Vicomte Breed Information

Origin

The Vicomte is a relativly young breed. It was established in France, during the 1800's. Originally made for cavalry
and the army, the breed lost it's purpose with the industrial revolution and almost completly dissapeared. By the end
of the 20th century, begin the 21ste century, the breed was rescuded and warmblood races were introduced to produce
a versatiale sportbreed. Nowadays, the Vicomte is a breed that is suited for any kind of rider. It is preserved
under the care of the Royal Musketeer Stables, so that it would not dissapear from the pages of history and that
more people can enjoyu this wonderfull breed of horses.


The breed

- Basic
The Vicomte breed originate in de old Iberian breeds, Andalusier/PRE/Lusitano. These breeds where
chosen because of their temperament. Loyal, eager to learn,friendly, trustworthy but proud and
even a little hotheaded in the right way. Often mistaken for dressage breeds, there races are well
suited for multiple disciplines, so there would be no problem later on to use them for things like jumping.

These breeds where crossed with Friesian horses. This created that on the first sight was best suited for
dressage and driving. The horses had a full tail and a lot of mane and often showed feathering. These
horses where used a lot for show, dressage, driving and even as warhorses, since they had the cappacity
to learn quick, where brave and yet had a build that was slightly bigger then a standard horse, due to theur
Friesian bloodline.

This being the base, they went on, crossing again, to make a real sportshorse, capable of being used in
more disciplines then the obvious.

- Classic line
The classic horses are bred to perform well in the classic disciplines of the horse sports. Dressage,
jumping, cross-country and even driving. For that purpose, the basic of the breed got crossed with
different warmblood races. Dutch, German, French and Belgian warmbloods where used.  

Classic horse still have influences of their ancestors. There may still be feathering, but do not expect
the amount that would be found in the original Friesian horses. Though, they still aim for a nice tail and
manes that are fuller then in the standard warmbloods. Eyes are intelligent and expressive. Their ears are
small to medium in size and attentive.

The build of the dressage-horses will still resemble the best the old Iberian/Friesian cross. They will have
the little more elevated gaites, especially their trot. This also count for the driving hores which tend to have
even more knee action.

The jumping and cross-country horses show less of the original cross, however, they still have their bonds,
whch are best reflected in their character. Even though they do not have the elevated gaites, they still
share the expressive and intelligent looking head.

- Western line
In recent time, there has been more and more demand for sporthorses that also where capable of western. Though
the Iberian horse were ideal for this, they did loose it a little with the introduction of the Friesian blood.
knowing this, but still wanting to be able to present a decent sportshorse, capable of competing with the classic
western breeds, they turned back to basics.

Looking back to the first studbarns, they found some Vicomtes with little to no influence of warmblood races
and decided to cross these with modern day Quarter Horses. The result is a sportshorse with a strong hind quarter,
yet still they are well-balanced. Despite their Quarter blood, these horse remain to have full mane and tails,
yet they seem to lack the feathering.


Color
Vicomtes seem to come in a lot of colours. Even so, there are some things to be concidered.

Seeming like some breeds used to create the Vicomte, some colours are more rare then the others. Black, brown,
chestnut and grey are the most common find colours.
The dullation genes for cream, dun, robianco, flaxen and roan are found within the breed, despite that they do
not often occur. This result in the fact that horses with double dullations like perlino are seldom seen.

The Vicomte studbook will never accept horses with spotted patterns. This exclude all horses wit following
patterns or combiantion of patterns from registration: tobiano, sabino, overo (both frame and splash), leopard,
blanket, frost, snowflake, etc. Also not accepted are horses with silver and panagré dullations.

There is still a discusion going on wheter or not to include horses that have brindle genes or champagne genes.
For now, these horses can not be entered for registration.



Breeding

- Classic line
Classic Vicomte horse only carry Friesan, Iberian and warmblood genes. To garantuee that your horse is a true
Vicomte, they need to meet certain standard. They need to sport a minimum of 25% warmblood, 6,25% Iberian and
6,25% Friesian blood. It is perfectly possible for a Vicomte to have different Iberian or warmblood ancestors.
So you are not restricted to breed a PRE originating Vicomte with an other PRE horse of Vicomte. You can,
without any problem, cross a PRE-Vicomte with an Andalusian, as long as you respect the apporved races and
blood percentages.

- Western line
For the western line, the blood percentages lay dfferent, due to the fact that they looked back to the almost
original start of the breed. Is is not allowed to have more then 12,5% of warmblood in these horses. Here, it
is also approved to cross with different Iberian ancestors. There is a minumun of 12,5% Iberian, 12,5% Friesian
and 12,5% Quarter blood.
Sometimes, their is made an exeption to the rules for the percentage of warmblood in the westernline. This only
happens if it concerns the registrations of a classic/western Vicomte cross.

- Accepted races and registering
Approved breed to cross with and still be able to register the foal as Vicomte are: Andalusian, Lusitano, PRE,
Friesian, KWPN, BWP, Selle Francais, Hannoverian, Oldenburger, Holsteiner, Trakehner and Westfalian for the
classic line. For the western line this includes American Quarter Horse.
Note that it is perfectly possible to cross 2 Vicomtes with each other.
However, it is not possible to register a cross between the classic and the western line for the classic studbook
due to the quarter blood. Also it may be very hard to register them for the western studbook, due to the
bloodpercentage of warmblood blood.There can be made an exeption if both parents are registred Vicomtes. The best
thing to do in situations like these is to contact the studbook, so they can review your case and decide to accept
your horse or not.

Note that all self bred foals must be offered for examinations before they can officially be named a Vicomte. These
examinations are open all year round, so you can always present your foal.