dressage v jumping bloodlines - opinions please!

Hollycat

Hollycat

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As some of you may know, I may be looking for a foal - and there are some OUTSTANDING ones I have heard about thanks to the help of my fellow HHO friends.
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I have one question. I always envisaged buying a filly with 'pure' dressage lines, with the view to breeding a foal from her at 4 or 5. However, I have seen a few outstanding fillies with jumping lines, but who would have the movement for dressage. This has given me food for thought. With some studbooks moving to grading mares according to dressage or jumping ability (e.g. KWPN) do you think the foal of a jumping bred mare (sired by a top dressage stallion) would be overlooked in favour of 'pure' dressage lines, if being sold as a dressage prospect?

Sorry if this is hard to understand! Sometimes you have to go with gut instinct on foals and my gut tells me one thing but the sj orientated lines are a voice of caution on the saleabilty of future foals - should I listen to them?
 
Maybe this is a stupid question! I think of one of my fav stallions EH Sixtus - who you would suspect would be a jumping/eventing family as he is of the Burnus line - Windfall etc - but look at the dressage orientated horses he has produced such as Axis.
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All opnions welcome even if to tell me to stop being a numpty and overthinkng and analysing everything.
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Maybe I have foal fever
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Never underestimate the role of jumping genes in the background of a dressage horse. From way beack when, I was always told that you need to have jumping in there to maintain the quality canter. I understand that if you had purely dressage lines, the canter (quite important) is lost.

I can always remember looking through the 2003 Bernard Eylers book of German stallions, and commenting that Ramiro Z appeared as the dam sire of about 20% of all the (then) top dressage stallions.

One of the problems with dressage breeding right now, is that perhaps newer breeders are forgetting this point and so are stacking up the big names in order to remain commercial. Understandable, but if it's at the expense of one of the gaits, perhaps not a good idea.

An "outcross" may be the way ahead for a number of breeders, and there are one or two stallions out there with Olympic dressage potential who are from pure jumping blood, who should be considered.
 
Our own stallion, Royal Geneve, was primarily jumping lines - Silvio II (producing jumpers and dressage horses) x Ahorn Z x Caletto II

However, he competed in dressage and his youngstock are primarily in the dressage scene, one of his first crop coming competition age, "Riviera L", just won a few weeks ago two novice classes at over 70% at Frys.

Just because a horse has jumping lines does not mean it does not have potential to do dressage and vice versa.
 
I've just bought a foal which I want to do dressage with in the future, yet she has a jumping background (Concorde), however, the foals conformation and movement would at this moment in time suggest that she'll be perfectly good for dressage!
 
I was looking on horsequest site last week and there were two lovely filly foals. One by Speilberg (Sunny Boy) and the other was by Feidertanz who's foals seem to be popular in Germany.
 
Thanks for your thoughts everyone. Pretty much sums up what my gut is telling me. I don't know if any of you remember but a few months back someone posted a vid of a jumping bred stallion at his grading - an amazingly athletic horse most people were going wow wow wow at . But if you overlooked the sheer prescence and athleticism then in no way, shape or form would he have made a dressage horse. His front and back ends weren't really harmony. Which was what made me think about jumping lines v dressage ones

I agree what Ken says about the canter. One of my bug bears when getting foal/ youngstock DVD's sent to me is that all you really see presented is the trot. I'm not saying the trot is irrelevant but with training, and once the horse is working at a higher level and is properly engaged an average trot can become pretty special. But if the canter is not right you are ****** as there's not so much that can be done to improve it. Also as an amateur, a tall huge moving baby horse is very, very tiring to ride and balance - those long legs go all sorts of ways in a 20x 40 arena which suddenly seems very small indeed!

I think in essense I should be looking at the individual foal and when the time comes to put her in foal, just be careful to find a stallion that compliments her.
 
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Never underestimate the role of jumping genes in the background of a dressage horse. From way beack when, I was always told that you need to have jumping in there to maintain the quality canter. I understand that if you had purely dressage lines, the canter (quite important) is lost.


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Yep! I have a big 17HH warmblood who is PURE jumping breeding on both sides of the pedigree. His father is a former Int. SJ. - Lombado - who was graded KWPN but is actually pure SF - by Guidam deRevel. Can't get more SJ than THAT! And his Mum is the best of ISH jumping breeding (Errigal Flight/King of Diamonds.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm sure he could jump seriously (if he could be bothered - he's seriously laidback!) but he IS a dressage horse - a naturally brilliant trot and the most superb, uphill canter.
 
I like a bit of jumping blood and wont hesitate to use a more jumping bred sire with the right type of movement on the right mare, to breed a dressage horse.
The example of Axis is a good one, lots of jumping blood, but competing succesfully in dressage, and this year his canter was the real highlight - so balanced, such collection naturally offered.

I think you are absolutely right to look at the individual horse and see how they move. In a foal I like to see a balanced canter with a really powerful sitting hind leg, then a good swinging walk and then the big trot - in that order.
 
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I think of one of my fav stallions EH Sixtus - who you would suspect would be a jumping/eventing family as he is of the Burnus line - Windfall etc - but look at the dressage orientated horses he has produced such as Axis.

