Dante Weltino - Oldenburg with Olympia in his blood, in sport and in breeding

It may be that black stallions find it a little easier to stand out. Especially when everyone agrees: a beautiful horse! If movement and charisma are added to this, you can already tick a few boxes on the “ideal dressage horse” wish list. But none of this would be enough if it weren’t for the inner attitude. Eagerness to work, ego and ambition, which also got in Dante Weltino’s way as a young horse: Remember – world-class horses that still canter and trot through the arena at the age of 18 in such a way that a murmur goes through the audience may well finish 23rd at the Bundeschampionat. Many of the horses ranked ahead of him at the time have hardly been heard of since. Unlike Dante Weltino.

A first, and what a first

Dante Weltino is an Oldenburg who was born in Western Pomerania. On the farm of Olaf Bahls and his father Fritz. Olaf Bahls purchased his dam, Rihanna by Welt Hit II-Noble Roi xx, as a foal. The aim: to find a filly with bloodlines. And an Oldenburg, “because that’s where the music plays,” says Bahls, who runs the farm all by himself. It was 2003 and Bahls felt the desire for change and improvement on his farm in Trebeltal. “I wanted to strengthen my breeding activities and went to Lemwerder to the Sosath’schen Hof foal show. I had a filly in mind. With a fairly high proportion of thoroughbreds, because I’m an absolute fan of them, and I actually found what I was looking for there.” The Martens family bred the filly. From the Richonse line. According to Oldenburg tradition, mares are always named after the first letter of their dam’s name. The “Ri” at the beginning has been there for generations. This is also the case with this family, which can be traced back to the 19th century.

An illustrious lineage

At first glance, only one thoroughbred stands out in the pedigree: Noble Roi xx, a bay who has sired horses for all three disciplines at the highest level. Sire Windwurf xx goes back to one of the famous mares of German thoroughbred breeding, Waldrun – incidentally a horse that can also be found in the pedigree of Dante Weltino’s sire Danone. In addition to the thoroughbred Waidmannsdank xx used in Hanover, the thoroughbred stallion Heraldik xx, sire of several Olympic champions, also carries this line in his genealogy.

And the D ultimately stands, of course, for Donnerhall (who, by the way, was 30 percent thoroughbred himself). The stamp stallion is in the third generation, as the sire of De Niro.

Figaro, the unrecognized Oldenburg old master

Figaro in the third generation, a grandson of Furioso xx, can also be found in Isabell Werth’s Weihegold. And the lineage continues with Adrian by Adonis xx, a half-breed from the rebreeding phase in the 1950s, when the old Oldenburg work and carriage horse was first refined with thoroughbreds.

And because the filly’s sire, Welt Hit II, is out of a Hill Hawk xx dam, thoroughbred blood, in this case from Ireland, also comes into play here. This means that “Rihanna”, as the foal has been named, has more than 50 percent thoroughbred blood flowing through her veins from various sources.

Dante Weltino: 41 percent thoroughbred content

Rihanna grows into a more than respectable mare, passes a performance test and is awarded the title of State Premium Mare. She is three years old and bears her first foal. Her sire is Danone. Olaf Bahls still knows exactly why he chose this Hanoverian De Niro son, who was stationed at Klosterhof Medingen: “The great type. The right foundation for my mare, who is very blood marked, and then also this high degree of willingness to collect – those were the points. And then, of course, the pedigree.” Danone, later successful up to Grand Prix level, is a son of Well Done by Weltmeyer-Bolero. Bolero in turn goes back to Bleep xx. So thoroughbred again. There are more than 40 percent in Dante Weltino’s pedigree.

Long legs, pitch black

The birth is uncomplicated. And then he lies there in the straw. As Olaf Bahls says, “born in the best color”. “Black jacket. And then a super long-legged foal. I think we let him out for the first time on day three. And my father and I really looked at each other the moment he took his first steps. We realized then that it was different. It really put a smile on both our faces. We were sure right from the start. We’ve never had anyone like him before”.

