Germany Today
Our New Series - Breeding Champions (Part 1)
Europe's largest stud farm can be found in the heart of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In the 1990s Paul Schockemöhle bought the property, which had belonged to the East German state, and began breeding his own horses. Now, for the first time, he's let a television crew onto his farm. This week we show the first of a five-part series about the stud farm's 3000 horses and the 150 employees who work there. Schockemöhle himself was one of the world's best show jumpers and a three-time European champion. The series doesn't touch on the more controversial parts of Schockemöhle's biography. Paul Schockemöhle has been accused of cruelty to animals for methods he used to train his show jumpers, and in 1996 he was convicted of tax evasion.
