Dressage When you pay a reported €1.9million for a youngster and it gets injured before 4 years old ?

[shortstuff99]

I'm not sure if anyone remembers the young stallion Dynamic Dream who sold for a reported €1.9 million to the Helgstrands. He was controversial when he was stripped of his original licensing due to failing a drug test. He has now been reported to have gained a neck injury in covering and will not be ridden again. I have seen speculation online that it is a heritable injury and not a covering incident, but that is something I have no idea on!

Just how risky is paying so much for a very young horse!

https://eurodressage.com/2021/01/21...r-breeding-career-secure-2021-2022-dwb-waiver

It is also interesting in the article how some stallions have been given waivers for physical issues that could be potentially heritable.

 

[Littlewills]

The amount of type 2 PSSM in warmbloods and TBs is terrifying. I'm not a warmblood person but even I recognise some of the names bandied about, so the fact that other issues are being overlooked doesnt surprise me in the slightest

 

[shortstuff99]

The amount of type 2 PSSM in warmbloods and TBs is terrifying. I'm not a warmblood person but even I recognise some of the names bandied about, so the fact that other issues are being overlooked doesnt surprise me in the slightest

It has surprised me, with the amount of money these youngsters are making, that they seem willing to overlook faults if it makes something WOW! You would've thought that longevity would be a big thing for them but I guess not.

 

[Gloi]

Made me think of this
https://www.foundationsofsoundness.com/congenitally-crooked-neck/

 

[ycbm]

When my KWPN warmblood was diagnosed as a congenital wobbler at 10, born with the classic C3/4 malformation, I was told that lots of dressage horses with big floaty trots are wobblers. If it just goes unstable one day, like mine did, then they go so ataxic that it's game over.

"Got a neck injury when collecting semen"? Really? In a professional AI collection clinic? Did the dummy kick him?

 

[shortstuff99]

Made me think of this
https://www.foundationsofsoundness.com/congenitally-crooked-neck/

Interesting articles! Thank you.

 

[shortstuff99]

When my KWPN warmblood was diagnosed as a congenital wobbler at 10, born with the classic C3/4 malformation, I was told that lots of dressage horses with big floaty trots are wobblers. If it just goes unstable one day, like mine did, then they go so ataxic that it's game over.

"Got a neck injury when collecting semen"? Really? In a professional AI collection clinic? Did the dummy kick him?

This seems to be where a lot of the speculation has come from.

 

[Pippity]

It has surprised me, with the amount of money these youngsters are making, that they seem willing to overlook faults if it makes something WOW! You would've thought that longevity would be a big thing for them but I guess not.

Look at Quarter Horses and the spread of HYPP. It would be so easy to get rid of it in a single generation, but people deliberately breed it in because it makes for impressive (no pun intended) halter horses.

 

[shortstuff99]

Look at Quarter Horses and the spread of HYPP. It would be so easy to get rid of it in a single generation, but people deliberately breed it in because it makes for impressive (no pun intended) halter horses.

This is when the ethics of breeding starts to get murky. Perhaps there should be further health testing of horse breeding, but as long as they are making millions of pounds I doubt that will happen.

 

[DirectorFury]

Re: the congenital C3/4 (WB) and C6/7 (TB) malformations - is there any research indicating if this is a dominant or recessive gene problem? I couldn’t find anything when I looked into it. Sorry for bad terminology, I’m not a biologist.

I’ve often considered a crowdsourced database where people could enter their horses breeding and any health issues they’ve had, it would be a really valuable resource for flagging up problems that recur in certain bloodlines - my thinking stems from a theory regarding EMS in Welshies - but you’re relying on people being honest and I imagine most people wouldn’t do it out of fear of attaching a diagnosis/issue to a registered name.

 

[LEC]

I think the studbook are going down a badly lit path with this decision. It discredits the stud book and no breeder in their right mind should be considering using this stallion. We wonder why horses are barely making it past 7 years old and this will be the reason why!

 

[j1ffy]

Is this an issue in the SJ discipline too? I know very little about SJ breeding but these stories about dressage prioritising flashy movement over functionality are increasingly common. Obviously not all breeders as some do want to produce sound horses that can make it to GP, but it seems like the millionaire breeders such as Helgstrand are after a fast buck on horses for YH classes.

My loan horse (in my avatar) is blue-blood SJ breeding and has lovely solid conformation and correct paces. I wonder if there is greater focus on reaching GP in SJ, so a need for horses that are functional and last longer, but I have no insight into that world. Anyone have a more educated perspective?

 

[TheMule]

Is this an issue in the SJ discipline too? I know very little about SJ breeding but these stories about dressage prioritising flashy movement over functionality are increasingly common. Obviously not all breeders as some do want to produce sound horses that can make it to GP, but it seems like the millionaire breeders such as Helgstrand are after a fast buck on horses for YH classes.