Already in the spotlight at 14 days old

After a moment’s hesitation – should such a young foal be expected to do this? – We go to the foal show, which takes place less than 20 minutes away. The Oldenburg breeding manager, now president, Dr. Wolfgang Schulze-Schleppinghoff, approves the black foal for auction. “Danny” is the young man’s name in the catalog of the foal auction in Vechta. The hammer falls at 17,000 euros. He would have liked a little more, says breeder Bahls retrospectively. The foal goes to the Böckmann family for rearing.

Licensing 2009: “Olaf, Olaf, get in the car and come here immediately”

The black stallion is approved for licensing. But breeder Bahls does not travel to Vechta. It is a four and a half hour drive from Voigtsdorf. And Bahls looks after the farm on his own. But then he gets a call from a good friend who is there: “Olaf, Olaf, get in the car and come here straight away, the stallion is being licensed”. Bahls organizes the care of his horses and experiences another accolade – the admission to the foal auction was the first: Dante Weltino is not only licensed, but also proclaimed reserve champion.

Reserve champion, auctioned twice – in one day

The former auction foal arouses some covetousness. One person who immediately takes notice of “Dante” is the Swiss rider Urs Schweizer. He is later to become managing director of the Lodbergen Dressage Horse Performance Center, the home of Dante Weltino. At the time, he was only working there in an advisory capacity. But the reserve champion stallion fascinates him: “Well, this is actually a dream horse from every point of view. From the genetics, from the way he presented himself. There are some stallions who do lose quite a lot of their strength in these three days (at the licensing). He held up really well and this was also shown later in sport, that the stallion simply had an incredible willingness to perform.”

Spontaneous decision

Schweizer decides to buy the stallion without consulting the owners of the dressage horse performance center. His plan was that if they didn’t want the stallion, his own company, Swiss Horse Management, would buy him. At 130,000 euros, Schweizer has long since exhausted his limit. A bid in the hall of 140,000 euros wins the contract. Schweizer checks off the project and goes to the neighboring marquee to get something to eat. There he meets Peter Baron von le Fort, one of Lodbergen’s partners, and tells him about the stallion. The two eat together. The black stallion appears again on the screen with the live broadcast. There had been “discrepancies in the knockdown”. Schweizer thinks to himself and continues eating. Then he sees breeding manager Dr. Schulze-Schleppinghoff reach for the phone on the auction desk. Schweizer’s cell phone rings and the number of the breeding manager appears on the display: “Urs, where are you? You wanted to buy this stallion. He’s a great horse!”

Good ending

Schweizer reacts in his own friendly manner: “Yes, that’s right! I’m absolutely thrilled with the horse. But I don’t know if it was all done properly. And if people feel they should have more, then they’ll just have to take it home again”. The caller doesn’t want to know anything about it, “No, it wasn’t like that. It was completely different. Did you see the hind leg?” Schweizer and the baron decide to go back to the auction hall. Even if the small hope of possibly acquiring the stallion at a slightly lower price does not materialize, Schweizer wins the bid. Dante Weltino becomes the first young stallion at the new breeding station Dressurpferdezentrum Lodbergen.

Oldenburg State Championships: “Circus Horse”

First Markus Gribbe takes a seat in the saddle, then Jan Steiner. Breaking in is uncomplicated. The stallion is friendly in nature, but full of energy. The “juice” that would later give him a long career sometimes gets in his way as a young horse. Schweizer remembers the first show season of the future Olympic horse with a smile: “The first time he competed at the State Championships in Oldenburg. A judge had written “circus horse” somewhere on the evaluation sheet. The stallion’s tension and excitement had simply not been what he should have been. And the rider at the time, Jan Steiner, was very disappointed. And I said: Jan, don’t worry about it. That’s a bit in the nature of this horse. You did a great job. And I’ll tell you one thing: if the others ride into the Grand Prix really heavily armed, you can still ride this horse into the competition completely relaxed, because he always wants to!”

