The colour of dressage horses...

Firewell

Firewell

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Does the colour of a dressage horse sway the marks?

IMO a good horse is never a bad colour but in the dressage world I have heard this is not the case.

I have heard rightly or wrongly I might add! That a dark horse I.e bay/black/dark liver chestnut will get better marks then say bright chestnuts or greys because the darker colour stands out better against the surface of the arena...

I've also heard that White markings are not good as if a blaze is slightly off centre it can make the horse look like it's tilting it's head and White socks can make a horses movement look uneven if it has odd socks or a sock on one leg and not the other.

I've also heard that chestnut and grey dressage horses are worth less as they are less desirable colours. I know someone who will only buy bay horses for dressage with as little White as possible.

Is there any truth in all of this? Does colour matter? Thoughts?

Bacon Sandwich yum yum for those that reply :)
 
I was going to say surely it depends on the judge in question but I have a coloured with a very squinty face marking and 4 uneven stockings and he gets very good marks at BE dressage, unaff and BD. Generally in the top 5 after dressage BE and has won up to and including elem in 'pure' dressage under various judges. I would be very suspicious of a judge who couldnt see past a horses colour/markings to see its way of going!
 
There is definitely some truth in this. I know plenty of dressage people who prefer not to buy coloureds or greys. And admittedly you see very few greys at the very very top and no coloureds at all!!!
Of course there are exceptions, Matine was grey and stunning, and I don't think anyone in their right mind would have refused her ;) , but I think that, given the choice, given two identically moving and equally talented horses, one black and one coloured, let's say that I don't know many dressage people who'd go for the coloured :)

ETA: I don't agree on the 'as little white as possible', while I agree that really odd or uneven socks might not be advantageous, four equal high white socks are a blessing - like wearing bandages in the ring :D
 
It is the english who have a stupid colour bias against chestnuts, the germans don't mind - you go to the big sales and they are all black or chestnut. Obviously even white socks are an advantage. Odd white legs can distract the eye. However, expert trainers and judges are not fooled by the colour of a horse and a good horse is never a bad colour.
 
saz5083 said:
I was going to say surely it depends on the judge in question but I have a coloured with a very squinty face marking and 4 uneven stockings and he gets very good marks at BE dressage, unaff and BD. Generally in the top 5 after dressage BE and has won up to and including elem in 'pure' dressage under various judges. I would be very suspicious of a judge who couldnt see past a horses colour/markings to see its way of going!
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You would think so but markings definitely DO matter. I have a horse with a very lopsided blaze and we get a lot of unjustified comments re head tilting (only with lower level judges). Having watched him in school mirrors I can see it is really easy to think he is :( but if you watch his ears they are (usually at least) level.
A judge commented on him the other day as having "very unfortunate markings" :( I did resort to blacking it out once last year and we did not get the comment at all but it looked blooming awful!!
 
For anyone who may even consider thiside to be true...please volunteer to write for a listed judge!
 
FrodoBeutlin said:
There is definitely some truth in this. I know plenty of dressage people who prefer not to buy coloureds or greys. And admittedly you see very few greys at the very very top and no coloureds at all!!!
Of course there are exceptions, Matine was grey and stunning, and I don't think anyone in their right mind would have refused her ;) , but I think that, given the choice, given two identically moving and equally talented horses, one black and one coloured, let's say that I don't know many dressage people who'd go for the coloured :)

ETA: I don't agree on the 'as little white as possible', while I agree that really odd or uneven socks might not be advantageous, four equal high white socks are a blessing - like wearing bandages in the ring :D
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Echo this

Also personally I do think the overall picture DOES look more special if everything else is equal.
 
hmm well its maybe not down to colour as such but at the end of the day judges will have a 'type' that they prefer and as much as a horse go might go well if you really dont like it I guess it would be hard to give it the marks it deserved even if it really went well?

George my older (semi retired now!) one is a bit like marmite with the judges. He either is in the top three or near the bottom with no rhyme or reason to it!
 
The colour and markings of a dressage horse shouldn't influence their marks at all. It should be about correctness of training and their way of going and the test they do on the day.

I'm sure any dressage rider/trainer/judge would agree.

