Oldenburg Stallion Licensing 2018- Thoughts? What has happened to Dressage breeding?

Cortez said:
I keep seeing this sort of comment ^^^ but really, if that were the case there wouldn't be any horses surviving to do GP would there? Whereas there are more horses competing at top level now than ever. They're not all lame, are they? Of course horses go lame; horses go lame in all horse sports, they also go lame standing in the field, that's the nature of the animal and the demands that we place upon it. I bred dressage horses for nearly 20 years, some were flashy movers, some less so and I certainly didn't note any more problems with the bigger movers - does anyone have evidence of this?
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It would be interesting to look at current GP horses in a full vet work up and see how the body is coping with the demands. Would also be interesting to see how many of the really amazing young horse class winners etc make GP and how many 'average' horses not seen in young horse classes make GP and what the difference is. However I doubt that will ever happen as would be expensive and hard to do!
 
saw somewhere vets commenting on hind end ligament problems from trying to carry to much weight behind, this was not recent, do dressage horses have conformation to take the weight behind,? ie more carrying than pushing, or do their carthorse origins still affect their way of moving on some fundamental level, coupled with the lack of bone density found in heavier horses.

see the àmazing totilas in his last competitive performance when ridden by herr rath, if you want to see a lame horse, at an age when he should have been at his best.

the riders of some of those horses would give a horse a sore back the way they are leaning back well behind the vertical, is that really any way to ride a young horse?, i it verging on abuse?, they should be trying to keep off the back at that stage.

they way they are showing those horses makes me wonder what goes through the mind of potential breeders or buyers of those horses, how knowledgeable are they really? or as competition dressage breeding spins off on its own orbit where will it all end.?
 
tristar said:
saw somewhere vets commenting on hind end ligament problems from trying to carry to much weight behind, this was not recent, do dressage horses have conformation to take the weight behind,? ie more carrying than pushing, or do their carthorse origins still affect their way of moving on some fundamental level, coupled with the lack of bone density found in heavier horses.

see the àmazing totilas in his last competitive performance when ridden by herr rath, if you want to see a lame horse, at an age when he should have been at his best.

the riders of some of those horses would give a horse a sore back the way they are leaning back well behind the vertical, is that really any way to ride a young horse?, i it verging on abuse?, they should be trying to keep off the back at that stage.

they way they are showing those horses makes me wonder what goes through the mind of potential breeders or buyers of those horses, how knowledgeable are they really? or as competition dressage breeding spins off on its own orbit where will it all end.?
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A couple of points: Very simply, nobody wants to breed a horse that won't be able to do the work it is designed to do. SOME breeders are producing for the young horse market, there is a lot of money there at the front end of the horse's career, €100's of thousands, so I suppose you could see that as a discipline all of it's own. But at the other end, the Grand Prix end, the horse HAS to be sound to get there through 5 - 10 years of progressive work, and stay there if it's going to compete at the very highest level. There is wastage, as there always is any any sport, I don't think that dressage has a higher rate than say, eventing or racing.

What carthorse origins? The majority of modern dressage horses have a very high percentage of TB blood, often filtered in via Trakhener bloodlines which are Arab/TB/Schweike (a small native breed), and the basis of most other WB lines are Hannoverian/Holstein/Gelderlander which mix old carriage horse lines with lighter riding horse/TB blood.

The young horses are ridden a certain way in the videos you see - it is a show, most people ride posh at a show and often differently at home, as the horse needs. Don't assume they are ridden in that way all the time. I have ridden at an auction house in Germany where horses are broken and produced for kurungs and sales; I have never seen horses ridden better or more sympathetically anywhere else.

I was waiting for the Totilas card to be waved: Mathias Rath is not a bad rider, but he was way out of his depth with this horse and both were obviously miserably unhappy whilst he was riding him. I am not in any way a fan of the horses way of going, but I do believe a lot of that unlevelness was caused by the rider and by tension. I have seen Totilas at stud; he isn't lame.
 
