daughter Claudia, who, like her sister Annette, is now a master of equine management, presented both stallions at the Bundeschampionat, where Lissaro won the first of three titles on the Warendorf dressage ring and Schumacher also won silver. It was the first time that Claudia Rüscher-Konermann had been able to recommend herself for the Bundeschampionat. A perfect debut!

The station had another Bundeschampion in the Belissimo M son Baccardi, whose son Borghese MT recently impressed in the Nuremberg Burg Pokal Final. The station’s youngest celebrity was the Glamourdale son Glamdale WP, who won silver at the World Championships for Young Dressage Horses as a five-year-old with station trainer Stefanie Ahlert and is now being trained further by Leonie Richter.

The next generation

In 2015, Wilhelm Rüscher-Konermann was awarded the Ramzes Prize for special services to horse breeding at the Tournament of Champions. Sisters Annette and Claudia Rüscher-Konermann are continuing their father’s legacy.