I must say that this horse does not look like it should pull a plow or like it is heavy on the forehand. As many of you have said today, many warmbloods are bred FOR dressage. I think she had a point in her article, to sum it up, she is angry about people that take shortcuts. Well, not all dressage riders do this, sadly more people are doing this in "modern" dressage. But personally, I think that if someone is stupid enough to take shortcuts and hurt a horse, they won't get anywhere anyways. She's completely off about the breeding of the horses and not all riders are "clueless". It bothers me when anti-dressage or ant-bits people find the people that suck and say all dressage riders do it like that Haute Ecole .
Thing.
This issue about warmbloods being "dull" I think is from poor breeding and poor training. I think there are as many "dull" warmbloods as any other type of horse. The poorly bred horses just don't have the intelligence like other poorly bred breeds. What I think really makes a warmblood dull is their training and environment. They don't usually live in an open field with a heard of horses to use their instincts and be free. They are stalled and their training is almost every day. They must listen to the riders and trainers and they usually live in smaller pastures. I'm not saying this is bad, it is what you need to get a high level horse, it's the unnatural environment. I say, if you took a "dull" warmblood and put it out in a herd in a field for a few months, the wouldn't be as dull. Some warmbloods will be naturally more spirited eg. 9 or 10 on the scale and some may be 1 or 2. I don't really know much about TB's so I won't comment on that.
I think the problem with rollkur in particular stems from the famous riders that do the wrong thing. Other riders see world superstar dressage riders doing things like rollkur and think that they need to as well. The ordinary rider does it out of ignorance, thinking that if their hero does it, it must be ok. The high level dressage rider does it because it gives results no matter what the eventual cost to the horse.
Technically, the auther of the article is half right. A 'warmblood' by classic definition, is a cross between a cold blood (draughts and ponies) and a hot blood (Arabs, TBs etc). What she has failed to realise is that these days, the definition has broadened to include those breeds that have their original roots in such crosses, but now are a breed in their own right, so therefore do not have throwbacks to their foundation breeds.
I think we are all agreed - stupid woman is stupid
Maybe this author should Xenophon's On the Art of Horsemanship; dressage is not a new thing, and since all the "theories" have been tested for thousands of years I'm pretty sure that makes them proven.
She should ride the WBx that I rode this past winter...He was not dull. At all. 5 strides in 6 lines. Sometimes 4.5....no matter how much you tried to woah, he was all go!