“Uiuiui” – Therese Nilshagen enters Dante Weltino’s life

When Jan Steiner leaves Lodbergen, a young Swedish woman introduces herself: Therese Nilshagen, born in Stockholm, actually only wanted to learn dressage riding for a year before studying law. Really, in Germany. That one year turned into several. The main reason for this is the black stallion that the Swede says:

If Dante were human, he would definitely not be timid, but self-confident. If you didn’t know him, you might think he was arrogant. And if you did know him, you’d say he’s the sweetest person in the world. And he would do anything for you.

Therese Nilshagen, 29 at the time, comes to Lodbergen for the preliminary riding. There she climbs into the saddle of the horse that is to become her “Once in a Lifetime Horse” for the first time: “And then I got on Dante and then I thought uiuiui. It felt like I was imagining driving a Lamborghini.” Therese is thrilled. “I really thought it was worth going there for the horse alone.”

The journey is the destination

The two get to know each other. The energy that the black horse brings with him cannot always be directed in the right direction at first. At the Bundeschampionat for six-year-olds, the pair are 26. It is precisely this drive that should enable a strong canter for a 10.0 at the European Championships in Riesenbeck in 2023, which receives a 7.5 – “not tension-free” – as a six-year-old. Dante’s strong canter, where possible still in the stadium in Aachen, Therese goes into raptures: “You just have the feeling that you’re taking off and you can really step on the gas. And actually be more or less sure that you can only take him back by straightening up yourself, then flying change and then onto the line for the pirouettes.” Not every horse has a bit of airplane in him. Dante does.

This very special feeling

The Swede says that she still looks for what she felt on Dante Weltino in every horse. Not in any lesson. But this natural quality, “just trotting and cantering”.

Dressage means refining what nature has already created. Therese Nilshagen initially refines on her own. At the age of eight, both horses had already learned all the Grand Prix movements, with a little help. “He was the first horse I trained to Grand Prix level. And he was able to do it all with me as an eight-year-old, I remember that. I had started training with Klaus Balkenhol and he was here and wanted to assess whether he should help me or not. Then he said, yes, it’s all really great. But you have to tell me one thing: Who trained the horse? And I said: Yes, I did. He couldn’t really believe that a little girl like me, a complete no-name, had trained this impressive stallion.

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Eight finals at the Olympics, European and World Championships

The pair’s careers began when the then nine-year-old Oldenburg native was nominated for the Olympic Games in Rio. Dante Weltino was injured on site. The dream of the Olympics was over.

But then came the championship debut in 2017. The European Championship in Gothenburg. A home crowd in the Swedish city’s soccer stadium. Even today, Therese still gets goosebumps when she looks back: “It was a special moment. The feeling of riding into a large stadium where people are already cheering you on before you get there – incredible.” There were cheers for Team Sweden, who won the bronze medal. And the pair, actually still newcomers, came fourth in the Grand Prix Special and fifth in the freestyle. Hey, world leaders, here we are!

Two and a half Olympics

Wherever the pair appear in the future, they will make it to the final. Dante’s nerves don’t always play along 100 percent. But the trust they have built up with each other helps in the small moments of uncertainty. That’s also dressage, working together as partners through thick and thin. Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021, Swedish freestyle record at the European Championships in the same year with 86.132 percent and sixth place. Dante comes, does his tests and delivers.

In 2024, their sporting careers will come to an end against a backdrop that is unlikely to be repeated in the near future: At the Olympic Games in Paris, Therese Nilshagen and Dante Weltino will ride their last freestyle in the Palace Park of Versailles. What a finale!

