Aria Impresario — 2009 U.S. National Champion Junior Stallion

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t was the last class of the last day of the U.S. National Championship Show, and because he was the youngest colt entered in the Junior Stallion Championship, Aria Impresario (*Marwan Al Shaqab x GC Echlectica) was the last colt to come before the judges.

Michael Byatt had been anticipating this moment for years, and even more so, since Impresario’s Canadian rival Bey Ambition (Regal Actor JP x Bey Shahs Lady) had outscored him in the Futurity class two days earlier.

Generations of horse breeding and a lifetime of human relations came together at the same time for Michael as the pair stepped into the arena. After all, Michael had shown Impresario’s sire, grandsire and great-grandsire. “I owned his great-grandsire,”

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he recalls, “and I bred his grandsire, I showed his sire, and then I showed his dam to Scottsdale Champion Mare and U.S. National Reserve Champion Futurity Filly. Impresario was bred by my dear friends whom I have known for more than 30 years, the Candas, and owned by my dear friends, the Sloans. And having seen him as a weanling, there is such a connection between these horses, also in terms of my relationship with the families of those horses — animal and human.”

Even so, owner Jeff Sloan says there was some obvious trepidation about showing Impresario in the Junior Stallion Championship after his Reserve Championship finish in the Futurity. “Once Impresario had been beaten by the beautiful Bey Ambition in the Futurity, we were obviously faced with a very difficult decision about whether or not to show Impresario in the Junior

Aria Impresario

2009 U.S. National Champion Junior Stallion

I

t was the last class of the last day of the U.S. National Championship Show, and because he was the youngest colt entered in the Junior Stallion Championship, Aria Impresario (*Marwan Al Shaqab x GC Echlectica) was the last colt to come before the judges.

Michael Byatt had been anticipating this moment for years, and even more so, since Impresario’s Canadian rival Bey Ambition (Regal Actor JP x Bey Shahs Lady) had outscored him in the Futurity class two days earlier.

Generations of horse breeding and a lifetime of human relations came together at the same time for Michael as the pair stepped into the arena. After all, Michael had shown Impresario’s sire, grandsire and great-grandsire. “I owned his great-grandsire,”

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he recalls, “and I bred his grandsire, I showed his sire, and then I showed his dam to Scottsdale Champion Mare and U.S. National Reserve Champion Futurity Filly. Impresario was bred by my dear friends whom I have known for more than 30 years, the Candas, and owned by my dear friends, the Sloans. And having seen him as a weanling, there is such a connection between these horses, also in terms of my relationship with the families of those horses — animal and human.”

Even so, owner Jeff Sloan says there was some obvious trepidation about showing Impresario in the Junior Stallion Championship after his Reserve Championship finish in the Futurity. “Once Impresario had been beaten by the beautiful Bey Ambition in the Futurity, we were obviously faced with a very difficult decision about whether or not to show Impresario in the Junior

by Nancy C. Ryan Stallion class. Then over the next couple of days, we kept looking at our beautiful horse, sizing him up with as much objectivity as we could muster, and it became clearer to us how great our horse is. And so, bolstered by the confidence we have in him, and given that there were so many people who didn’t get to see him in the futurity and so many who said they’d like to see him in the Junior Stallions, we decided to go for it and show our horse with pride, without focusing on how he might place.”

Adds Michael, “Impresario did beautifully in the Futurity, and it was still a very exciting horse show with him being Reserve. And when I think back, Bey Ambition was so beautiful and he excited so many people and he was so appreciated by the public, it was just fun to participate in the class. So in the process of making the decision to go on and show Impresario in the Junior Stallion Championship, I told Jeff that Impresario will do and give anything I ask of him. So I am just going to ask a little bit more of him, and take it to another level and we’ll just try and really turn this crowd on. We wanted to thrill them with what Impresario can do and who he is.”

