Verdi is a son of the world famous sires: Quidam de Revel x Landgraf I x Calypso I and Rigoletto. Father Quidam de Revel is a legend on his own. Grandsire Landgraf I is as famous as Quidam and has a long list of international jumpers and approved stallinons. Verdi descends from the famous Holsteiner damline 474-a. This motherline produced the approved stallions Calato, Colombo, Carlino, Loxgraf Go, Montreal, Aldato, Nimrod, Cavalier and Cicero. Verdi has beautiful conformation and has very long lines, as well as very good movement, in walk, trot and canter. Also important is his very nice and easy character. Verdi is a tall stallion with a lot of scope and technique at the jump.

At the performance test at Ermelo in 2005 Verdi was described as a stallion with a lot of scope and potential as a jumper. Verdi represents the Netherlands at the highest levels, with Maikel van der Vleuten. Recent achievements are Team Gold at the European Championships in Aachen, Team Gold at WEG in Caen, and Team Silver and Individual Bronze at the 2012 London Olympics. Verdi was also in the Dutch team at Rio and was still going strong at the age of 16 years.

As a two year old, Verdi was approved by the KWPN, the Performance Test Report in 2005 notes:

“Conformation description - A richly developed, more than sufficient riding type stallion that is somewhat on the forehand. The neck comes from deep in the chest. The topline is strongly muscled. The stance of both the foreleg and the hindleg is correct, The base is sufficiently developed.

Performance

Verdi is an honest and dependable stallion. He has more than sufficient willingness to work and he works more than sufficiently. The walk is pure and scopey. The trot has sufficient, to more than, scope with sufficient suppleness. The canter has sufficient, to more than sufficient, scope. Verdi is on the forehand in all three gaits and should bring the hindleg underneath more actively and with more power. Verdi has little talent for dressage and gives his rider a moderate feeling.

Verdi jumps from the ground with much power with a nice high croup. The stallion bascules well. Verdi has good use of the body over the jump. The hindquarter opens well. He seems careful and shows a lot of scope. Verdi has more than sufficient to much talent for jumping and gives his rider a more than sufficient feeling.

Verdi appears to fit mares that lack scope and/or size and substance. Mares do have to have to be built uphill, show blood and be ‘rittig’.”

Which is more or less the advice that Nijhoff stud principal, Jeannette Benedict-Nijhof gives:

“Verdi gets even more popular because he is now starting his seventh year of Grand Prix. He has done Olympics, World Equestrian Games, World Cup finals, and the good thing is that he now has many offspring competing at international level. He makes very nice offspring, he imparts his qualities to his children. They are a little bit late growing like himself, they start to jump exceptionally well at five and six-years-old. In the mare test for three-year-olds, they don’t look so spectacular, but they are really nice when they are older. He goes well with mares that have blood. He looks quite a modern stallion, so you think you can use him on heavy mares, but they get too cold. You need a percentage of blood in the dam line and not too small, and a nice medium size, 165/170 cm, and a bit of blood, not a big bully mare.”

On the 2015/16 KWPN breeding values, Verdi is in 20th place on the ranking for stallions with a reliability of over 90%, with a value of 138 (95%). He has produced 1113 progeny over the age of 4, with 330 registered for competition, that’s 29.649%.

On the 2016/17 KWPN breeding values, Verdi has moved to 11th place on the over 90% rankings, with a value of 141. He scores 109 for conformation, 102 for loose movement and 109 for freejumping.  His progeny over 4 now number 1204, with 368 competing – 30.56%.