When the father against the son…

Already in Paris, it becomes clear that Dante’s second career, as a stud stallion, is also crowned with success. Even if it has literally been on ice in the meantime: In order to concentrate on the sport, there will only be frozen semen from the black Beau for a few years. One of his sons has just made a meteoric rise in 2024: Jagerbomb. Because the British Olympic champion Charlotte Dujardin is not taking part in the Paris Games due to the beating video, reserve rider Becky Moody has the opportunity to present the gelding she bred in the Olympic arena. She manages eighth place. Competition or respect? Therese says that if any horse was allowed to beat Dante Weltino, it was his son Jagerbomb. The next generation is not just waiting in the wings, it has already come a long way.

Children become people

His offspring have long since earned Dante Weltino a place in the top ten dressage horse sires of the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH). And more and more “Dantes” are entering the Grand Prix sport: Jagerbomb and Becky Moody won the World Cup Final in Fort Worth. Raphael Netz came fifth with DSP Dieudonné. Great Britain’s Sadie Smith and Swanmore Dantina thrilled the crowd at Horses & Dreams in Hagen 2026. And a horse whose name causes many to gasp with excitement bears the sire in its name: Dante’s Pearl OLD delivers show after show under Charlott-Maria Schürmann and is set to go to Munich on Ascension weekend 2026.

Lisa Müller is bringing two Gut Wettlkams Grand Prix horses, Dantiamo and Raffinesse, to the start. FBW Dante’s Zazou has established himself in Grand Prix sport in southern Germany with Timo Kemmerer. The list is long and getting longer every day.

And today?

Retiring from sport has made little difference to Dante Weltino’s daily routines. Therese Nilshagen says it is important to her that he realizes that he is “very, very important in my life”. The black horse is still the first horse she rides every morning. “I ride on Mondays to Fridays, so half an hour at a walk and then just ten minutes, a quarter of an hour on the long reins. A bit like that, just for fun. We don’t do any big tricks, but we trot and canter, depending on what we feel like doing. So my day always starts perfectly.” Long paddock times and walking in the horse walker round off the program. And then there is his other career, as a stud stallion. That has picked up speed again. “Apart from that, he’s busy breeding, which is very pleasing. He is very well received,” says Therese.

Where is the banana?

Keyword everyday life – what are the handsome pensioner’s priorities? “If he could choose to eat or mate, he would always mate first and then eat, but he is still a good eater. He loves carrots. He always wants his banana in the morning too. He only eats apples if he’s not given anything else.”

The breeding phenomenon Dante Weltino

That certain nerve, that go – that is what characterizes many of Dante’s offspring. For Therese Nilshagen, this is part of the success story of the stallion Dante Weltino. “I’ve never really got off him and thought, oh, he’s stubborn or firm or something, but he’s an incredibly relaxed, soft, expressive, athletic horse. I always thought – my goodness, if you only pass on a third of it, then something great must come out of it.

Discoverer Urs Schweizer gives another tip from his experience: “In the first evaluations of foals, the stallion was always a good match with a blood connection. Although you might say that a stallion with a lot of blood would suit a slightly heavier mare. In my opinion, this was never really the case with Dante Weltino. They actually had to be dams that also had a lot of blood. And I thought he was particularly well suited to the blood of Sandro Hit.

A little more genealogy

Keyword blood build-up: Dante Weltino’s performance can certainly also be explained by his maternal relationship: His dam Rihanna has a full sister named Riwera de Hus. She competed under Jessica Michel-Bolton at the World Championships in Caen and also represented France at the Olympic Games. And Dante Weltino’s granddam Riconess by Noble Roi xx-Figaro is the dam of the former national show jumping champion, Lumos. The Lordanos son once won the Badenia, the Grand Prix of the Maimarkt tournament in Mannheim. Performance from all sides.

Incidentally, Dante Weltino has also repeatedly attracted attention in the breeding sector with great mares. Some of them are already stallion dams. For example, the Oldenburg premium stallion St. Emilion has Dante Weltino as his maternal grandfather. He stands at Klosterhof Medingen, where Dante’s sire Danone was once stationed. And so the circle closes.