And so … the curtain came up on the Junior Stallion Championship Saturday night and Impresario and Michael took their cue. “The drama couldn’t have been higher,” remembers Jeff. “Given that Impresario would be last to show, we watched all the

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Aria Impresario competitors go through the whole class and there were so many wonderful young stallions. It was a deep and very competitive Junior Stallion class. Horse and handler showed their hearts out — Impresario was full of himself — and so was Michael. I was thrilled with the showing. It was everything I knew the horse and Michael could do, and when Michael and Impresario left the arena, I walked with the two of them down the in-ramp to the warm-up ring, where everyone gathered to hear the results.

In that moment, I frankly didn’t care about the results ­­— that was out of our control — I was focused on our beautiful boy, knowing that at least the crowd was treated to a great ‘Impresario Moment’!”

And as if the Impresario team hadn’t had enough drama during the week, more was to come. As the judges’ scores were tallied, a mistake was made and Impresario’s announced score would have placed him fourth, however the mistake was quickly caught and the corrected tally resulted in the outcome that Michael, the Candas, and the Sloans, and all of Impresario’s fans 4 b ARABIAN HORSE WORLD b january 2010

Anaza El Farid

*Gazal Al Shaqab

Kajora

*Marwan Al Shaqab

Fame VF

Little Liza Fame

Katahza

Aria Impresario 2006 bay stallion

Aladdinn Echo

Echo Magnifficoo

SS Magnolia

GC Echlectica

Gai Parada

GC Natori

GC Imari

Ruminaja Ali Bint Deenaa Kaborr *Edjora Bay Shah Raffoleta-Rose Aza Destiny Afhar Rahza *Aladdinn Gaamara An Magno SS Soufianna Ferzon Azleta The Egyptian Prince RDM Moon Gypsy

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and admirers had been waiting for … Impresario was crowned U.S. National Champion Junior Stallion. And winning this coveted award makes him the only stallion in history to win the titles of Scottsdale Supreme Champion as a yearling, U.S. National unanimous Champion Yearling, and U.S. National Champion Junior Stallion.

“When you think about it,” adds Michael, “it was just an amazing experience to be part of.” If you are wondering why a man like Michael Byatt is so philosophical about winning and losing, consider this little known Michael Byatt fact: “I went to six Nationals before I ever even got a Top Ten,” he confesses.

“Six Nationals before I ever won a ribbon. And the day the Nationals ended, I already started the countdown to when the next show would start and the very next time I even made a cut, it was crazy how excited I was.”

For Michael, the temporary scoring mistake opened a window into what the true spirit of competition should embrace. “Perhaps the most memorable thing I got out of the whole class was realizing the quality of the people on my team and around me, and we were all so appreciative of what that horse had done. And it was enough.”

Aria Impresario

Aria Impresario won Scottsdale Supreme Champion as a yearling in February of 2007 with Michael Byatt.

It may have been enough, but to know that his colt had come out ahead of all the rest that day, helped Michael and Jeff realize one of their lifelong dreams. For Michael, “winning with Impresario is a validation of a vision that I had so long ago when I bred Anaza El Farid (Ruminaja Ali x Bint Deenaa) to Kajora (Kaborr x *Edjora) and the subsequent foal was *Gazal Al Shaqab.

Then *Marwan Al Shaqab (*Gazal Al Shaqab x Little Liza Fame) came about, and of course I’ve had the most unique experience ever in a horseman’s life to have been involved in this family of horses. And Impresario has perpetuated the story beyond my dream.” For Jeff, Impresario brings things full circle. “I grew up just a few miles away from my favorite horse of all time — the great Shaikh Al Badi — I would visit him frequently in the early 80s — and for me to now own a stallion of such magnitude from the Shaikh sire line is more than I could ever have hoped — and to own him with my parents, who I started with in this business in 1982, and to have had Michael at the lead, makes it ever so much more significant for me”.