My loan horse (in my avatar) is blue-blood SJ breeding and has lovely solid conformation and correct paces. I wonder if there is greater focus on reaching GP in SJ, so a need for horses that are functional and last longer, but I have no insight into that world. Anyone have a more educated perspective?

In my experience, SJ breeders don’t tend to buy into the hype of the latest wow jumper at the licensing- they recognize top level performance is a much bigger indicator of likely future success of their stock.
Dressage seems to have got into their horrible spiral of always looking for the next big thing to excel in the auctions and YH classes whilst totally disregarding what actually makes a top level sports horse

 

[DabDab]

Is this an issue in the SJ discipline too? I know very little about SJ breeding but these stories about dressage prioritising flashy movement over functionality are increasingly common. Obviously not all breeders as some do want to produce sound horses that can make it to GP, but it seems like the millionaire breeders such as Helgstrand are after a fast buck on horses for YH classes.

My loan horse (in my avatar) is blue-blood SJ breeding and has lovely solid conformation and correct paces. I wonder if there is greater focus on reaching GP in SJ, so a need for horses that are functional and last longer, but I have no insight into that world. Anyone have a more educated perspective?

I think there is just less temptation with showjumpers. Nobody buys a youngster for Showjumping on the basis of a big floaty trot, or even really a big expressive canter. They want a solid canter and an ability to get from one side of a fence to the other.

There's also the factor that it is a lot harder to keep a horse with joint or spine pain/instability going over jumps than it is to keep a horse with the same weaknesses going in dressage. Horses with those kinds of ailments generally start refusing or losing their jumping technique quite quickly. There was a big trend about 20 years ago for breeding massive showjumpers, but that trend has largely died out now because so many of them had joint problems and never reached their theoretical potential.

 

[shortstuff99]

To me it seems that dressage breeding is morphing into two groups, the breeding of Young Horse Superstars and the breeding of GP horses. For the Young Horse Superstars it doesn't matter if they never reach GP or even 10 years old the money is already made. It is very reminiscent of show dog breeding ☹

 

[ycbm]

Re: the congenital C3/4 (WB) and C6/7 (TB) malformations - is there any research indicating if this is a dominant or recessive gene problem? I couldn’t find anything when I looked into it. Sorry for bad terminology, I’m not a biologist.

I’ve often considered a crowdsourced database where people could enter their horses breeding and any health issues they’ve had, it would be a really valuable resource for flagging up problems that recur in certain bloodlines - my thinking stems from a theory regarding EMS in Welshies - but you’re relying on people being honest and I imagine most people wouldn’t do it out of fear of attaching a diagnosis/issue to a registered name.

The C6/7 is heritable, I think, but I'm not sure how heritable C3/4 is. It's a "standard" wobbler diagnosis in all sorts of horses. C3 and 4 are out of alignment and C4 has a narrowing of the channel the spinal cord goes through. The way it was explained to me is that presses on the outside of the cord, which is the bit that controls the hind legs and the inability to judge where to put their feet results in the elevated action making it less likely they will trip.

Which is great for a dressage horse until the two vertebrae move out of alignment even more (and C4 breaks up, in the case of my horse) and the loss of feeling is so great that they begin to visibly wobble.

 

[ester]

It's poss this is just me/I'm far too used to pony movement but his walk down the lane in this one just looks odd to me.

 

[ycbm]

It's poss this is just me/I'm far too used to pony movement but his walk down the lane in this one just looks odd to me.

Classic!

Watch the hind leg foot flight in the section you are talking about. . The foot is picked up off the floor and moved forwards under the body but it is kept unnaturally high for a long time with the base of the foot parallel to the floor, then dropped almost vertically onto the flat hoof.

You see that action in horses with sore hind feet trying to avoid loading the heel, and with wobblers needing to be absolutely sure that the foot is engaged properly with the floor before putting weight on it.

 

[tristar]

it looks so incredibly immature, weak, the walk in hand is is so strange, this horse needs another few years before being pushed to work hard,

looks like it would be very easy to break

 

[ycbm]

it looks so incredibly immature, weak, the walk in hand is is so strange, this horse needs another few years before being pushed to work hard,

looks like it would be very easy to break

It's broken already. Can't pass a grading inspection without medication. 4 years old.

 

[tristar]

It's broken already. Can't pass a grading inspection without medication. 4 years old.

was referring to the horse in the video as in ``` sans prior knowledge of op`s post,`` as presented

 

[ycbm]

was referring to the horse in the video as in ``` sans prior knowledge of op`s post,`` as presented

I thought you were doing my trick of reading the thread from the bottom up

 

[Tiddlypom]

‘Unbelievable gait’ . They’re not kidding.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Is this an issue in the SJ discipline too? I know very little about SJ breeding but these stories about dressage prioritising flashy movement over functionality are increasingly common. Obviously not all breeders as some do want to produce sound horses that can make it to GP, but it seems like the millionaire breeders such as Helgstrand are after a fast buck on horses for YH classes.

