About

Ischka fan de Groenbank was a daughter of our KFPS Model mare Femma who had two daughters in 2010. The first, Ineke fan de Groenbank, was born by embryo transfer that January while Ischka arrived in March. From the moment she was born, Ischka was wonderfully entertaining. We called her our 'little time waster’ as there was something about her character that was really quite addictive! If we were asked to describe her in four words they would be ‘elegant, considered, sensitive and intelligent’, all of which we think made this lady quite special.

We took a risk with this breeding as it was Sake’s first season at Stud and the quality of his offspring was not yet known. Sake’s father, Doaitsen, had been very heavily used because he was from one of the lesser used bloodlines. We wanted to breed with the future in mind and recognise the importance of making good use of the smaller bloodlines to keep the kinship percentage as low as possible; hence, one of the reasons we chose Sake. Ischka showed such early promise that we put Femma in foal to Sake again the following year. Sadly, this combination ultimately did not turn out as well as we had hoped.

Ischka went to the UK gradings as a foal, taking it all her stride, as we expected her to, and came out with a 1st Premie.

At the end of 2013, Ischka was backed. As expected, she loved the extra attention she got during that period of time. Getting her used to people on her back, and even taking her out on short hacks later on in the process, was as much of a pleasure for us as it was for her. Ischka took a break over that winter to process what she'd learnt and to give her some time to mature. The following Spring, we slowly picked her up again, and she took part in her first dressage outing where she scored an incredible 81.09% at only four years old and with minimal schooling.

She attended a FHAGBI IBOP clinic shortly after with Jolanda Schreuder who had trained her mum Femma. Jolanda confirmed our thoughts that Ischka had an exciting future ahead of her. Rather than push her at such a young age, we decided to turn her away for the autumn and winter to allow her to fully develop both physically and mentally.

In January 2015, Ischka fell ill. Through consultation with John Keen at Edinburgh Equine Hospital and Prof. Catherine Delasalle from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, it was established that she had aortopulmonary fistulation, a condition that affects approximately 2% of the Friesian population. This YouTube video ( https://youtu.be/VDwwGeYpErs ) explains more about this devastatingly-incurable condition.

In February 2015, we had to let Ischka go before she suffered. She was a true joy to have around for her five years of life and will always have a very special place in our hearts.

Ischka is now laid to rest in our Memorial Orchard with a beautiful apple tree growing above her.