Cortez said:
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I was waiting for the Totilas card to be waved: Mathias Rath is not a bad rider, but he was way out of his depth with this horse and both were obviously miserably unhappy whilst he was riding him. I am not in any way a fan of the horses way of going, but I do believe a lot of that unlevelness was caused by the rider and by tension. I have seen Totilas at stud; he isn't lame.
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And lets also not forget Totilas was trained originally using Rolkur which also has huge implications, which is why I had not used him as an example.
 
shortstuff99 said:
And lets also not forget Totilas was trained originally using Rolkur which also has huge implications, which is why I had not used him as an example.
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But we could use Valegro as an example of a horse trained competently the 'right' way who was fluffing his tempis behind at the end of his career and to many eyes, retired unsound, or at least too work-worn to continue competing at 14.
 
ycbm said:
But we could use Valegro as an example of a horse trained competently the 'right' way who was fluffing his tempis behind at the end of his career and to many eyes, retired unsound, or at least too work-worn to continue competing at 14.
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If I remember correctly he did his first GP at around 8 years old? Even though he was seen as trained correctly 8 years old does seem very young to me to be doing GP work which may or may not have contributed to him retiring at 14. Would also therefore, be interesting to see how long horses who reach GP at 10+ years old last at the top compared to the ones competing at 7-8 years old.
 
ycbm said:
But we could use Valegro as an example of a horse trained competently the 'right' way who was fluffing his tempis behind at the end of his career and to many eyes, retired unsound, or at least too work-worn to continue competing at 14.
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*Sigh. Valegro was never completely reliable in the tempis: not his strong point. Not "many" eyes (you have two, other than that I've not heard of anyone else knowledgeable questioning his soundness). He's still sound, and still working at GP at home. He's hardly work-worn, he's in magnificent form according to a friend who saw him 6 weeks ago. With a talented horse that has no setbacks or soundness problems you'd expect it to take 5 years to get to Grand Prix. Valegro was broken at 3, so 8 is just about spot on for learning the work - establishing it is another thing, but he is an exceptional horse so getting him out competing as a young GP horse is hardly a miracle.

He retired because there was nothing more to prove, and his people care for him and want the best for the horse. There's no need to keep on competing just for the sake of it, is there?
 
He's not dope tested at home, Cortez. Are you forgetting that the people who care for him and want the best for him tried, and failed, to sell him after his 2012 gold? No, there is no need to keep competing him for the sake of it, but 14 is very young to retire, and he would have been brilliant, surely, to teach another rider to compete at that level? Have to laugh at your suggestion that I'm the only one thinking he's too crocked to compete 😄.
 
ycbm said:
No, there is no need to keep competing him for the sake of it, but 14 is very young to retire, and he would have been brilliant, surely, to teach another rider to compete at that level?
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Maybe he could, but why should he?

It's OK for people to retire and then go off to do something else rather than mentor in their field of success, why not a horse?
I dont know the horse, only admired him from afar, but those who know him best have made the decision and that's that.
 
ycbm said:
He's not dope tested at home, Cortez. Are you forgetting that the people who care for him and want the best for him tried, and failed, to sell him after his 2012 gold? No, there is no need to keep competing him for the sake of it, but 14 is very young to retire, and he would have been brilliant, surely, to teach another rider to compete at that level? Have to laugh at your suggestion that I'm the only one thinking he's too crocked to compete 😄.
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I think that's a pretty (very) snide and unjust comment ycbm 😠
What do you get off on, insinuating that he's buted or similar at home? You really do stagger me with your unfounded responses at times. What do you think you can achieve now by slandering a yard?
 
I don't think Valegro needed to continue on, he had won everything and he has worked hard so why shouldn't he enjoy a retirement? There are plenty of other horses young people can learn on.
He was at top level aged 9 and stayed at the very very top basically best in the world for 5 years - that's pretty good going imo.

Definitely deserving of a happy retirement!
 
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Trying to take the thread back to discussions about breeding of dressage horses, Valegro is a very good example of a horse that nobody thought much of as a youngster, failed his stallion grading and yet went on to become the best horse in the world. So why are breeders trying to create extremely flashy horses? Perhaps it is for a 'young horse market'.
 
Valegro was actually 9 when he did his first GP, not 8, and he is still very fit and happy teaching younger students to do all the GP work at home. His retirement was due to his having won everything and having absolutely nothing left to prove to anyone.

