Secret Agent was just the winner of the R1 7yo 2026 WBFSH Breeding World Championships. Secret Agent is one of those superlative horses that hardly seem real, incredible beauty and elegance, spectacular in phenotype with lightness and grace, and of course ridden by Charlotte Dujardin, he has the ideal ‘environment’ to succeed. To watch him in a test is to be in awe.
His pedigree is Secret / De Niro / Stedinger/ Calypso II.
Secret has been all the rage for the last few years and will continue to be in the stallion spotlight for years to come. He puts on a very distinctive willing and trainable temperament and is very valuable in this factor alone. He certainly tempers the fiery nature of sire Sezuan while at the same time allowing for his many athletic gifts to come into play.
All stallions have throwback patterns that return in their best progeny, and this comes from mares that ‘supplement and complement their own genetic strengths in different ways (Clive Harper).
Secret Agent is showing some of these patterns in his pedigree.
De Niro daughters are at 5 x 2.
Sandro Hit sons are at 4 x 4.
Donnerhall is present at 5 x 6 x 3.
The De Niro, Sandro Hit and Donnerhall are forming a pattern each side. St Moritz on the 3rd is Sandro Hit / De Niro, and dam Desaya is by De Niro with Sandro Hit as grandsire.
Ancestors that form patterns each side of the pedigree provide a much stronger structure for the power of the bloodlines to travel down to benefit the horse or its progeny, and they are more likely to be inherited together as a result. Especially when the horses in the pattern share nicks and genetic affinities, as do De Niro and Sandro Hit.
Not all of the important factors at play can be seen on this 6 generation chart or they are not highlighted because we cannot add a further generation due to space problems. They can be viewed on the AllBreedPedigree site for those interested. Therefore some of the patterns are beyond reasonable discussion.
One pattern at work in Secret Agent here are horses with the Holstein bloodlines of Ladykiller on the sire line with a Farnese dam sire, and these occur throughout the pedigree, beginning with Lionell in Sezuan on the 5th generation, followed by Larinero in St Moritz on the 6th, and Landadel via Stedinger on the 5th.
Stedinger is pivotal here as he provides the only Ladykiller daughter in the entire pedigree and even Sezuan is looking for daughters of this line. Sometimes the simple addition of a daughter line to a pedigree saturated with sons of a blood line can turn the entire thing around and allow the power to flow through the channels.
Secrets own inbreeding is to Argentan, which in his own pedigree is at 7 x 5 x 4 sex balanced, plus he has two Pik Bube daughters, an Argentinus and a Woermann daughter which is very valuable for mares that carry World Cup or Woermann through sons only.
Don Schufro is another way of connecting to Secret, either by providing another line of this in the mare, or by bringing in a close Donnerhall / Pik Bube relative.
Secret Agent also has a surprising and fortuitous Calypso II daughter on his 4th generation on the dam line, which sex balances the son in Sezuan on the 8th.
On Secrets 5th generation on the bottom dam line he has the mare Luneflur who is by Lugano II out of a Dwinger mare. Lugano I / Dwinger and Der Lowe are the power lines in Donnerhall, and Sandro hit directly plugs into these and reinforces them as well, and this creates many genes in common with the Donnerhall in Secret as well as any incoming bloodlines from mares. It is another way that this important genetic affinity can be revived and brought into play again through different individuals.
We will all be looking forward to Secret Agents future with one of the world’s best riders.