A Montgomeryshire farm has been recognised for producing one of the top Friesian horses in the world.
Fraithwen Friesians based in Adfa have been showered with awards for the horses bred at their farm - rewarding the years of hard work of owners Ian and Gaynor Garbett.
“We have been breeding Friesian horses for around 10 years now," Mr Garbett said.
"The Friesian horse comes from a province in Holland called Friesland. We bought two foundation mares some years ago and since then have been breeding quality horses. Jade, our mare, who’s sire is called Stendert, is one of the lowest kinship and inbreeding coefficient in the world, in fact she is number 62 on a list of 200 of the lowest.”
Jade and her descendants such as the impressive Jeldau Fan Fraithwen are now considered some of the most sought-after horses in the world winning highly prestigious awards.
This include the Koninklijke Vereniging "Het Friesch Paarden-Stamboek" (KFPS), a prestigious Dutch studbook awarding their coveted Premi Ster award which comes in three classes.
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“Last year saw one of Jade’s mares get the coveted award of Ster,” said Mr Garbett.
“This year following on from 2019, where Jeldau Fan Fraithwen who is also home bred here in Adfa became the United Kingdom supreme champion at only 5 months old again, we saw her get the most coveted award of First Premie Ster mare.
“To put it in to context, there were only three mares from all the horses entered over a weekend at the Keurings (also known as gradings) both in Scotland and England at Vale equestrian centre Old Dalby.
“We also have several other quality Friesians standing at our stud farm including a stallion the has been approved for breeding by two separate stud books.”
Impressively, of the 75 horses entered nationwide only Jeldau fan Fraithwen was awarded the highest award of a First Premi Ster.
The Garbetts have been delighted by the accolades. Mr Garbett said: “We feel are very proud to have taken our horse from this sleepy little village in Powys and become champions of class and then reserve champion of the UK.
“That standing in the middle of Adfa is pretty unique. I was at a luncheon a few months ago now and a gentleman sat by me and I’d never seen him before in my life and he asked ‘do you breed Friesians?’ and I said yeah we have a mare call Jeldau fan Fraithwen and he went ‘I know her’ and there’s thousands of these mares around the world – she’s one of the most sought after in the world.”
The breeding of the horses took “hours and hours” of research into family trees and Fraithwen are now looking to create their own breeding bank, as after Brexit it is turning out to be impossible to get fresh semen from approved stallions in Holland.
Mr Garbutt said: “We have invested at Fraithwen and here over £10,000 in cryogenic tanks and liquid nitrogen and we currently store over £100,000 in frozen semen from approved stallions.
“This will give people in the UK who have Friesians the option to breed from an approved stallion rather than cross breeding if they wanted to.”
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