Back to the point of the thread, yes, I total think some breeding is done for a young horse market, as it has the highest financial reward.
 
The Fuzzy Furry said:
I think that's a pretty (very) snide and unjust comment ycbm 😠
What do you get off on, insinuating that he's buted or similar at home? You really do stagger me with your unfounded responses at times. What do you think you can achieve now by slandering a yard?
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I am not slandering a yard. I am saying that none of us know whether Valegro is sound enough to compete GP or not.

As an aside, I find it very interesting that Parzival has been videoed numerous times in rollkür and competed up to the age of at least eighteen at top level amid screams of 'abuse' , but the same people who tend to call that abusive feel unquestioningly warm and cosy about Valegro having proved everything and retired at fourteen.

Personally, the more I see of competion at world level in any horse discipline, except perhaps disabled classes, the more I verge towards thinking it's ALL abusive.
 
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ycbm said:
I am not slandering a yard. I am saying that none of us know whether Valegro is sound enough to compete GP or not.

As an aside, I find it very interesting that Parzival has been videoed numerous times in rollkür and competed up to the age of at least eighteen at top level amid screams of 'abuse' , but the same people who tend to call that abusive feel unquestioningly warm and cosy about Valegro having proved everything and retired at fourteen.

Personally, the more I see of competion at world level in any horse discipline, except perhaps disabled classes, the more I verge towards thinking it's ALL abusive.
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Apologies, I should have put libel instead, you do take the biscuit, you really do! Why on earth supposition in a speculative derogatory manner then?
 
The Fuzzy Furry said:
Apologies, I should have put libel instead, you do take the biscuit, you really do! Why on earth supposition in a speculative derogatory manner then?
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I haven't libelled anyone.

You seem extraordinarily angry at the mere possibility that Valegro may not have retired sound enough to compete GP. Do you also get angry about the hundreds or thousands that definitely failed along the way?
 
ycbm said:
I haven't libelled anyone.

You seem extraordinarily angry at the mere possibility that Valegro may not have retired sound enough to compete GP. Do you also get angry about the hundreds or thousands that definitely failed along the way?
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No, but I take exception to your snide comment as further above in thread:
he's not dope tested at home is he
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I'm not extraordinarily angry, but pissed off at your snide remark.
 
Cortez said:
I keep seeing this sort of comment ^^^ but really, if that were the case there wouldn't be any horses surviving to do GP would there? Whereas there are more horses competing at top level now than ever. They're not all lame, are they? Of course horses go lame; horses go lame in all horse sports, they also go lame standing in the field, that's the nature of the animal and the demands that we place upon it. I bred dressage horses for nearly 20 years, some were flashy movers, some less so and I certainly didn't note any more problems with the bigger movers - does anyone have evidence of this?
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We keep them going with WAY more veterinary treatments than we used to, another reason that some horses are pro horses, they need that level of maintenance. I read somewhere that the average life span of a European sport horse is 7 years.
 
totally agree with ymcb.its true though no one knows what goes on really most of the time

if i watch valegro he seems to me to lack that X factor that holds me enthralled.

it is indeed a fact that the average age of horses on mainland europe going for slaughter is 8 years old..

i totally disagree that it should take 5 years to reach gp, ie timescale of 3 to 8 years, it should take 8 years so horses are 11 or 12 years some of those horses are still growing up to 9 - 10 years old, so 11 - 12 is is optimum time coinciding with full maturity

they are called warmblood because hot blood horses were crossed with cold blood horses, ie draught type horses as they were the were prevelant mares available at the time , and yes today they are more refined but many warmbloods are only few generations away from their origins, even a few years ago they much heavier and coarser than today. i thought everyone knew that a lot of the dutch farmers bred a few foals each year.


toto is not a card to waved. he is flesh and blood, and my god if ever i saw an animal totally sissed of with people it was him, i don`t use him to make a point, i mention him because i am haunted by what i saw happening that horse, how could anyone be in awe of the dressage world after seeing that

the way they ride at those shows is awful,i fail to see anything posh about it

but the main question yet to be answered is exactly what conformation and movement is most desirable? what do we want to see coming through?
 