The above is in an ideal world, and we all know the world we live in is not ideal.

I really do think there is some element of truth in the OP. A good rich solid colour is desirable. If the horse is to have white markings (personally I prefer) then they should be even.

There will always be an element of personal preference/bias in a sport like dressage.

Personally I would never buy a coloured for dressage, something with a wonky blaze, or vastly different socks/stockings. Logically I can appreciate that is wrong and short sighted, but I'm afraid that is just the way it is for me!
 
i do think uneven/ just one, white sock(s) in front are a disadvantage in the med/ext trot work and the passage as it can make the forelegs look to be lifted/extended unevenly.

easier to look past a wonky blaze as you can focus on the head for a minute or two to double check, but the movement of the leg makes it hard to compare white sock leg to plain, happens too quickly etc.
 
I used to ride a coloured mare, only at unaffiliated but the marks would vary.
She had a wonky blaze and could be bang on the centre line, and I would always get comments about being off the centre line, not straight etc. We then started leaving her forelock unplaited to try and even out her blaze her marks improved.

I remember one show where there were several cracking coloureds competing yet none of them got placed, it was then heard in the lorry park that the judge hates coloured, but this was at unaffilated riding club at a a cliquey venue, the sort that if you know the judge instantly 2 marks are added to each movement.
 
Oh dear...

My horse is white AND chesnut with a very wonky blaze!

Still she doesn't seem to fare too badly (at the lower levels admitedly).

:D
 
But surely a lot depends on how they're bred??

Top dressage horses are bred....mostly for just that. So if mare and stallion were both black/bay then dressage horse would be black/bay. If The mare and stallions parents were both bay etc etc. Maybe there just arn't a lot of GOOD warmblood colured mares/stallions at the top to breed from?

Although admittidly it does seem that most of the top horses are black/bay. They do look slightly more polished in the ring IMO.
 
It certainly something I've heard off as is chalking/blacking to even things up a bit.

The thing is human eyes are what judge dressage and we know they are suseptable to optical illusions and there's no real world way around that.
Unless we want dressage judged by computers and cameras?

However I think over all the difference is minimal , if you want to dressage do dressage what ever colour/markings your horse has.

You get the same issue with football referees and cricket umpires. What the human eye sees and what "actually" happens are not always the same thing.
 
I think it's all well and good saying 'well, there SHOULDN'T be a difference' and of course, there will be judges out there who AREN'T bias and do not pay any attention to colour or markings, or will at least attempt to be certain that a horse isn't appearing to be head tilting because it's blaze is crooked before marking down, but we ALL know that of course, there WILL be judges who simply will give the marks to a darked horse when it comes down to it, because they prefer it or it looks more 'polished' overall. It's just the way things are. And you do have to admit that it would be easy to mistake a horse for tilting its head (when you are trying to assess every aspect of that horses movement, the movement it is actually performing and its accuracy, the rider, the riders influence over the horse, the horses submission etc etc etc) when it has a wonky blaze. Therefore making horses with no, or symmetrical markings more popular in the ring. :)
 
No matter how unbiased a judge tries to be, if they have a favourite "Type", they are more likely to get the higher borderline marks than those who aren't even subconsciously...

My coloured horse would do very consistent tests, but would get anything from a 70% one week to a 58% the next week for near identical tests (they were always videoed). He also got a 21 (!) dressage for a very "incorrect" (in my opinion, overbent etc etc...!) test after I'd sold him, probably because he was flashy.... however it does vary depending on the levels of competition I think :)
 
I really do not think there is an anti chestnut or grey bias - there have been good horses of both colours at the top level. The relative lack of greys might be a numbers game - the pool of desirable international dressage sires is relatively small and there are very few greys so the trickle down effect is . . .very few greys. ;)

For coloured and odd marking, yes, I think the ARE less desirable. Uneven colouring can make a horse look not quite correct and while optical illusions are a known quantity, by definition they are out of an observer's control. Upper level dressage is a game of inches - why would you invest in a horse with a disadvantage when there are so many talented ones that don't have obvious ones? I've heard it enough from upper level riders and judges . . .