My loan horse (in my avatar) is blue-blood SJ breeding and has lovely solid conformation and correct paces. I wonder if there is greater focus on reaching GP in SJ, so a need for horses that are functional and last longer, but I have no insight into that world. Anyone have a more educated perspective?

I'm only a spectator, but it seems to me as if some show jumping, possibly also eventing, and dressage, breeders have fallen for the cloning of both stallions, and geldings. I don't see how that will benefit the breeding of those types of competition horses in the long run. To me it sounds like instead of going forward, they've decided that this is as good as show jumping (/eventing/dressage) horses gets.
I presume that if it continues, it will eventually lead to smaller gene pools, which could lead to new health problems.

Last I heard it isn't allowed for Swedish Trotters, as someone official said about it "Who would want to see a harness race with 8 Victory Tilly clones behind the mobile starting gates?"
I'm not sure I would want to watch a show jumping competition whit several clones, perhaps even of the same horse, either. 'Oh, and here we have ET again, lets see how the seventh ET, this time ridden by XX, deals with today's course...'
Sounds a little boring to me, and as said, I fail to see how it is going to move the breeding forward. Fortunately, last I read about it, it seems as if it's too expensive to be done in a large scale in the breeds where it is allowed, yet.

 

[j1ffy]

That walk is very weird - ycbm thank you for explaining what you could see there. I wouldn't want to see any of my horses moving like that, it looks very awkward and uncomfortable. Are dressage breeders / buyers so used to seeing unnatural movement that it no longer concerns them? I couldn't imagine paying 190k for a horse let alone 1.9m, but I'd certainly want something that looked more mechanically correct.

In my experience, SJ breeders don’t tend to buy into the hype of the latest wow jumper at the licensing- they recognize top level performance is a much bigger indicator of likely future success of their stock.
Dressage seems to have got into their horrible spiral of always looking for the next big thing to excel in the auctions and YH classes whilst totally disregarding what actually makes a top level sports horse

I think there is just less temptation with showjumpers. Nobody buys a youngster for Showjumping on the basis of a big floaty trot, or even really a big expressive canter. They want a solid canter and an ability to get from one side of a fence to the other.

There's also the factor that it is a lot harder to keep a horse with joint or spine pain/instability going over jumps than it is to keep a horse with the same weaknesses going in dressage. Horses with those kinds of ailments generally start refusing or losing their jumping technique quite quickly. There was a big trend about 20 years ago for breeding massive showjumpers, but that trend has largely died out now because so many of them had joint problems and never reached their theoretical potential.

Thank you both - this is what I suspected. After my experience with Danny I'd happily look for a 'failed' SJer to do dressage with again!

 

[ester]

I couldn't really find any other walk vids, small bit at end of stallion show on a long rein.
I only got so far as thinking it hovers.

 

[tristar]

it has a muffin the mule quality, i all fairness i have had horse like muffin, very loose all over, they were very athletic, but this horse is beyond that

the canter i have seen before with others, its like a rocking horse

 

[brighteyes]

It's broken already. Can't pass a grading inspection without medication. 4 years old.

Appalling state of affairs. Poor horse.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

It has surprised me, with the amount of money these youngsters are makin, that they seem willing to overlook faults if it makes something WOW! You would've thought that longevity would be a big thing for them but I guess not.

That's the problem with a lot of Warmblood breeding, longevity as well as brains (in that the horse is a sensible citizen) has gone out the window. I know this is a sweeping generalization.

It's mostly about the movement, the wow factor, and if it can bring money now who cares about later?

Obviously some breeders care about this stuff, but priorities vary.

People are buying the movement, even if they can't actually ride it can't ride it or simply don't need it.

I'm 98% sure I know of a wobbler at the yard. They don't recognize it, and think nothing is wrong. He has such obvious signs of not being sound. Sort of sad, really.

I had a big moving warmblood (KWPN) with questionable but not terrible temperament. Realized I prefer an average moving small horse ?‍ my average moving small horse is making it much further (somewhat easily at times) in dressage than said Warmblood ever did.

 

[shortstuff99]

Classic!

Watch the hind leg foot flight in the section you are talking about. . The foot is picked up off the floor and moved forwards under the body but it is kept unnaturally high for a long time with the base of the foot parallel to the floor, then dropped almost vertically onto the flat hoof.

You see that action in horses with sore hind feet trying to avoid loading the heel, and with wobblers needing to be absolutely sure that the foot is engaged properly with the floor before putting weight on it.

That's very interesting, the walk also looks a bit like he is walking on a hot or unstable surface.