Cortez said:
A couple of points: Very simply, nobody wants to breed a horse that won't be able to do the work it is designed to do. SOME breeders are producing for the young horse market, there is a lot of money there at the front end of the horse's career, €100's of thousands, so I suppose you could see that as a discipline all of it's own. But at the other end, the Grand Prix end, the horse HAS to be sound to get there through 5 - 10 years of progressive work, and stay there if it's going to compete at the very highest level. There is wastage, as there always is any any sport, I don't think that dressage has a higher rate than say, eventing or racing.

What carthorse origins? The majority of modern dressage horses have a very high percentage of TB blood, often filtered in via Trakhener bloodlines which are Arab/TB/Schweike (a small native breed), and the basis of most other WB lines are Hannoverian/Holstein/Gelderlander which mix old carriage horse lines with lighter riding horse/TB blood.

The young horses are ridden a certain way in the videos you see - it is a show, most people ride posh at a show and often differently at home, as the horse needs. Don't assume they are ridden in that way all the time. I have ridden at an auction house in Germany where horses are broken and produced for kurungs and sales; I have never seen horses ridden better or more sympathetically anywhere else.

I was waiting for the Totilas card to be waved: Mathias Rath is not a bad rider, but he was way out of his depth with this horse and both were obviously miserably unhappy whilst he was riding him. I am not in any way a fan of the horses way of going, but I do believe a lot of that unlevelness was caused by the rider and by tension. I have seen Totilas at stud; he isn't lame.
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I feel like I'm coming on here just to agree with you Cortez, but baa second this.

P.S. I felt pig sh*t sorry for Rath AND the horse. Imagine being forced into that seat in front of a booing crowd waiting for you to mess up.
 
tristar said:
totally agree with ymcb.its true though no one knows what goes on really most of the time

if i watch valegro he seems to me to lack that X factor that holds me enthralled. So wait, now Valegro doesn't have that X-factor? Would that not be be the "freakish" movement you were complaining about above? Oh, and the main reason he failed his grading, BTW was because he was small.

it is indeed a fact that the average age of horses on mainland europe going for slaughter is 8 years old.. People on the continent tend to have a much more cut and dried approach to horses which are not going to make the grade....

i totally disagree that it should take 5 years to reach gp, ie timescale of 3 to 8 years, it should take 8 years so horses are 11 or 12 years some of those horses are still growing up to 9 - 10 years old, so 11 - 12 is is optimum time coinciding with full maturity You can disagree all you like, any professional dressage trainer will tell you that the average/expected rate of progress to GP is roughly 5 years. It takes many further years to become established and strong enough to sustain the movements, and GP horses are generally considered to be at their peak from 12 - 14 years.

they are called warmblood because hot blood horses were crossed with cold blood horses, ie draught type horses as they were the were prevelant mares available at the time , and yes today they are more refined but many warmbloods are only few generations away from their origins, even a few years ago they much heavier and coarser than today. i thought everyone knew that a lot of the dutch farmers bred a few foals each year. This is a common misconception: the base of warmblood breeding is NOT coldblood draught horses like Shires and Clydesdales, it was carriage breeds like the old Kladruber, Oldenburg and Gelderlander lines, and the original Hanoverian and Holsteiner. The Trakehner is a little different as it originated on TB, Arab, Anglo-Arab sires used on the small Schweike which was a native pony type in Prussia in the 18c.

toto is not a card to waved. he is flesh and blood, and my god if ever i saw an animal totally sissed of with people it was him, i don`t use him to make a point, i mention him because i am haunted by what i saw happening that horse, how could anyone be in awe of the dressage world after seeing that I'm not in awe and have largely left the dressage world to it's own devices.

the way they ride at those shows is awful,i fail to see anything posh about it Each to his own, but I see much more awful sights over here and in the UK...

but the main question yet to be answered is exactly what conformation and movement is most desirable? what do we want to see coming through?
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The most desirable traits that I would like to see is horses that are much more naturally uphill, with proper necks, the ability to REALLY sit and collect, and much less emphasis on flinging the legs about and extensions.
 
