Chapter 1
Al Capone is a young Conman sire who is bred to be everything and anything serious horse breeders and competitors require.
His story is quite unique as he was bred by the late Peter Gesler who was an avid campdraft and cutting enthusiast, breeding and competing on nothing but the absolute best.
Peter was an ex rodeo competitor originally calling the Bourke area home. As he progressed from rodeo to Campdrafting he realised that he would strive to be the best and have the best horses competing. This ambition led him to Seligman Spin who he purchased at auction with plans of Seligman being his next Campdraft horse, but then Peter was introduced to top level cutting with Seligman’s win in the NCHA Derby.
As life progressed Peter became more and more interested to get back to campdrafting as Seligman Spin genetics were being highly sought after for both disciplines.
Peter and Debbie were breeding their own horses throughout and they were using the Seligman Spin genetics extensively. This resulted in their wonderful team of campdraft mares which Peter and Kimberley Sammon both campaigned including Seligmans Yellow Miss, Seligmans Ellie and Possum Sue. However, one mare stood way out to Peter as the best mare he owned, Possum Sue.
Possum Sue was started as a cutter and competed in the NCHA Futurity with Peter aboard. It was a great grounding for her as she became one of the absolute Cutout queens at campdrafts. After the Futurity she went campdrafting and soon won her Maiden at Toogoolawah scoring 91. This was the first of many outstanding rounds in her career which includes several feature Open wins and places in the Warwick Gold Cup with Kimberley Sammon.
Being such a valuable mare Peter decided to breed from her early and he simply decided that you breed the best campdraft mare to the best campdraft stallion, so he embryoed her to Hazelwood Conman. The resultant foal is Al Capone. He was always special with immediate eye appeal including outstanding type, athleticism and a wonderful temperament. Peter loved the colt and seeing how well he broke in the decision was made that he would offer him for sale at Landmark in 2019. Unfortunately at the time he fell just short of his reserve so Peter and Debbie brought him home.
Al Capone started his competition path by being transferred to Jon Templeton’s stable and is in training for the Challenge circuit. His trainable nature, mature attitude and his easy going nature have made him a natural for this discipline. He has a huge stop and a lot of cow so the future looks bright for this good looking young colt as he moves through the challenge seasons and onto the campdraft arena.
Prior to his death Mark Ruff approached Peter to purchase Possum Sue and realising the future opportunities she would have with Mark he and Debbie regretfully sold her, but as things happen for reasons we don’t understand Debbie now has her wonderful son Al Capone to fulfil Peter’s dreams.
Chapter 2
The end of chapter one states, “Things happen for a reason”. And that’s exactly why Al Capone changed hands at the beginning of October 2020. Debbie realised the caliber of the colt she had on her hands and knew that she could not do him justice, not at this stage. He deserved every opportunity to fulfill his potential and Debbie believes Drew and Sally Stevenson are the right people to make that happen.
Drew and Sally were in the market for a new stallion and they feel Al Capone’s breeding speaks for itself. They said, “As quoted by Peter Gesler ‘breed the best campdraft mare to the best campdraft stallion’ and this is exactly what we have got in Al Capone. We really like the cutting type mare crossed with the stockhorse stallion, as we think it is giving us the ideal article than can also go to work as well as play.”
Exciting times ahead.
