1983 - 2008

AN ARISTOCRAT MARE
A DAM OF DISTINCTION
A CANADIAN NATIONAL TOP TEN MARE
NATIONAL CHAMPION PRODUCER

KLASSIC was a Canadian Top Ten Mare and one of the breed’s leading living dams of champions. She produced a remarkable 7 champions, all of them regional winners, 3 of them National winners, and 3 National winner producers. Her champions include Region 6 Top Five Stallion and National winner sire TF KHOUMOTION++ (also winner of 3 regional halter titles as a gelding), Regions 13 and 18 Top Ten Sweepstakes Colt and halter champion SHAKLANS PREMIER, Region 10 Top Five Mare TF KHOUROS GIRL(dam of 4 champions, including 2 regional champions in halter), Region 8 Champion Sweepstakes Filly HARLEQYN, U.S. Reserve National Champion Gelding JOTH and Top Ten Gelding AOTH TF DESTINY+/ (a multi-champion in hunt pleasure and western pleasure), Canadian National Champion Mare and U.S. Top Ten Mare TF QUEEN AHEARTS, and U.S. National Champion Sweepstakes Filly and Top Ten Futurity Filly and Canadian Reserve National Champion Futurity Filly DRAMA QYEEN.

Her offspring who have produced National winners include her daughter DRAMA QYEEN (Drama Qyeen’s first filly EUPHORYIA is also a National Champion), WHTF KLASSICA (dam of 5 champions including U.S. Top Ten Sweepstakes Colt KLASSIC SHAKLAN), TF KHOUMOTION++ (sire of U.S. Top Ten Hunt Pleasure Futurity and Hunt Pleasure GR KHALEIDOSCOPE and of U.S. Top Ten Futurity Gelding and Canadian Top Ten Jackpot Gelding and Gelding AOTH GR KHAPTION), and TF QUEEN AHEARTS (dam of 4 regional winners from 5 foals including Canadian Top Ten Futurity Filly QUEEN ADIAMONDS). Her daughter TF KHOVER GIRL is the dam of multi-regional champion in Half-Arabian hunt pleasure KHOVERED IN COLOR. Her maternal granddaughter SHOWGIRL SP (a daughter of TF KHOUROS GIRL) is the dam of 2006 U.S. Top Ten Mare AOTH ANASTASIAA.

On July 2nd, at 3:30 PM her heart gave out. She left with the quiet dignity with which she lived her life and with those that loved her by her side.

Rest in peace little Momma, you were greatly treasured.

Klassic (Bask Clasix x Khemogina), was 25 in June. Until her final day she was as feisty as ever, but her old body was slowly starting to betray her. This very special little mare ruled the broodmare pasture and the hearts of all at Greymoor Farm. On her best day, if she stood on her tippy toes, she stood 14.1. The legacy she left behind, however, is giant.

A Canadian National Top Ten mare herself, Klassic took the job of being a broodmare very seriously. She was an Aristocrat Mare, a Dam of Distinction, one of the first mares chosen by the MN Breeders program to be honored as a Broodmare Elite and, at the time of her death, one of the breed’s leading living dams of champions.

I was lucky enough to buy this mare in June of 2000. I had her vet checked because of her age and was told she had a benign tumor. I bought her without seeing her. Because she had a foal at her side and I bought her to breed to First Cyte, I shipped semen and got her in foal while I waited for her filly to be weaned. My shipper called me after he picked her up and asked if I had seen her before I bought her. I said no and he said I was in for a little surprise. That was an understatement. The tumor on this mare was in the center of her belly, was the width of a grapefruit and hung down almost 12 inches. She was horribly arthritic with a huge swollen knee. I was horrified that I had put her in foal, but there was nothing I could do but wait until she foaled. It was a long wait, her knee kept getting bigger and the tumor was so big she could not lie down at night. When she finally foaled she literally threw herself to the side so that she could get down. When her filly was two months old I took Klassic to the University of MN. Tracy Turner, the head surgeon, looked at the thing from all angles and told me he could remove it, but there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d never carry another foal. I looked into those big brown eyes and told him to take it off. I was concerned about how we would get her on her feet after the surgery because of her knee. Tracy laughed, looked at all 14.1 hands of this little mare and said that we’d all just pick her and stand her on her feet. (And we did- 10 of us!). The tumor, once removed, weighed 17 pounds.

Once she could lie down, Klassic’s arthritis got better and better. She was not bred that year. The next year we bred her and she repaid us for our kindness by producing multi-National Champion Drama Qyeen. That was followed by a filly, a colt and a filly. Apparently no one told Klassic she had only a fifty-fifty chance of having more foals!

I retired Klassic after the birth of her seventeenth foal in 2007. Although I had plenty of requests to use her for embryo transfers I chose not to do that. She had too many cysts to make her a great candidate and she HATED being away from the farm. When she received her Broodmare Elite award at the MN Coliseum, this little mare that rarely opens her mouth screamed and blew the whole time. She made it exquisitely clear to everyone that she was not happy. She was to spend the rest of her days in the pastures she loved at Greymoor. She kept her stall in the main barn because she had earned it. It was a privilege to be this mare’s caretaker for the last years of her life. I just wish that privilege could have lasted longer.

Donna Hentges