Also, with a few exceptions all the coloured horses bred for dressage are related to one line, alas not known to be absolutely top class or particularly ridable. So pros don't want them and amateurs can't successfully produce them. Interestingly, a coloured GP stallion in the US has more successful solid coloured offspring in the rankings than coloured ones! (That might be down to mares, too - I suspect at least some of the coloured ones have been bred for homozygous colour out of dams whose most important attribute is their colour!)

I don't think it really matters at the lower levels - it's not usually a game of inches! In fact "interesting" horses might even have an advantage, particularly at UA - whether they "should" or not! ;)
 
I was watching H&C Dressage in Lyon and I saw Beatriz Ferrer Salat's horse Faberge who has a wonky blaze that goes over one nostril, and can be deceiving to the eye but he gets good scores. Here's a link to a photo http://www.audevard.com/uk/images/beatriz ferrer salat.jpg
I think it depends on the person who's judging the horse, if the horse has good movements then it should be clear to see and judges should be able to see past markings.
 
Interesting!
I know one such person who is very much bay and blacks only please, she wants to go to the top and worryingly is taking her exams to be a listed judge.
She is looking to buy a top class foal, she found one. She was telling me (as I was brushing my chestnut horse) that it is chestnut but luckily is turning bay as in her own words she 'f'ing hates chestnuts'. Also it had one hind white sock which she thought it would make it a no no.
I was standing there shocked tbh, I couldn't believe someone who was trusted to judge unaff, who teaches people and who wants to be a listed judge and who is also meant to love(?!) horses could be so narrow minded??

I can see the point for solid colours definitly and I think as more coloured horses are bred to be athletes instead of the family pony maybe they will start to be seen at the higher levels. There doesn't seem to be many coloured WB stallions at the moment?!
I can't wait to tell her that the Germans like chestnuts lol :p.
 
Interesting. We own a very pretty skewbald with lots of dark bay, dark bay head (tiny white star). She does have long, long white stockings - no need to wear white boots or bandages then. She moves like an absolute dream and when Mini TX does do BD, she beats the socks off the big bays, blacks and chestnuts. Interestingly, the mare's father, Hercorose was a GP stallion, and her grand father, who was Samber, who was the grand daddy of all coloureds, was the first coloured to be a GP champion (so I believe). For those of you who have seen her pics on FB, she is the spitting image of Samber, and we have even had people come up to her at competititions and ask if she is by him.

I guess every judge has their own preferences. She mainly events, but as those judges are also BD trained judges, and she gets good marks pretty much most of the time, they cant be that biased.

She's going to try out or BYRDS later in the year and I guess will be one of the few coloureds if she is lucky enough to get on one of the squads, so we shall see.

Nothing wrong with a good coloured dressage horse I say.
 
KatB said:
No matter how unbiased a judge tries to be, if they have a favourite "Type", they are more likely to get the higher borderline marks than those who aren't even subconsciously...

My coloured horse would do very consistent tests, but would get anything from a 70% one week to a 58% the next week for near identical tests (they were always videoed). He also got a 21 (!) dressage for a very "incorrect" (in my opinion, overbent etc etc...!) test after I'd sold him, probably because he was flashy.... however it does vary depending on the levels of competition I think :)
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I get this a LOT with my coloured in BE. I either have a judge that absolutely loves him and throws 8's and 9's at him and comes out with like 21... Or I have judges that really are harsh in their comments and he comes out with 38.5 for an identical test in BE100. and I know from the comment at the end which judge I've had, because some rave about him saying how free moving he is and beautifully made. And others just don't even give any compliment before giving the crit. I get the round comment a lot too, my horse is built really uphill and you can ride him a little bit rounder, and a really good judge marks well on it because she/he know what they are looking for, but others who just think "behind the vertical" mark him badly, even though he's totally free in his back and working nicely from behind into an elastic contact. I just can't get my head around dressage judges at all at lower levels, I just don't know anymore what they are looking for, and vie given over guessing what score I'm going to get because I'm always wrong.
 
firewell said:
Interesting!
I know one such person who is very much bay and blacks only please, she wants to go to the top and worryingly is taking her exams to be a listed judge.
She is looking to buy a top class foal, she found one. She was telling me (as I was brushing my chestnut horse) that it is chestnut but luckily is turning bay as in her own words she 'f'ing hates chestnuts'. Also it had one hind white sock which she thought it would make it a no no.
I was standing there shocked tbh, I couldn't believe someone who was trusted to judge unaff, who teaches people and who wants to be a listed judge and who is also meant to love(?!) horses could be so narrow minded??