Ever the sportsman, Jeff wanted to mention Murray and Shirley Popplewell’s winning the Futurity with Bey Ambition. “It was a wonderful moment for them,” he says. “It was a grand achievement; their horse looked beautiful; they stuck with their handler; and they won the futurity deservedly so, and frankly, while it’s never fun to be on the losing end of a great story, it was a great moment for them and for the breed, and for me, it was a great way to lose.”

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But certainly, it’s more fun to win, and no doubt Impresario was born to show — and to win. His show career has been extraordinary. He was the talk of the 2007 Scottsdale show when he was named unanimous Junior Champion Colt and Show Supreme Champion as a yearling. Then came the unanimous U.S. National Champion Yearling title, and before arriving in Tulsa this year, he had earned the title of 2009 unanimous Scottsdale first place Three-Year-Old Colt. As the year continued, he earned the Region 9 Championship, scoring the highest score to date under the scoring system — a whopping 386, and now here he was — the U.S. National Champion Junior Stallion.

Michael and Jeff caught on to Impresario’s potential early.

“When we first bought Impresario, we did so with Michael as our partner,” recalls Jeff. “Rather than take a commission on the sale, Michael was so in love with the colt, he took a percentage of the horse in November 2007 — a rare thing for an agent but this was no ordinary colt. In late 2008, the Sloans purchased Michael’s interest in Impresario and then owned the colt entirely. Before the Nationals however, we added a couple of partners in the horse, among them, our good friends, Rich and Debbie Nemesi and Jason and Andrea Bescoe, both couples

Aria Impresario new to Arabian horse ownership. It’s so important for new people to have good experiences, and the enthusiasm that these two couples have as new owners in our breed made it critical for us to ensure their success, and thus sharing Impresario with them made this an easy decision for us.”

His beauty is obvious, but Michael and the Sloans are also attracted to Impresario’s pedigree. According to Michael, “If you follow the sire line back and you think of Ruminaja Ali and Shaikh Al Badi and *Morafic and Nazeer — it’s an unbroken sire line of supremacy. And then when you think, ‘How will this line continue?’ Well, it will continue, perhaps infinitely, because it is such a strong, unbroken chain and the sire line is incredible. Then there is the dam line: Through Echo Magnifficoo and GC Natori, who is by Gai Parada and out of GC Imari, who is out of RDM Moon Gypsy, who was a daughter of El Hilal (*Ansata Ibn Halima x *Bint Nefisaa).” Michael sums it up like this: “That horse was born to be great. He was great from the beginning.” And now the goal is to make sure that greatness blossoms.

“The next phase is to prove Impresario as a premier breeding stallion,” explains Jeff, “and like any great stallion, we need to learn the best way to breed him, and we know we will. He had about 10 foals in 2009 and approximately 40 are expected in 2010.” Jeff continues, “I have every expectation that he is going to create some exceptional foals, and that he will pass along his elegance and refinement, great carriage, long neck, clean throat latch, big eyes and tiny muzzle”

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Jeff says that of the ten foals sired by Impresario this year, three are standouts and will likely make their debut at Scottsdale. “One of those three is a colt that we bred out of *HED Caramba (Magnum Psyche x HED Cajun Queen). He is a beautiful colt named Rohara Emissary, owned by Roxann Hart. He will show in Scottsdale in the auction class by me, and I am so proud to show this colt — given that he is the first foal by Impresario to be shown at a major show, and of course we’re hopeful he will compete very favorably!”

Jeff says it is no secret that there have been four or five exceptional offers made on Impresario.

He says it has been tempting to sell, but he and his parents are committed to the Arabian breed and have been so since they purchased their first Arabian in 1982. For Bernie and Deena Sloan, “it is truly a dream come true to be the guardians of such an important young horse — Impresario is the kind of horse you can build a breeding program around, and we are going to feature him as the cornerstone of our breeding program. It is our hope to make a contribution to this great breed, and while one can hope, it takes a horse like Impresario to make it possible. How privileged we are to be part of his story.”

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