We repeat:
The Asil Arabian has the best imaginable character, and many share our opinion that this exceptional character accounts for the rideability of the horses. It is this rideability which is responsible for their performance. Performance is, in the main, a question of character, and character has a high hereditary penetration – which completes the circle that character is a question of origins.

Juvenal (ca. 60-140 A. D.) recognised this fact stating:
Men or women of any descent can be good or bad, or indeed neither good or bad. The character of horses, however, is significantly determined by their descent, rather than by their upbringing or the surrounding conditions.

Adolf Schreyer, Arabischer Reiter [o. N.], Arabischer Reiter

We appreciate the Asil Arabian as an exceptional riding horse – we cannot imagine any better family riding horse. Its potential for usage, however, is even larger – from individual dressage events to the Haute Ecole, from carriage driving to long-distance driving, from flat racing to trail rides, and finally to its true domain, the long-distance ride. Riders of other breeds of horse – often through lack of knowledge of the high influence of Arabians on their own horses – sometimes say: Arabian horses are too small, too impetuous, too headstrong, and therefore unsuitable for the great sports – show jumping, dressage and Haute Ecole. The judges of dressage and riding classes are, in any case, fixated on a minimum size and stride length, their aesthetic ask of large horses, even when they are presented by riders of smaller stature. The consequence is that experts and their students look for horses of other breeds that, on the basis of this experience, promise quick results. The multiple talents of the Arabian should and must be tested under the rider. Only by doing so those sceptical of the Arab horse may be persuaded. Very often breeders experience that trainers initially treat their horses – critically, or at times even derisively, especially when breaking them in. And, just as often breeders observed with great pleasure that, after a relatively short time, these trainers expressed their wishes to own an Arabian horse only, if they wanted to own a horse, at all! It is a great obligation to endow the Arabian with the status it deserves. For the breeder it means: to test his horses for their talents, in the first case, for example, to train them for distance riding or to trust passionate distance riders with the task, to train them for flat racing and to send them to the race track, to test their talent for dressage and then enter them in shows, among other things, to test their talent for jumping and perhaps the talent to steal the show from other horses at such events (the stallion Gharib had such a talent and passed it on to his offspring), or at least to school the horse to be a dependable family horse. For the rider it means: to look for a suitably talented Asil Arabian. His horse will reward him in any of the above named disciplines. For our friends particularly in the Arab countries it means: to look out for Asil Arabians for long-distance riding, for the race track.

Stallion Performance Tests – Asil Arabians in Comparison with Other Pure-bred Arabians

In order to obtain a breeding permission for a stallion there was a requirement in Germany and other countries until 1989 that an initial evaluation, followed within 1–2 years by a stallion performance test, had to be undertaken. In the course of European unification this requirement was abolished, much to the regret of responsible breeders and certainly to the detriment of horse breeding in general. The stallion performance test is now done on a voluntary basis. Due to the high costs of this comprehensive test most breeders abstain from this. Almost all stallions are now authorised to breed, thus there are many stallions of inferior quality used for breeding and ever less stallions which have proved themselves in the stallion performance test – which now also includes qualification by the results of short- or long-distance races. As a training centre, the Klosterhof Medingen held first place. It undertook the greatest proportion of the training of pure-bred Arabians for the stallion performance test. The tests in Marbach, Munich-Riem and Warendorf were less significant as only a few pure-bred Arabians took part there. The results of the stallion performance tests from 1974 to 1990 demonstrate significant success of the Asil Arabian in comparison with other non-asil pure-bred Arabians. An evaluation of the tests in the years 1974 to 1990 for pure-bred Arabians at Klosterhof E. Wahler, Medingen, gives the following top results for Asil Arabians:

1974 participation: 9 pure-bred Arabians, 1 asil
-- Asil Arabian = First in training

1975 participation: 14 pure-bred Arabians, 3 asil
-- Asil Arabians = First in training and reserve champion Second in training and champion

1976 no participation of Asil Arabians

1977 participation: 7 pure-bred Arabians, 1 asil
-- Asil Arabian = Champion

1978 participation: 13 pure-bred Arabians, 1 asil
-- Asil Arabians = First in training and reserve champion

1979 participation: 14 pure-bred Arabians, 7 asil
-- Asil Arabians = Champion, first in training, reserve champion Third place

1980 participation: 22 pure-bred Arabians, 6 asil
-- Asil Arabians = Reserve champion and Third Place 1981 participation: 17 pure-bred Arabians, 4 asil
-- Asil Arabians = Fourth and Fifth place

1982 participation: 11 pure-bred Arabians, 5 asil
-- Asil Arabians = Champion, first in training

1983 participation: 22 pure-bred Arabians, 10 asil
-- Asil Arabians = Third and Fourth place

1984 participation: 13 pure-bred Arabians, 6 asil
-- Asil Arabians = Champion, first in training Reserve champion

1985 participation: 10 pure-bred Arabians, 1 asil
-- Asil Arabians = no significant result

1986 participation: 17 pure-bred Arabians, 6 asil
-- Asil Arabian = Third place

1987 participation: 15 pure-bred Arabians, 6 asil
-- Asil Arabian = Champion

1988 participation: 13 pure-bred Arabians, 4 asil
-- Asil Arabian = Champion

1989 participation: 15 pure-bred Arabians, 5 asil
-- Asil Arabian = Third place

1990 participation: 9 pure-bred Arabians, 1 asil
-- Asil Arabian = Champion

Seen as a whole, the 15 years during which Asil Arabians have participated in the tests at Medingen produced the following results:

1974 - 1990 participation: 221 pure-bred Arabians, 67 asil (except 1976)

Asil Arabians =
9times Champion (7times First in training)
6 times Reserve Champion
6 times Third place

Asil Arabians, which represent less than one third of pure-bred Arabians, thus provided almost two thirds of the winners and nearly half of the first three places. The training mark of the 10 years 1974 - 1984 (excluding 1976) was, with 7 Asil Arabians as Best in Training”, also of special significance. This total training mark was not specially calculated for the years 1985 - 1990. If we added the 10 Marbach years to the 15 Medingen years, we would end up with the following result: 25 years, participation: 272 pure-bred Arabians, of which 89 Asil Arabians Asil Arabians = 15 winners The Asil Arabians represent less than one third of the pure-bred Arabians in both stallion performance tests (32.7%) and have provided more than half of the winners (60%), that is, twice as many as the other pure-bred Arabians. These are significant results.

Again: 89 Asil Arabians = 15 winners (17%)! 183 non-Asil pure-bred Arabians = 10 winners (5.5%)! We knew that the Asil Arabian has the best character imaginable, the results of which are rideability and willingness to perform, and these are required for success in performance.

The stallion performance tests have confirmed impressively what we expected on the basis of this hypothesis.