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I count my Sixtus mare as having truely dual purpose bloodlines - she is out of a mare by EH Tambour, who was champion Jumping horse but is now competing at dressage - so she does have jumping blood on both sides of her pedigree. However, she also has the movement for pure dressage and her pedigree indicates that she would be equally at home in the dressage arena as she would jumping.

She had an absolutely super jumping colt by Utah van Erpekom this year, but I am putting a dressage horse on her this time around to utilise the movement she has and to produce a top class dressage foal. I honestly believe you can "swing both ways" with some horses!
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I personally believe that in both cases you need the engine (or sometimes described as the gearbox) but always working from the back end. When you get that factor, it depends on the individual horse whether it lends itself to dressage or show jumping. I believe the two are very closely related.
 
The stallion I am riding in my avatar and the first horse in my signature is pure jump breeding, being by Dutch Falco out of a mare by Goldhills (Marius) and my god does he jump!!!!!

I bought him as a 9 year old from a jumping yard having never put foot in a dressage arena before. He is now 13 and because he has a fantastic canter, a 10 walk and an athletic trot, I have worked him up to International small tour in just 3 years. He is working all Grand Prix movements at home with a fantastic piaffe, energetic passage and he does one time tempis for fun, or sometimes just to wind me up.
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When I bought him and told his previous owner that I wanted him for dressage, their comment was "what a waste of a very good showjumper"
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I want an athletic horse and i find the horses from the jumping lines tend to have this, as well as a better canter, the jumping people are not obsessed with a flash and quite frankly incorrect trot of some of the 'dressage ' sires. i want a good clean athletic diagonal pair in the trot [ it is a pace that is supposed to be developed through correct training afterall... hmmmm] but for me good hock articulation and mobility are key. I find the jumping lines are quicker behind, vital for the high level dreaasge , you cant pirouette on a slow hind leg and some knee action helps when training passage / piaffe.[jumping lines need to be quick with heir legs, a bit more 'fast twitch' nerves i think]The jumping lines are also , i find better set on in the neck/ shoulder connection and less inclined on the fore hand .
ALL my really good horses have been jumping bloodlines, infact i'm off to jump my KWPN Lennard baby at Addington the afternoon and he is doing his first dressage comp on the weekend.
My favourite bloodline is OLYMPIC FERRO, i have three generations of this line, also like GOODTIMES a lot too
 
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Our own stallion, Royal Geneve, was primarily jumping lines - Silvio II (producing jumpers and dressage horses) x Ahorn Z x Caletto II

However, he competed in dressage and his youngstock are primarily in the dressage scene, one of his first crop coming competition age, "Riviera L", just won a few weeks ago two novice classes at over 70% at Frys.

Just because a horse has jumping lines does not mean it does not have potential to do dressage and vice versa.

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This is all very interesting for somelike me who knows nothing about breeding/bloodlines!
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My two year old filly is out of a TB mare by a stallion called Renkum Calliano, the stallion was one of the last foals of the Holstein stallion Caletto I, full brother to the stallion mentioned above. All I know is they were both show jumping sires so I never gave dressage a thought
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How interesting, when I mention the stallion's bloodlines everyone looks a bit vauge, so it's not that bad after all
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I am really enjoying all of the replies and am glad I posted this thread!

My own horse is sired by the KWPN stallion Democraat - an old stallion now at 23 but in his day he was ridden by Anky van Grunsven at Prix St George and he also jumped internationally with Joss Lansink. His dressage breeding index is high -I think its about 175 butr don't quote me on that. Democraat was sired by Silvano who was not much used but is grandsire of Heartbreaker who is a better known sire of show jumpers. So really with my own horse I should have sussed out that both dressage and jumping lines are an advantage if the horse itself is right!!!
 
To add to ths discusson - not sure if it should go in its own thread:

Why have the dutch deceided to go down separating the grading into sj/dressage given that the consensus here seems to be its best to have a bit of both. Will they be regretting this in 10 years time?

Thoughts?
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This topic really interests me, I have competed in Dressage for quite a few years and all of my best horses have been partly of fully bred for SJ, they have all have fab big trots but they have been natural and not forced, when i look for a horse now i prefer if they have SJ breeding in them.
I had a foal born on Friday from my Royal dance/Rohdiamant mare who I specifically put to a stallion with dressage and SJ abilities.
I think splitting SJ and Dressage breeding will be a big big mistake although I am surprised they are considering this?
 
agree Quattro has produced some outsanding dresssage sires when crossed with some of gemany's dressage mares, competed in both disciplines and is even more awesome in the flesh.. and he is not alone, Flemmingh, Ulft, Solos Carex (Scandic) and Belgiums leading dressage stallion, Saros Van T'Gestelhof from the jumping lines Pik As and Ramiro.. the list is endless. Then of course there is the TB blood infused on top of those bloodlines also used to add the suppleness to the gaits... its fascinating however if the mare herself has the quality to her canter and gaits then think the foals will always be as good the stallion only does so much, so perhaps choosing the jumping mare line with power in her quaters and infusing the illustrious dressage sires on top produces the better progeny...
 
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