I can see the point for solid colours definitly and I think as more coloured horses are bred to be athletes instead of the family pony maybe they will start to be seen at the higher levels. There doesn't seem to be many coloured WB stallions at the moment?!
I can't wait to tell her that the Germans like chestnuts lol :p.
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It sounds like your friend is narrowminded and perhaps not so educated, at least at FEI levels. If SHE hates chestnuts, that's her prerogative but that doesn't mean everyone does.

But to extrapolate that to say everyone looking to buy (and in a position to produce) a TOP GP horse (not a lower level horse, not a Pony, not a "starter model" FEI horse - they have to have other attributes and there are only so many things you can select for) is narrowminded because they don't want a coloured horse or one with strange markings is a bit unfair. It takes thousands of hours, potentially hundreds of thousands/millions of £s, and bunches of luck to make an International horse - why would you start with a horse that's already not exactly what you know the judges want to see? Okay, maybe judges should be better people ;) but why would very ambitious competitors want to rock the boat, even if they could find a horse that would?

Re Samber, he was indeed at that point the only KWPN (or other major studbook) approved GP dressage sire . . . and he more or less still is, in that I can't think of one in a top WBFSH book that isn't related to him. I can't even think of another coloured stallion that's won internationally. (There is even some suspicion a coloured horse was "sought out" for their stallion list for marketing purposes - not that he wasn't quality and deserved to be approved, just that they hardly rushed out and approved a bunch more and he's hardly been top of the dressage rankings.) Don't get me wrong, I know quite a few of them and have talked to lots of professionals about them (I showed a grandson in dressage) and they're underwhelmed by them as potential top GP horses. Yes, you will see more as the generations go by and more people put good coloured horses to great solid horses BUT there's not much incentive to breed that way if there's not a market and/or the actual horses don't appeal to the potential buyers.

Personally, I think a good horse is a good horse, but breeding, buying and showing at the top levels is business. I'm sure if a super talented coloured horse gets the breaks and wins at FEI it will change but I don't think there have been too many knocking at the door to be discriminated against.

For lower levels, as I said, have at it. Buy the horse you want to ride!
 
BigRed said:
It is the english who have a stupid colour bias against chestnuts, the germans don't mind - you go to the big sales and they are all black or chestnut. Obviously even white socks are an advantage. Odd white legs can distract the eye. However, expert trainers and judges are not fooled by the colour of a horse and a good horse is never a bad colour.
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i am not sure weather im reading it right, but did you say english dressage people dont like chestnuts?? isnt the english number one/world number two laura betchosimers (i know i spelt it wrong) top horse (minstral horijis or something, known as alf?) chestnut, well the english dressage people cant be that fussy about chestnuts then

this only applies if im reading your post right, if i got it wrong i apologise
 
Funnily enough I have found we get it far less at pure dressage (re my horses squint blaze) than we do at eventing dressage. I know they are all listed judges so I am not sure why.

I agree everyone, even if sunconciously, has preferences and for every judge that marks him down for that there will be another where they think him striking/ just their type. It is frustrating to get marked down for something you know is incorrect even when you can see how easy it is to get wrong. Personally I like his markings - all my good horses have been dark horses with blazes and socks - so it would not put me off buying another
 
silly me i thought dressage was about how a horse is trained.

most of the best horses i have ever seen, the ones i would have loved to own have been chestnut or grey, with a few coloureds thrown in, just coincidence? in fact thinking about it i own a chestnut, two greys and a coloured.

maybe if they can't see a head tilt from a crooked facial marking, they should get of to the shops and buy some flippin specs, and there really is no place for such ridiculous prejudices about colour if they want their opinions on other peoples horses to be respected, there is no place on a test sheet that gives marks out of ten for colour.
 
So if there is a chestnut prejudice and uneven marking dislike, how do you explain Laura's success with Alf?
 
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