Cortez said:
The most desirable traits that I would like to see is horses that are much more naturally uphill, with proper necks, the ability to REALLY sit and collect, and much less emphasis on flinging the legs about and extensions.
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More like the baroque type Iberians? I have to say I much prefer riding and watching Iberians then I do warmbloods, but even the breeding for these types are now moving more towards a warmblood looking horse with legs going all over the place.
 
Cortez said:
The most desirable traits that I would like to see is horses that are much more naturally uphill, with proper necks, the ability to REALLY sit and collect, and much less emphasis on flinging the legs about and extensions.
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Is it physical build that determines if a horse can sit in the piaffe? I've noticed a lot of horses don't.
 
at last progress, to actually discuss the forward, even in theory.

most horses are bred for traits inherited and tendencies, what problems would arise when trying for ability to sit, bearing in mind some of these horses are BIG, what timescale, ie how many generations might it take, and where is the blood infusion to create the ability to come from? most iberians are small to medium size horses, {naturally} what is it that makes them find it so easy to sit?

i`m not quite sure about valegro, i see something too mechanical about his performance, i love to see to the joie de vivre of fuego, and almost boiling over look, but not from tension, but from seeing a horse bursting with the pleasure of his work and sheer physical energy released when a horse is doing what is was bred to do and can actually do it with such ease its almost showing off, look at me! its not movement in isolation its a whole horse thing

mathias rath, had a choice to ride that horse, the horse did not have a choice, rath has a very germanic seat, not suited to hot blooded horses, it must be very difficult to change from that school of riding once ingrained, nobody forced him to mess up, if they are so brillant why did they not match the horse with more suitable rider.

as for valegro being small and failing the grading, is a fault of the system and shortcomings of the judges, one of the best ever selle francais jumping stallions was sold at 3 years because he was only 15.3.hh. he has a superb conformation international performer and breeding stallion, plus 5 star radio so they make cock ups at top level evaluation, since when did size become a reason to reject a future stallion,

i see the movement of today as coming from tb sires introduced 3 to 4 generations ago and selectively bred to exaggerate the reaching forwards from the tb coupled with the roundness of the heavier horse origins .
 
mule said:
Is it physical build that determines if a horse can sit in the piaffe? I've noticed a lot of horses don't.
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No, have a look at Erik Herbermann's books on dressage, he gets fantastic sit out of ponies, draft horses, you name it. It's all in the training, but breeding leg movers isn't helping. Any horse can lower behind, they may be limited in how much, but relative to the forehand they can all lower and carry, rather than bounce and push.

catkin said:
Can I ask a really stupid question please?

Why do dressage horses need to be big?
After all, an arena is a pretty small place, and it's not as if there's a safety aspect like jumping distances is there?
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No reason whatsoever. They have got bigger, and big horses seem to be rewarded better (which is the chicken and which the egg?!), though Granat at 18hh odd was a few years/decades ago, so the heights have kind of stabilised I think, 17hh ish would probably be an average at top levels now?
 
sbloom said:
No, have a look at Erik Herbermann's books on dressage, he gets fantastic sit out of ponies, draft horses, you name it. It's all in the training, but breeding leg movers isn't helping. Any horse can lower behind, they may be limited in how much, but relative to the forehand they can all lower and carry, rather than bounce and push.



No reason whatsoever. They have got bigger, and big horses seem to be rewarded better (which is the chicken and which the egg?!), though Granat at 18hh odd was a few years/decades ago, so the heights have kind of stabilised I think, 17hh ish would probably be an average at top levels now?
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What would the reason be for international gp horses not sitting. Surely they are being trained to do it.
 
catkin said:
Can I ask a really stupid question please?

Why do dressage horses need to be big?
After all, an arena is a pretty small place, and it's not as if there's a safety aspect like jumping distances is there?
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Sports horses are generally bigger than 16.2h, most competition riders in dressage and jumping on the continent are men and they tend to be tall (especially if they are German or Dutch).
 
mule said:
What would the reason be for international gp horses not sitting. Surely they are being trained to do it.
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They are not being particularly well trained 'though. It is vanishingly rare to get horses that can both execute the extreme extensions and the very high collection. Modern dressage has for many years concentrated on, and bred for, huge extension, especially in the trot. Horses that are particularly good at high collection (like Iberians) tend not to be good at the extension, and vice versa.
 
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